Spy Kids, they could never make me hate you. But they *can* make me interrogate some questionable casting decisions — particularly around Carla Gugino, AKA Ingrid Cortez, the MILF mother of Juni and Carmen in the iconic 2000s franchise.
The first Spy Kids film released in 2001, in which Carla Gugino played the mum of Daryl Sabara, the sweet and sensitive 9-year-old Juni Cortez, and his hot-headed older sister Carmen (Alexa PenaVega).
Gugino practically raised me in that film — and was also everyone’s super hot crush, which is confusing — but in an interview with BuzzFeed, she spoke about how weird it was to play the mother of tweens at the ripe old age of… 27.
“It is so funny because I was 27,” Gugino recounted.
“It was a really beautiful kind of double-edged sword because I love that movie so much. And the whole experience was incredible, and the movies continue.
“Like, every generation gets to watch it and love it so much. I love Ingrid Cortez. But it was funny because I was ten years, AT LEAST, too young for the role because I was, like, a spy for ten years and then somehow had children who were like nine and 11. So it was physically totally impossible.”
As a 25-year-old teenage girl, this math is not math-ing.
Before anyone tries to tell me that Ingrid might have been a spy kid herself, hence the decade of experience at a young age — it’s canon in the show that she was a spy as an adult. It’s how she meets her future husband and father of her children Gregorio Cortez (Antonio Banderas), who she was tasked to hunt down but then fell in love with. And yes, we need a prequel on their enemies-to-lovers romance stat.
Antonio Banderas was actually 41 years old in the Spy Kids movie — so they got his age right.
So, yes, this is a classic case of Hollywood casting women older than, like, 25 as mothers.
However, considering this is the film franchise that gave us the hardest line ever (“Do you think God stays in heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he’s created?”), I will forgive it. And anyway, despite being too young for the role, Gugino slayed.
If you need me, I will be rewatching the Spy Kids movies for what is probably the 39th time. You can catch it on Paramount+.
