Go Behind the Scenes of 'The Girls on the Bus' with Carla Gugino
“To me,” Carla Gugino explains, “life is about connecting.” That’s what inspired her to join the cast of The Girls on the Bus, the new series (streaming now on Max) based on Amy Chozick’s book Chasing Hillary. “I’m not an innately political person,” says Gugino, who plays the veteran campaign journalist Grace Gordon Greene. “But I loved that these characters have different views and ideologies, they come from different generations and backgrounds, and they’re thrust together on a journey that forces them to connect on a very human level.”
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That connection was as apparent when the cameras weren’t rolling. Gugino says she and her co-stars—including Melissa Benoist, Christina Elmore, and Natasha Behnam, among others—recognized themselves in their characters, and found a similar way to bond. “Thankfully we’re a group of pretty low maintenance people,” she explains, “and acting, much like covering a presidential race, can be something people think of as being so glamorous when a lot of it is just really 15-hour days.”
Here, Gugino opens her camera roll to T&C to share a behind-the-scenes look at The Girls on the Bus, and the moments that didn’t make it on screen.
"Here I am at our wrap party with our incredible production assistant Morgan, who was just amazing. She was on set every day, early in the morning, with a smile on her face, ready for whatever strange mission we would be on. At the part, we had a rare moment of being able to just raise a glass together and celebrate. Who won? She did for sure."
"We had a cast dinner towards the end of the shoot because we were all working so hard that we rarely got to then go have social time. Anytime we could grab a meal together, we really wished we could do it every night. And that was an evening also where we had Rina Mimoun, our showrunner, and Amy Chozick and several amazing cast members, including Christina Elmore, who I'm hugging here.."
"Here we all are at that same dinner. As an actor, your job is to create a relationship where there may not be one, to create an illusion to some extent. But all of us were deeply connected and felt like we knew the show we wanted to make together. That is a gift that you can't fake."
"We were shooting episode two outside of New York City, and it was torrentially pouring all day and every single shot was outside. It was a real challenge, especially because we didn't have the ability to go back the next day. But inside, it was Melissa's birthday; she had no idea they had gotten these cakes for her, and she and I couldn't stop laughing because someone had given her the biggest knife we've ever seen in our lives. I said, 'Oh, my God, I have to snap a picture of you with that knife.' And that is this moment."
"I think Eric Stoltz is just one of our finest actors—and also an amazing director. There was a role on the series that just seemed perfect for him, and it was only one episode, but if we have a future, that character could come back. I called and asked him if he would come and play it, because it was a very important episode for my character and it needed to be somebody who really has an impact on her. He said, 'Count me in,' because he's just like that, such an amazing person. And of course everyone was so thrilled to have him on set."
"Erica Dunton, one of our wonderful directors, is taking this picture. She directed both episode six and our final episode of the season. I was basically boxed into a corner at this table for a breakfast scene we were shooting with the characters of my daughter and my husband. Erica comes from an incredible lineage: her father was in the camera department for Stanley Kubrick. I always have an affinity for the camera department; this work is such a dance between actors and cameras that you end up becoming very close, and I respect what they do so much."
"I had to work really, really hard to get enough pictures to send you that did not have my dog Melville in them, because Melville is on any set I have ever been on. He's truly in many of those bus scenes, but when he hears 'rolling,' he ducks for cover and waits until the shot's done. It's incredible. So, here is Natasha Behnam bonding with Melville. He always brings great joy to set; he's a genius, nothing short of a genius, that's all I can say."
"Our costume designer, Claire Parkinson, and assistant costume designer, Lily Parkinson, were absolutely brilliant and so much fun to work with. Grace really had as an incredible wardrobe, and part of the balance of that show was to figure out how we could mix certain aspirational elements of it with the fact that these women are on the road; how do you make it somewhat realistic? We figured Grace has won a couple of Pulitzers, she's got book deals, so she probably does have a pretty decent wardrobe. I thought that this jacket was so beautiful, so I snapped a picture and sent it to them."
"This is a bit of a spoiler, but in episode six the bus breaks down. Here we are lying on the top of the roof of the bus, but the movie magic is that we really weren't on the top of the roof of the bus because they needed more space to be able to cover us camera wise and have us all fit on it."
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