A near-death experience when she was almost 5 changed actress’ Carla Gugino’s life. Had she not suffered serious kidney surgery at such a young age, she might not have gone on to risk everything at 13. But she found herself on the fast track before she hit puberty.

“My parents separated when I was 2 but they stayed very good friends so that was not traumatic for me,” she says, seated in a Beverly Hills coffee lounge..

When she narrowly survived the surgery, her mother took her to the wilds of Northern California.

“That’s when my mom erected a teepee and we lived with these gold prospectors for about five months,” she says. “And it was actually an extraordinary experience as a kid. My dad came and said, ‘Come live with me in Florida.’ And I had an entirely different kind of life. I think (my mom) was in a place in her life when she was a really hungry spirit and really wanting to … she was always there for me, but she was trying to figure out where we would land.”

In a way, Gugino never really landed. She is co-starring in USA’s “Political Animals,” as an intrepid journalist — a field that she finds almost as intriguing as acting.

Performing has permitted her to play everything from an astrophysicist to a porn actress. She headed her own TV series, “Karen Sisco,” and co-starred in “Spy Kids,” “Entourage” and “Night at the Museum.”

She was 13 when she went to New York to become a model but found it too confounding and returned home. “Ironically, right around (that) time … my mom said, ‘We’re staying in one place in San Diego. I promise you we’ll stay in one place until you finish high school.’ And of course I said, ‘I think I’m actually going to start acting.’”

Her actress aunt took her to visit an acting class. “And I truly fell in love on the spot,” she says.

“How can we ever quantify what draws us to what we do exactly? But I can say that I guess I do feel that life is about gaining empathy, and as an actor, that is the biggest gift you get. You get to see the world through other people’s eyes. And I think the moment I got a taste of that it was so alluring to me.”

In reaction to her mother’s liberated lifestyle, Gugino became very conservative. “I was a very controlling kid. I got straight A’s and I went through health kicks. When I was 13 I started doing yoga every day. I was very regimented. And it was in the name of health or spirituality or different things, but it was very regimented.”

She soon found that contrary to her work. “As an actor you need to lose control,” says Gugino.

“You need to jump off the cliff, but in a controlled environment. It was the perfect fit for me. It would’ve been natural for me to become something more structured — a business person or something — and that’s what my family thought I might do.”

But she never considered another calling. “Over the 25 years I’ve been doing this I think I got to the point where I realized I’m in love with acting, so I’m not going to quit. But leading up to that realization was: Is there anything else I can do really well that will be less tortuous than this? The truth of the matter is, it’s constantly humbling as a profession. That’s the truth.

“And it’s kind of a great gift because you really have to constantly be honest with yourself and constantly push yourself and your limits. And I do love that. I feel I’m at my best when a lot is being asked of me. So I’m grateful for that. But it took a lot of years for me to be able to handle that.”

She’s been in a long-term relationship with director-writer Sebastian Gutierrez, whom she met through mutual friends.

“I’ve been with my boyfriend for many years so we are common-law at this point,” she says, “and so my stepkids are 17 and 19. And what’s fascinating is that we’re in our empty-nest phase when all of our friends are having kids. It’s really interesting.

“We keep turning around and my best friends are having babies or adopting babies and here we are. This is strange. The kids are amazing human beings and adults in their own rights — one literally and one in about six months,” she says.

“For myself I think because we got together when they were so young and I have incredible godchildren and nieces and nephews in my life, I think, in a strange way, it’s a funny thing to say because it sounds like a statement — but I do think my acting is kind of my child in that way. It’s been something I’ve been incredibly devoted to for so many years yet I still feel I’m at the beginning. So I feel blessed to have all these great kids around me and kind of OK not to have one.”