Why Kathy Scruggs From Manhunt: Deadly Games Looks So Familiar
Television tells its latest American crime story with Manhunt: Deadly Games, the follow-up to the Sam Worthington and Paul Bettany-led Manhunt: Unibomber.
Seemingly riding on the success of 2019's Oscar-nominated Richard Jewell, the second season of this crime anthology tells its own version of the real-life drama around a man who, unlike his series predecessor, was falsely accused of being a bomber. The Umbrella Academy's Cameron Britton stars as Richard Jewell, a Georgian security guard who, after stopping a bombing attempt at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, has his life upended when the FBI leaks to the media he's also a suspect in the case. Jewell was eventually cleared, but the media circus surrounding him and his family raised serious questions about media ethics long after the cameras left his doorstep.
Jewell is supported by his mother, Bobi (played The Politician's Judith Light), and Sneaky Pete actor Jay O. Sanders' Watson Bryant, the accused bomber's defense lawyer. On the opposite side of Jewell's case is Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire) as the convicted Olympic Park bomber Jack Huston, and another face you likely recognize: Carla Gugino. Gugino plays Kathy Scruggs, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter who got the scoop and broke the story that Jewell was a suspect.
While the series is popular with Netflix viewers, it's is far from Gugino's first role, with the actress keeping quite busy on both the big and small screen over the last several years. Here's where you've likely seen actress Carla Gugino before.
Carla Gugino got her start on a series popular TV shows like The Wonder Years and Who's the Boss?
Gugino's screen career started in the late 1990s, with her first credited episodic appearance on comedy Who's the Boss? starring Tony Danza and her Manhunt co-star Judith Light. Directly after, she appeared for a single episode in the Saved by the Bell prequel series Good Morning Miss Bliss as Karen, a ninth-grader Zack Morris tells his friends he hooked up with during summer camp (but actually didn't).
Her early career is littered with these kinds of roles — one-offs on legendary TV comedy ALF, the Neil Patrick Harris-led Doogie Howser, M.D., coming-of-age classic The Wonder Years, and the Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell-led time-jumping dramedy Quantum Leap. She also starred in an 11-episode recurring role on the CBS daytime soap Falcon Crest between them. Gugino appeared between 1989 and 1990 as Sydney St. James, the young (and adulterous) wife of David Hunt's Ian St. James.
Her next biggest TV role wouldn't really come until 1996 when she played a journalist and love interest for Michael J. Fox's Deputy Mayor of New York City, Mike Flaherty, in Spin City before scoring a season-long stint on the popular CBS medical drama Chicago Hope. Finally, in 2003, Gugino nabbed her first leading TV series role (outside of appearances in mini-series like The Buccaneers) in ABC's unfortunately short-lived Karen Sisco. For seven episodes, the actress starred as a U.S. Deputy Marshal in Florida's Gold Coast, dealing with the high-life and low-lives of South Beach and Palm Beach crime.
Between her small-screen work, Gugino also appeared in several films, including opposite Nicolas Cage and Gary Sinise in the crime thriller Snake Eyes and as Chica Barnfell, a somewhat stringer young troop member whose jet-setting parents often leave her, in 1989's beloved Shelley Long classic Troop Beverly Hills.
Roles in Sin City, Watchmen and Spy Kids have made Carla Gugino a regular on the big screen
Carla Gugino mostly got her career start thanks to small screen projects, but they catapulted her to major cinematic roles — and frequently as iconic characters. Many likely remember her from her role in the Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez-directed neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City. Still regarded as one of the best and most unique comic adaptations, Gugino played Lucille, the parole officer and advocate of Mickey Rourke's Marv, a hulking and scarred ex-convict, who got caught up in a truly gruesome and deadly situation. Gugino took a stab at another comic book character, this time named Sally Jupiter (or Silk Spectre) in Zack Snyder's highly-anticipated and mixed-reviewed adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen.
And before both roles, she became an icon of inclusive family entertainment when she starred as Ingrid Cortez, the wife of Antonio Banderas' Gregorio and mother of kid heroes the Spy Kids. Beyond her more iconic roles, Gugino also starred in quite a few high profile projects. Among them were 2007's Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, and Chiwetel Ejiofor-led American Gangster. Other notable cinematic appearances include playing Dr. Alex Friedman in Race to Witch Mountain and Dr. Vera Gorski in Sucker Punch, in addition to parts in blockbusters like San Andreas, psychological horrors such as Gerald's Game, and the upcoming women-led assassin-thriller Gunpowder Milkshake.
Carla Gugino's most recent projects have been high profile or leading roles in The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor
While Gugino has certainly earned a reputation for herself on the big screen, more recently, she's been showing love for her TV roots. The actress has appeared in several horror-based TV franchises, including the first and second iterations of Mike Flanagan's horror series' The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor. In the first, Gugino stars as Olivia Crain, the family matriarch who is slowly swallowed whole by the hungry ghosts of the haunted manor her family is renovating. In the second, she appears as the story's old and graying narrator — with a twist — recounting the nine-hour ghost story of a young couple's wedding weekend. She also appeared opposite Matt Dillon and Toby Jones in Fox's creepy 2015 M. Night Shyamalan executive-produced mystery-thriller, Wayward Pines.
Beyond her appreciation for a good horror script, Gugino has also opted for starring and supporting roles in a number of TV dramas and comedies. That includes HBO's Entourage, as Vincent Chase's new agent, Amanda Daniels, in the second half of season 3. In 10-episodes of the David Duchovny Showtime series Californication, she played Hank Moody's love interest and attorney. She also led the first and only season of Cinemax crime drama and thriller Jett, which followed Gugino's exceptional thief Daisy "Jett" Kowalski as she attempts to navigate a new job straight out of prison. Before that was the USA miniseries Political Animals, alongside well-known talents like Sigourney Weaver and Sebastian Stan, the gritty FX drama Justified, and the more light-hearted Fox comedy New Girl.
These are just some of the biggest highlights of Carla Gugino's career, which proves she's an actress not just with major chops but with incredible staying power no matter who or where she's starring.