British Film Review October 1995

British Film Review (October 95)

A Load of Bullock

Sandra Bullock is young, single, climbs rocks and wants a
man who can do DIY. The girl from Speed is also one of the
hottest actresses in Hollywood, and has a hit movie all of
her own, While You Were Sleeping. By Roald Rynning.

In the year since Speed came out, Sandra Bullock, 29, has catapulted from little-known actress to Next Big Thing.

"I realized my life would never be the same when a flashbulb came over the stall door when I was peeing," admits Sandra, who is one of the rare actresses liked by both men and women. "It was like, 'Oh, my God, what kind of animal was born out of this?' I mean, now I need to book myself into hotels under a pseudonym. And every time I go out, I read somewhere that I'm supposed to be engaged to somebody new. I would at least like to have the benefits, like to be taken out to dinner!"

She laughs, "But fame's amazing and nice, because the end result is that you get more work, and I really appreciated that."

More work is right. Her new film, the romantic comedy While You Were Sleeping, is already a big hit in America. She has just finished filming The Net, a thriller about computer hackers, and is due to start the comedy Two if By Sea, opposite Denis Leary. Then there is Joel Schumacher's A Time to Kill, based on the John Grisham novel, and Kate and Leopold, which she will also produce.

"Good roles for women are hard to find and I grab every opportunity I get," says the actress who turned down Batman Forever because it conflicted with the filming of While You Were Sleeping. "I read so many scripts that, 'The beautiful blonde is coming with her long, blond hair and big, bare breasts' and I think 'That's me!' I mean, I don't look like Sharon Stone or Kim Basinger! I have a big mouth and very strong opinions that come out when I read for a part, so I've never been offered to play an empty-headed object of desire."

She adds with a dry smile, "Or maybe nobody's lusted after me!"

Not correct. Her innocent sex appeal has made comparisons between Sandra and Hollywood princess Julia Roberts inescapable. "It's flattering to be compared to her, because Julia's a phenomenon. If it means that she's got a wholesome sexuality, or if she's funny, then I don't mind those comparisons, but I think we're very different in our own way.

"It's a little scary to hear that I'm the 'It' girl," she admits. "I don't know what that means exactly. I've been working since Speed came out so I haven't felt any pressure, or anxiety, or any nervousness that comes along with fame."

While You Were Sleeping was originally offered to Demi Moore, whose salary demands were out of reach. When Sandra read the script, she, "fell in love with it. The script came to me at a time when I could relate to the sadness of the character. I identified with a girl for which nothing seems to go like it's supposed to."

Sandra had just come out of a painful break-up with actor Tate Donovan, whom she had met four years earlier on her debut film, Love Potion No.9.

"The relationship just wasn't working right and the role gave me an opportunity to work out my emotions," she says of playing Lucy, a dreamy girl who is alone in the world until she falls in love with a coma victim. "The role taught me to just let go and show the sad side of me. It was really hard, but it was almost cathartic, a release. Once you've done with it, you're like, 'Ah, I feel so much better now!' I've become more comfortable with showing my weakness and my vulnerability. It's given me confidence to say, 'This is who I am'."

Lucy is very much like Sandra herself. "There's a lot of similarities, except that no boyfriend of mine yet has been in a coma, although a couple of them have slept through our relationship!"

She beams, "And I'm as clumsy as she is. I walk into a room and I usually spill something along the way. There's always cleaning up around me to some degree."

Her chemistry with co-star Bill Pullman was evident from his first audition, she says. "He's a great, normal guy and we started ad libbing and making things better. It's so important to find chemistry when you're doing romantic comedy, and with us it came naturally."

What does she look for in a man? "Well, he has to look like Bill," she answers. "At the end of this film, I thought, 'Oh, my God, we've created my ideal man'. By the time Bill left, he was even dressed the way I want men dressed!"

So you fell in love?

"Noooo! Bill's married with three children. Great family man, that's what makes him so endearing. When you meet him, you don't think, 'This guy must be an actor'. Bill's a normal, great, funny, rough, jean-wearing, flannel shirt guy, who has a great sense of humour.

"And his character builds furniture," she continues. "I love guys who can build things because they remind me of my dad. I have a huge connection with my dad. He's very much like Bill in the film, oddly enough."

The fresh-faced Sandra is instantly friendly, bursting with boundless energy, beaming smiles and a quick wit. She rambles at times, speaking at the speed of lightning and as she puts it, takes care of three conversations at once. And her hair is just as wild as you have imagined it.

"I've given up on my hair because it's a mop. I'm dishevelled. So why not go with the out-of-control look? I call it the 'just fell out of bed look'. It's the sexy thing I'm going for.

"I need my hair to be messy and to look real," she adds. "When I'm making a movie, they say, 'You look like a pig. You have to look somewhat attractive on this film'. And I say, a bit humiliated, 'But it doesn't look real'. If I'm supposed to have been jogging, I don't want a hairdo that looks like I came straight from the hairdressers."

Born in Washington, Sandra was raised in Nuremberg, Germany, where she lived until she was a teenager and the family moved back to Washington. Her mother was a German opera singer and her father an American opera instructor from Alabama.

"When my mother toured Germany, I was a gypsy child in the back singing and getting paid for it," she says of her early career. "I consider that my first job."

She still visits her family in Germany and speaks the language fluently.

"I was surrounded by artistic people and did all these artistic things," she recalls of her childhood. "After school I would study the piano, take ballet classes and play the 'cello. In the end, I rebelled like crazy. People kept telling my mother that I was the devil's child because I would never listen."

She chuckles, "I still don't listen well, I always question authority, and I don't take no for an answer and I never do as I am told - probably because if I thought about it long enough, I wouldn't do it and I'd be too scared."

Belly laughs the actress, who was voted 'class clown and most likely to brighten your day', "As a child I was always getting criticized for laughing too much, being a little too crazy. I was always self-sufficient. My mother told me when I was a baby I wouldn't let her hold me. I came out of the womb and thought I was Mighty Mouse. Acting turned out to be the greatest therapy in the world."

After college, Sandra moved to New York and worked as a waitress while studying acting at New York's respected Neighbourhood Playhouse. She played the lead in the short-lived 1990 TV series Working Girl but it was the role as Keanu Reeves's fetching bus driver in last year's mega hit Speed that made her an instant star. After the filming, she took her bus driving licence for real.

"So now I'm set for life," she points out. "If I fail as an actor, I can always get a job as a driver."

She sighs, "It was really nice to do Speed. It wasn't any stress, or panic, or mishaps, or bad feelings."

1993's Demolition Man, her first big action film, was a different experience. It was a "really tough" shoot. She replaced Lori Petty two weeks into filming and found working with action biggies Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes intimidating.

"They are very intimidating people if you don't know them," she explains. "It was a monstrosity of a film and the first week I did a lot of fluffing my lines."

Later, she got over her insecurities and got on well with Stallone and Snipes. "They are just two people with toilet humour and I play into that very well. You just have to become one of the guys or you'll go out of your mind."

Sandra took the roles in the two big-budget action movies in order to get more work. "The movies I gear towards are the sort of small, off-beat ones that don't appeal to the general public," she explains. "A bus movie enabled me to do the other films that I want to do."

It also enabled her to buy a house in the fashionable Hollywood Hills where she lived with her law student sister, Gesina [sic!], and their three dogs.

"I'm redoing the house, ripping down walls and having things fall on my face," she smiles. "My contractors have been living there for such a long time that they are basically family now."

Nothing, she says, makes her happier than working on her house. "Each time I better it, I better myself. Manual labour feels so good. I want to be able to install my own toilet. Also, I guess I do as much manual labour as I can because it stops me from thinking, gives my mind a rest."

Her love life hasn't been as interesting as the rest of her life. She was a virgin until she was nineteen. "I was afraid if I unleashed the little lioness in me how much trouble I could get into," she explains. "And sex is pretty dangerous for me. I always get hurt.

"Now I'm single and I hate it. I feel like I have this L on my forehead - for Loser. Sometimes I'm miserable and lonely. I just want somebody to brush my hair and tuck me into bed. This is the first time I've been alone and being by myself has been a long, tough adjustment period. It makes you painfully aware of who you are, as opposed to who you put on when everybody else is around."

She reflects, "Maybe it's not the right time for a relationship. It's the selfish time. But it's harder these days because you don't know where people's intentions come from. I like normal, simple, good people, and those are few and far between. And the few simple, good people that I know in my life are the friends that I've had forever and ever, and you aren't going to date them."

She is not keen on dating any more actors. "I don't understand actors," she claims. "I dated an actor for a very long time, and having already done that I'm afraid of that right now. I associate that with heartache. So maybe I'll go to somebody in the business, but on the carpentry side of things.

"If somebody like Bill Pullman's character came into my life, and he knew how to dance, then he'd be perfect," she says, dreamily. "He has to be a good salsa dancer. I've been dancing for two years now. Nothing makes me happier than dancing. It transforms me. It's the only time I let out what is inside and I feel completely sensual and sexy and alive. I'm obsessed with it."

Her dream man must also be a brilliant carpenter. "He has to be good with a drill and know his way around the house. I love redoing homes and finding old things and making them great.

"Also, he needs to be witty, with a sharp sense of humour. If you can laugh with somebody, you can pretty much get through anything. And I like people that are very direct and just say, 'This is who I am and I have this to offer'. It makes you feel more comfortable about yourself. Because we are always very insecure about our shortcomings."

When she's not to be found on the dance floor, Sandra is rock climbing the mountains outside Los Angeles.

"I love rock climbing because it makes you feel like you have conquered the world. You feel like you're capable of doing anything when you have done that. Rock climbing is a great balance between mental and physical."

Couldn't it be dangerous? "Oh, you only get bumped up," she insists. "I've got bruises and scars everywhere. I did hurt myself when I was filming The Thing Called Love. I broke my nose, and it was very painful. I didn't fix it. I just left it, bump and all. They shot me from behind and from the side for a week. It was like, in the middle of a scene her nose exploded!"

And if a film company dislikes her climbing, she doesn't care. "Why should I?" she asks. "If something horrible should happen, well then I'm dead and they can't argue with me anyway."