Elektra Luxx follows its title character, first introduced by writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez in 2009’s Women in Trouble, who is now a retired porn superstar, trying to cope with impending motherhood while coming to terms with the death of the baby’s father and her split from the porn world. Even though Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino) is trying to live a quieter life, reinventing herself as a sex education instructor at her local community center, she quickly ends up entangled with a flight attendant (Marley Shelton) looking to have her fiancé seduced, an attractive private detective (Timothy Olyphant) who proves to be quite appealing, an over-eager sex blogger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who’s obsessed with her, a best-selling author (Kathleen Quinlan) looking to turn her life into a novel, and even the Virgin Mary (Julianne Moore) herself.

During the film’s press day, actress Carla Gugino did this exclusive interview with Collider and talked about the appeal of this rather unusual character, how much she enjoyed getting to revisit Elektra Luxx, and the challenge of shooting a film in 15 days. She also talked about how getting to see the final visuals of Sucker Punch (in theaters on March 25^th) was like seeing the story brought to life for the first time, being part of the ensemble of the Garry Marshall film New Year’s Eve, and playing really strong women on both Entourage and Californication. Check out what she had to say after the jump.

Since this is the second time you’re taking on this role, how did you originally get involved with this and what was it about Elektra Luxx that made you want to play her?CARLA GUGINO: Basically, Sebastian Gutierrez, who wrote it and directed it, had this idea. He had a scene from a movie that hadn’t gotten made and he thought, “Maybe I could make a short film of this.” And then, he thought, “Or, I could string 10 of these together and make a full-length feature, but do it in 10 days.” So, he gave me the script and said, “I wrote this character with you in mind. She’s a porn star. But, she’s a porn star who finds out she’s pregnant and, ultimately, is deciding whether to have the baby or not.” He went on with this whole thing and I was like, “She sounds like the best character, ever!”

And then, we started compiling a cast of amazing actors, most of whom one or both of us knew, and just did this experiment. While we were probably half-way through the shoot, which was obviously very short, we thought, “Oh, there is so much more to do with these characters.” Sebastian said, “Yeah, I’m feeling like we should do a trilogy. Only huge movies usually do trilogies, so why don’t we do a trilogy of this great little character piece.” That’s how it all came about.

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