Interview: Carla Gugino On Making All 8 of Her ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ Characters Deeply Human

It is an impressive achievement for any actor or actress to be cast for one role in a film or television project. It is almost unheard of to take on several nuanced roles for one production. That is unless the actress is the talented Carla Gugino. Eight roles is exactly the number of roles she had to embody in the latest Mike Flanagan chillfest for Netflix, The Fall of the House of Usher. 

The limited series is the filmmaker’s take on the work of Edgar Allen Poe the story of the Ushers, a wealthy family empire each who meet their fate one at a time, episode by episode. And, when their untimely demise is upon them also present is one variation of Gugino’s character Verna. A security guard, a sex worker, a raven are just a few of the actress’ mesmerizing transformations, each with their own unique voices, body language, and presence to come with it.

Gugino was my guest for an episode of TV Topics, where we discussed her fantastic working relationship with Flanagan, her approach to creating eight variants of Verna, being a curious actress, and much more. A fascinating look into the mind of an actress who finds a way to make each of her many roles her own.

Of course we also talked “TV Topics”, questions about Gugino’s television viewing over the years that give a distinct perspective on the actress. Gugino offered a wonderful array of shows, old and new, from Bewitched and Fantasy Island to Friends to Fleabag, plus Tom Tykwer’s Babylon Berlin – which she raved about.

Listen to the full episode below. In the meantime, enjoy these excerpts from my conversation with Carla Gugino.

Yeah. So you have this great partnership with Mike Flanagan. And at this point, I’m wondering, can you possibly say no to him?

Well, I wouldn’t ever want to say no to him. He has really written me some of the most extraordinary roles that I’ve ever gotten to play. Going from Gerald’s Game, and then and then The Haunting of Hill House to play Olivia – that was an extraordinary experience. And, then Bly Manor was just this fun experiment, because I only was able to work a couple of days on that because of other scheduling things that I had.

He was like, ‘Actually, she was written much older than you, but you could actually don a gray wig, and be the older version’s character. That actually morphed into it being, sort of, the narrator of the whole show, which wasn’t the intention initially. And then with Verna, I don’t know that I’ll ever get the opportunity again, to be asked to play eight different versions of a non-human character, but make each of those versions deeply human and have one of those versions be an ape, you know? I just feel so, so immensely grateful.

I also have such a fun time collaborating with him. So that’s the boon. I think so often, you have experiences that are really tricky on set and the work might still be good and the show might still be good but it’s a whole another set of issues, or where you have amazing times, and then the product isn’t as good, you know? So this is so gratifying, because I love the collaborative experience. And he’s also such a keen filmmaker.

I think also, because he writes, directs and edits, he has such a trajectory of what he wants to do that the fact that he is so clear allows for collaboration. 

What I loved The Fall of House of User about it was, I didn’t know what your role was going to be. So after the first episode, I’m like, where’s Carla? Then we meet you again. And then we meet you again, and again, and then you’re a chimp, and you’re a security guard.

That’s really cool to hear. You know, it was interesting, because funnily enough, Olivia was a little bit like that in, in The Haunting of Hill House, because there had to be so much mystery, like in regards to, was she alive? Was she dead? All these things that she also, I believe Olivia’s episode was like episode nine out of 10 the one that centered around her.

But with Verna, it was interesting to see people’s reactions before they had seen the whole thing in real time, as it was all of a sudden on and people were like, is she a demon? Is she there? You know? It was particularly gratifying to get to see it unfold as people start to understand in real time what’s going on. Because contextually, we don’t even understand all of it, obviously, till quite towards the end. It’s also been particularly gratifying that this attention, even in terms of awards conversations or critical response, I feel like Mike Flanagan’s project critics are really appreciative of what he does, as I think is very apt, because he’s so good at it.

He’s always interested in delving into the more complex version of anything he attacks. So this genre is obviously something that he loves, but I feel like there’s been this attention coming to this role of Verna and the show in general, in a genre that is generally ignored by awards, etc. I think we’ve made progress, and obviously, I think any great actor knows that this genre affords the ability to explore the most deep and rich emotions.

You need to make sure that the thriller slash horror aspects work, but then you can explore anything. We’ve seen it with Kathy Bates in Misery, or Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, or Jack Nicholson in The Shining – some of our greatest performances are in this genre. It’s just exciting to see and to feel firsthand that there is a shift in that way.

You kind of answered my next question, but not exactly. So I’m going to ask it anyway. Are you a fan of horror? Or are you just really good at it? Because you pick a lot of darker themed work.

I am a fan of our shadow sides, as humans, in terms of being an actress, I love to explore. Some characters I learned from and want to be more like and some characters, I think, ‘Oh, thank God, I’m not that,’ that’s not my life or that’s not the way I look at the world, but I find really digging into the depths to be really exciting. And that’s sort of what I’ve chosen in terms of my theater work, in the terms of the plays I’ve done as well. But no, I was never a horror fan per se.

I’ve always been a fan of things done really well. For sure, The Shining is one of my favorite movies of all time and always has been. But so is All That Jazz and so is Silkwood.

So I think that for me, it’s when I see somebody doing something really well, if I have the opportunity to be a part of it, I want to be. And it’s also how I end up appreciating things that I may not have been that exposed to or when I did Watchmen or Sin City I wasn’t particularly a graphic novel person. And then I found myself reading graphic novels and familiarizing myself with those particular graphic novelists.

And then I had a whole new appreciation for it. And I do feel that way about horror. I see it very differently having now done several projects in that genre.

On curiosity needed to play Verna

I think curiosity is our most precious quality and to remain curious and to instill in our children curiosity. Funnily enough with Verna, it was actually a key thing because the way in which it’s structured and the way in which it was written is that we see her be very instrumental in the end of several people’s lives in a row.

She has this potentially omniscient Raven on a perch watching things. She’s not human. She’s the hand of fate or the hand of karma. I had said to Mike early on, if she knows everything and if it’s sort of a fait accompli, if she kind of has the answers and she knows how everyone’s going to behave because she’s lived for centuries we have no room for surprise. Ultimately for me as a performer, I can’t find the complexity of discovering what each one of these people, how they’re going to behave in their most honest conversation of their lives, because that’s the thing is that Verna isn’t moralistic in a traditional human way she doesn’t have those kinds of judgments. So she’s receiving someone exactly as they are. And that in and of itself is freedom.

95% of the time they will say what you think they’re going to say. And 95% of the time they will take the deal, but, and not look at the consequences, right. Until they’re faced with them. But 5% of the time humans are that wild that someone is going to behave differently. 

So it really transformed the playing of that character to find that curiosity that every time, right before somebody goes, you’re like, I’m going to give you a true picture of yourself, which will be a gift in and of itself, but I’m also going to give you a choice to do something different. Will you maybe take it?

When you have several different variations and they’re all, I mean, so different in the way they carry themselves, the way they speak, just pretty much every aspect of them, how did you develop each and then keep track of them? 

Seven versions and eight, then including The Raven Verna.

It was really interesting because many of those accents weren’t built in. So what was really clear is that we didn’t ever want it to be a costume show. We needed this thread of Verna all the way through. But also that each person really had different centers and different voices so that we could also keep track of them.

I would come to Mike and sort of audition them for him. So for example, the animal shelter worker, she seemed like the, one of the things I love about her is that she just much prefers animals to humans. And I know a lot of people like that. She had this Midwestern practicality that I really found to be. So I said, I think she should be from the Midwest. And I started to do my own research and find who I felt what sound, what was the right sound.

Then I did that for Mike. He was like, ‘That’s great.’ And then we did that with each of the other characters. Interestingly enough, the prostitute character who comes in briefly, I had initially thought she was a little bit more kind like Jennifer Tilly in Bullets Over Broadway – like a New Yorker with a high voice.

I could just tell us as much as he was being gracious that it wasn’t quite clicking. I think this one is just not right, let me just keep experimenting. Literally three days before we ended up shooting that part, we found her as a Brit and, but of course it’s not just you’re building everything to that – it’s not just throwing an accent on.

So we ended up changing the wardrobe and it was such a cool process that way. I had the joy of working with Terry Notary, who is an incredible movement artist. He also designed all of The Planet of the Apes apes and numerous other things. He did that movie, The Square. You can just see him changing the energy in the room. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time. He was brought on predominantly to work more on the Raven body language, just that I wanted to have certain bird-like movements, even if they were appearing as human. If you look there’s things that we explored there and then also the cat.

That was how it started. But ultimately we worked really extensively on where these different characters sat in their bodies. So it was a lot of work. Oftentimes I ended up working from the inside out, and there was a lot of physicality that informed inner life.

We did not shoot this in sequence. So there were several days where I had at least two characters to bring to life and it was immensely helpful to be able to lock in to a voice and a place in the body in which they sat. For example, the woman who needs a heart transplant who couldn’t breathe well, that was such a vastly different character than the woman in episode two, who’s the blonde and obviously is the seductress, you know? So all of that helped me tremendously in terms of how to click in and out of each version fast.

With all of the characters to take on, what was your biggest challenge?

The chimp was fascinating because I had to do so much work that I’ve never done physically to be able to just even move like that. And that’s why it was so cool that it was the security guard, because like you said, her center of gravity was already low, which made it like a nice transition into that.

But the chimp… the chimp scares even me, you know what I mean? I remember when we did the scene and Michael Fimognari was directing that episode – I remember talking to Mike Flanagan later and I said, ‘You definitely have blackmail footage on me now. I mean I cannot hold back, there will be no vanity here. This is the antithesis of any kind of glamor. So just if it doesn’t work just tell me and we’ll reshoot it or whatever.’ And it ended up being effective and working. I’m very thankful. So that one was an amazing challenge, but I can’t ever say a favorite because it freaks me out even when I see it. 

A TV Topics question: What would Verna’s TV favorite show be? 

Oh, wow!  Verna, I feel Verna would want to watch just a straight up comedy. Or, I feel like Verna might be into Friday Night Lights.  Verna might be into this quaint, small town – she’s seen enough of the Roman times and everything else. I mean, Friday Night Lights is just such an extraordinary show that I could see more of as well.  You would definitely be something that would surprise you. Verna wouldn’t watch what you’d think Verna would watch.

Watch all EIGHT of Carla Gugino’s performances in The Fall of the House of Usher streaming exclusively on Netflix. And be sure to listen to the rest of our conversation on TV Topics (above).