Carla Gugino Joins HBO Max’s ‘The Girls On The Bus’

Carla Gugino will lead the upcoming HBO Max series, The Girls On The Bus, opposite co-leads Natasha Behnam (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Melissa Benois (Supergirl), and Christina Elmore (Insecure). Gugino will play Grace Gordon Greene, an accomplished reporter known for her journalistic integrity, as reported by Deadline.

The series follows journalist Sadie McCarthy (Benoist), who pursues an opportunity to cover a presidential campaign and leaves her other responsibilities behind. On the road, Sadie bonds with her competitors Grace (Gugino), Lola Gabriel (Behnam), a passionate Gen-Z TikTok influencer, and Kimberlyn (Elmore), a Reagan Republican with an Ivy-League education. All four women form a bond despite their differences and build a found family with front-row seats to the fight for the White House.

The Girls On The Bus is written and executive produced by Amy Chozick (House of Cards) and Julie Plec (Legacies) and is based on a chapter of Chozick’s book, Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling. Benoist will also executive produce the series alongside two-time Emmy Award nominee Greg Berlanti (The Flight Attendant), Emmy Award nominee Sarah Schechter (Kung Fu), and Rina Mimoun (The Catch), who will also serve as showrunner. 

Additional cast members include Tala Ashe (Smash), Emmy Award nominee Becky Ann Baker (The Resort), Richard Bekins (When They See Us), and Academy Award nominee Griffin Dunne (This Is Us). Leslie Fray (The Good Fight) co-stars alongside Brandon Scott (Dead to Me), PJ Sosko (Chicago Med), and Kyle Vincent Terry (For Life). Ashe will play a progressive presidential candidate who is Lola’s favorite contender. Baker will co-star as Norah, Sadie’s concerned mother, who is unhappy to learn that Sadie has stepped back into the political arena. Bekins will play an older politician who has been running for president since the 1990s. Dunne will play Sadie’s rough-around-the-edges editor, Bruce Tanner. Fray co-stars as Nellie Carmichael, a junior Kimberlyn’s news network correspondent. Scott will play a fierce press secretary who joins the team of the presidential front-runner. Sosko will play Thompson alongside Terry, who co-stars as Eric Jordan, Kimberlyn’s boyfriend, per Deadline.

Gugino’s recent credits include Netflix’s Emmy Award-nominated series Midnight Mass, Navot Papushado’s Gunpowder Milkshake, Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor and The Haunting of Hill House, Spectrum’s Manhunt: Deadly Games, Cinemax’s Jett, and Sebastian Gutierrez’s Elizabeth Harvest. She is also set to star in the upcoming Netflix series, The Fall of the House of Usher, ACG Television’s Leopard Skin, and Zelda Williams’s Lisa Frankenstein.

HBO Max has yet to set a release date for The Girls On The Bus.