Carla Gugino’s character in the new horror film Lockbox deals with a heavy amount of supernatural activity.
The actress can relate, as she faced some weird unexplained happenings inside an old house in Los Angeles that she used to spend a lot of time at with a boyfriend several years ago.
Speaking to People, Gugino, 54 – who starred opposite Naomi Watts and a Great Dane in the 2024 dramedy The Friend – has come to believe the place was haunted by the ghost of the woman who used to live there.
‘I don’t believe in ghosts per se, but then the truth is if you asked me, do you think they existed? I would say absolutely,’ she told the outlet.
‘There are spirits that don’t want to leave here where their body is. Their body’s not here anymore, but they’re like, “I don’t really know where to go.”‘
In the supernatural thriller Lockbox, which hit theaters on Friday, Gugino plays a grieving woman named Ellen who moves to a small rural town to heal after her mother’s death.
Carla Gugino, who stars in the new supernatural thriller Lockbox, said she faced some weird unexplained happenings inside an old house in Los Angeles that she used to spend a lot of time at with a boyfriend several years ago; pictured on March 30
Gugino starred in the 2017 Netflix horror film Gerald’s Game and it was a career-defining role for her
Ellen takes in her cousin, Winthrop (Lou Taylor Pucci), an Army veteran struggling with severe PTSD. Their lives soon become upended in a supernatural nightmare and Ellen must risk everything to save him from a demonic entity trying to hunt him down.
While Gugino’s own experience with the supernatural wasn’t nearly as devastating, it certainly has stuck with her.
‘My boyfriend was living in a house with some roommates and we would literally be watching a movie downstairs – it was an old Spanish house in Los Angeles – and we would hear furniture moving upstairs,’ she described.
‘And we would all hear it and we would all be like, “Well, there she is again, moving furniture!” I don’t know why we thought she was a she.
‘We would also have experiences where in the master bedroom, if ever the light was on, the door was closed, we would see… it was as if there was a little shadow that went by,’ she went on.
‘And one day one of his roommates was walking by the stairwell in the broad daylight and he saw this woman on the stairs and thought it was his wife and said, “Oh, I thought you went to work already,” and looked up and no one was there.’
They eventually learned from a former housekeeper at the house that the woman who used to live there had taken her own life.
‘I can’t tell that story without the hairs on my arms going up,’ Gugino admitted, adding: ‘Hollywood has a lot of haunted spaces. Just a lot has gone down there.’
The actress, 54, told People: ‘I don’t believe in ghosts per se, but then the truth is if you asked me, do you think they existed? I would say absolutely’; pictured in 2024
Her character in the recently released thriller Lockbox becomes involved in a supernatural nightmare after she takes in a cousin who is struggling with PTSD
She must soon risk everything to save her cousin from a demonic entity trying to hunt him down
Fortunately, Gugino’s personal experience with paranormal encounters has not been that devastating; pictured on May 13
Early in her career, Gugino often played the sweet and grounded ‘girl next door,’ transitioning to sexier roles like the formidable talent agent Amanda Daniels in season three of Entourage.
She also starred as the family matriarch in Spy Kids (2001) and its sequels Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002) and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) opposite Antonio Banderas as the spy patriarch.
But in recent years she’s become well known for being a modern horror icon after her masterful turns in such Netflix hits as Gerald’s Game (2017), The Haunting of Hill House (2018), The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) and The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), all created, written and directed by Mike Flanagan.
It was during the filming one of those horror-themed projects that she experienced another paranormal encounter.
‘Actually, when I was shooting The Haunting of Hill House,’ Gugino remembered.
‘I was living in Atlanta and I was living in a space that I was convinced was haunted – but that’s not a normal thing for me.
‘So I thought, “Oh gosh, I’m not even method, but I think my character, Olivia, is just affecting me.”
‘And then I found out that the space that I was in were these beautiful apartments, but that used to be a full police precinct where there were prisoners and people were… Things had happened in that building.
The actress starred as the family matriarch in Spy Kids and its sequels opposite Antonio Banderas before she became a modern horror icon with masterful turns in such Netflix hits as The Fall of the House of Usher and The Haunting of Hill House
‘So I was like, “Maybe it is [haunted], actually. Maybe this wasn’t just my character,”‘ she reasoned.
Otherwise, Gugino’s personal life tends to be low-key.
She’s been in a long-term relationship with filmmaker Sebastian Gutierrez since 1996.
She has seen no need to get married, preferring to keep their girlfriend-boyfriend dynamic as it is because it’s ‘sexy and fun,’ as she previously told People.
