Carla Gugino Says Being in ‘Always’ Music Video Was a ‘Blast,’ but She Didn’t Actually Meet Jon Bon Jovi Until Years Later (Exclusive) Scott HuverSun, July 12, 2026 at 9:29 PM UTC 0 Carla Gugino in the ‘Always’ music video; Gugino now.Credit: Bon Jovi/YouTube; John Nacion/Variety via Getty Carla Gugino starred in Bon Jovi’s 1994 “Always” music video before her breakout Hollywood roles in Spy Kids and Sin City The video featured future stars Keri Russell and Jack Noseworthy and has amassed over 1.
Carla Gugino Says Being in ‘Always’ Music Video Was a ‘Blast,’ but She Didn’t Actually Meet Jon Bon Jovi Until Years Later (Exclusive)
Scott HuverSun, July 12, 2026 at 9:29 PM UTC
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Carla Gugino in the ‘Always’ music video; Gugino now.Credit: Bon Jovi/YouTube; John Nacion/Variety via Getty -
Carla Gugino starred in Bon Jovi’s 1994 “Always” music video before her breakout Hollywood roles in Spy Kids and Sin City
The video featured future stars Keri Russell and Jack Noseworthy and has amassed over 1.4 billion views online
Gugino recalls the video’s cinematic style and meeting Jon Bon Jovi years later, calling him “a really wonderful person”
Actress Carla Gugino has amassed legions of admirers from her prolific work in film and television over the course of her career, including roles in Spy Kids, Sin City, Night at the Museum and The Haunting of Hill House. But before her Hollywood breakout, she turned heads as a video vixen in Bon Jovi’s music video for “Always” in 1994.
“Yes indeed!” Gugino recalls, speaking exclusively with PEOPLE to promote her latest horror film, Lockbox. “It was an experience!”
Gugino, 54, landed the then-highly visible role in the band’s dramatic, mini-movie-style video for the power ballad, released as an original track on Bon Jovi’s first greatest hits album, Cross Roads, just as her Hollywood career was starting to catch fire.
Carla Gugino in Bon Jovi’s ‘Always’ music videoCredit: Bon Jovi/YouTube
“I had just finished The Son-in-Law and This Boy’s Life, and I was asked to do this,” she remembers, noting that the video’s director, Marty Callner, had recently scored with videos played in heavy rotation on MTV, notably with Aerosmith’s megahit “Crazy,” which featured a storytelling-style approach that helped launch the careers of Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler.
“[‘Always’] was also of a similar ilk — it was like a movie,” Gugino says. “And at that time, you also got a wonderful budget for those things, and we just had a great time. I mean, it was so much fun!”
In the video, then-23-year-old Gugino plays a young woman who, after her rock star boyfriend cheats on her with her best friend, seduces an artist painting her portrait. After seeming to rekindle her romance with her ex, however, she reveals a roomful of erotic canvases featuring her and the artist, resulting in an explosive finale.
“It was a total blast,” she recalls. “I had a great time. I got to play the baddie, which is always fun, sort of the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak, but we had a great time and it was a massive music video at the time.”
Gugino wasn’t the only early talent in the music video’s cast. The handsome, now veteran actor Jack Noseworthy, who played her rocker paramour as a doppelganger for the band’s lead singer, Jon Bon Jovi (“Jack was so much like him at the time,” marveled Gugino) would go on to appear in films like Encino Man, The Brady Bunch Movie and U-571, and tackle a lengthy string of guest-starring roles on TV dramas including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Judging Amy.
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Meanwhile, Gugino’s “frienemy” was played by a young Keri Russell, now the accomplished, Golden Globe-winning and multiple Emmy-nominated star of series including Felicity, The Americans and The Diplomat.
“Jack Noseworthy, interestingly, is actually my neighbor in New York, so that’s such a wild full circle,” Gugino laughs. “Keri Russell, who’s obviously so fantastic…It turned out to be a cast of people who... we all run into each other and go, ‘What a surreal moment that we got to do this Bon Jovi music video together.’ ”
Carla Gugino in the ‘Always’ music videoCredit: Bon Jovi/YouTube
One person Gugino didn’t get to work opposite was Bon Jovi himself, who, along with guitarist Richie Sambora and other members of the band, was shot separately while performing the song.
“That video was one of those ones where the band played, and then we told the story,” the actress explains. A few years would pass before she actually got to meet the lead singer in person.
“I got to meet Jon, although not during the making of the video,” she shares. “We’ve met several times after that. Such a sweetheart. I mean, he was just so lovely, and we both laughed that we hadn’t ever met each other, because the video had been so successful. But he was just great, and he’s obviously an actor in his own right, and so we met in that context: I met him as the actor Jon, more than the rock star Jon. A really wonderful person.”
Gugino was recently reminded that the popularity of the “Always” video didn’t stop in 1994.
“I was recently doing some press on Drew Barrymore’s show, and I would’ve never known this because I never know anything about this stuff,” she says, noting that the host informed her the “Always” had just racked up 1.4 billion views online, that “It had hit one billion people who have seen that video, which is crazy!”
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Source: Entertainment
Published: July 13, 2026 at 01:00AM on Source: MORNING MAG
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