Carla Gugino is an actress who makes everything she’s in better.
The latest case in point: “Wolves,” a coming-of-age movie out on Friday in which she plays a New York City wife and mom.
“I love to work more than anything,” Gugino, 45, told the Daily News. Legally emancipated at age 16, she’s spent 29 years doing that pretty much non-stop in films like “Spy Kids,” “Watchmen,” “San Andreas” and “Sin City.” She’s also acted opposite an alien life force on “ALF.” And alongside Brian Dennehy on Broadway in “Desire Under the Elms.”
In “Wolves,” Gugino plays Jenny Keller, a devoted but bedeviled woman whose husband (Michael Shannon), a college writing teacher, is hooked on booze and gambling. Their son, a high school basketball phenom (Taylor John Smith), finds his future jeopardized by his dad’s dangerous habits.
Writer and director Bart Freundlich’s film covers familiar territory. But it’s boosted by fast-paced b-ball action and terrific performances. “It’s a movie filled with turning points. It’s a story about people making choices that they thought they never could,” said Gugino.
Casting her came easy for Freundlich, a filmmaker known for “The Myth of Fingerprints” and “World Traveler,” each of which starred his wife, Julianne Moore.
“Jenny is someone who has a big investment in seeming content, happy and easygoing on the surface, but has a storm of doubt and guilt brewing deep inside,” said Freundlich. “Carla has the rare ability to represent both sides of the character simultaneously.”
Gugino, as she’s done before for other roles, downloaded a “Jenny playlist” to set a mood. Lucinda Williams’s “Get Right with God” is on it, along with Bob Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.”
For Gugino, shooting the low-budget indie movie in New York in 2015 came with pluses. One of which was being able to walk to work from her home in Chelsea, where she lives with longtime partner, director Sebastian Gutierrez.
“I was happy to delve into something small. It was the antithesis of the Hollywood environment,” she said. “We didn’t have dressing rooms. We had partitions in a school cafeteria.”
Another perk was working opposite Shannon, an Oscar nominee for “Nocturnal Animals.” His intensity and unpredictability took her back, Gugino said, to making “Righteous Kill” (2008) with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
“Michael is a wild card,” she said.
Same goes for Gugino. “My goal has always been to be transformative. I like disappearing into different genres and roles. For better or worse,” she said, “I’ve never been interested in branding myself.”
