In TV series “Jett,” out Friday, Carla Gugino plays a badass. What that part of her looks like I don’t know — but the rest of her’s great. Waist the size of a swollen kneecap. Eyelashes thicker than Mexico’s someday wall. Gorgeous.
Carla: “In this, I play a thief who doesn’t care what people think of her. I’m someone who has skills. My character’s practical. Does whatever’s got to be done to get a job done. She screws up. Goes to prison for five years. Comes out. Figures she has to live a straight life.
“She has no maternal instincts. Think sort of a young tough female Clint Eastwood.
“She then gets hired, but it leads to connecting with more ruthless criminals, and she ends up with an old flame. In bed. And there’s a long love scene.”
I figure no reason to gloss over that quickly, so I ask what’s it like going n-de.
“First, there’s good lighting. No side light. Body makeup. I’ve been lucky because you have to trust the director. You talk about what shots they’re taking. Sure, you feel vulnerable. But you know the other person is also compromising. Also nervous.
“In one scene in Havana, my character plays homage to the movie star Ava Gardner.”
And Carla’s off-screen life?
“I just visited my dad in Florida. He’s 90. And right out of the hospital, so I brought him healing crystals. He’s my inspiration. Sunday’s Father’s Day, but I leave tomorrow for Berlin. It’s a full-out action movie with Angela Bassett and Michelle Yeoh called ‘Gunpowder Milkshake.’ ”
Full-out action movie? N-de love scenes? She’s the one who needs healing crystals.
A lifetime ago…
Creating jewelry for Cartier plus writing then-President Sukarno of Indonesia’s as-told-to me autobio, I spent years living in Hong Kong.
Peninsula Hotel on Kowloon side, the Mandarin on Hong Kong side. It was then the kept woman of Asia. Magical. Whatever you wanted you got. Crowded, noisy, great food, A-1 shopping, everyone hustling. Asia’s New York. I loved it.
In ’97, Big Brother Beijing co-opted the colony, and not for all th
e tea in China was it the same. Freedoms restricted. Laws instituted. Liberties chopped. Places closed. Mainland rules. Ex-pats moved. The air became heavy.
Now its citizens are fighting for shredded remnants of what was their democracy. Their lives. Their future. Their children. We in the United States, greatest nation on Earth, we’re into an election that pinpoints faces you can’t pick out of a lineup.
Everyone, be careful. Ideological militants dwell among us.
Bits & pieces
SOHO photo shop. Aziz Ansari. A fan, flopping all over him, shouted, “Allora!,” an Italian word meaning “Well . . .” that Ansari uses in his shtick on his Netflix show “Master of None” . . . ABC’s “The Bachelorette” stud Tyler C. got surrounded by stenos pouring out of their offices . . . At the Garret East, at something called half-off taco night, Adrian Grenier. Obviously saving a peso . . . Bravo’s “Flipping Out” Jeff Lewis quite polite to LAX passengers flipping out over a delayed flight to JFK.
Odds & ends
Jodie Foster unloaded her Beverly Hills house for a farthing under $15 mil . . . Rupert Holmes, whose first mystery novel “Where the Truth Lies” was made into a Colin Firth/Kevin Bacon film, is now writing an Andy Warhol musical . . . Lincoln Center honors Stephen Sondheim next Wednesday. It’ll be high-class types like Kate Baldwin, Petula Clark, Donna Murphy and Diane von Furstenberg.