Earned her patches! Carla Gugino got her big break in 1989, when she starred in the cult classic Troop Beverly Hills, but the star recently revealed that she almost didn’t get her spot in the troop.
Gugino, 43, reflected on her first feature film credit in an interview with James Corden on the Late Late Show. Corden queued up a photo of the Spy Kids star as a teen wearing her uniform in the flick alongside Shelley Long and Jenny Lewis, telling Gugino that Troop Beverly Hills is one of his wife’s favorite movies.
“We are going back!” the Sin City star exclaimed. “[It] will never, ever happen again in my life, because basically this is the only time I ever lied about my age to get a job. I probably should’ve saved it for now when it would be really helpful to me.”
“Before IMDb, you could lie about your age, and I was fully rewarded for it because I was 16 and I said I was 14 to get the job,” Gugino continued. “I got it!… I told the director like three weeks in, once I knew I couldn’t get fired ’cause we’d shot enough, I was like, ‘Just so you know, I’m 16.’ I thought for sure he was gonna be like, ‘No big deal,’ but he was like, ‘Gasp! I would’ve never hired you if I knew you were 16.'”
Despite Gugino’s lie, she was able to keep the part of independent teen Chica Barnfell, who has adventures with her scout troop under the leadership of den mother Phyllis Nefler (Long). The former child actress kicked off an illustrious acting career with the role, spending her late teens making appearances in Saved by the Bell, Doogie Howser, M.D., and The Wonder Years.
