Transport
poses a problem for all celebrities, because it is where you are most
likely to run into your public in ways which are beyond your control.
When you are most famous as the co-star of a film called Speed, in
which you hysterically but pluckily drive a bus accompanied by Keanu
Reeves hitherto unrevealed torso, either of which may explode at any
moment, the problem becomes particularly acute.
"It's
worse when they think you've never heard it before," Ms. Bullock
explains. "Drivers who say, 'Do you want me to stay below 50?'
I'm like, 'Shut up.' You have to just let it roll off and have fun
with it, because I would probably do the same thing. How many times
when I first met Sylvester Stallone (her co-star in Demolition Man)
did I do something that so many people have said to him? 'Hey, Rocky!
Adrian!' Like he hasn't heard that before. But you know what's worst?
When you're on a plane, and the pilot over the intercom goes, 'And if
any of you want to come up and commandeer the plane- and you know who
you are!' And everyone's sitting there going (she mimes them pointing
at her, then whispers)...'Sandra Bullock!' It was on a flight from
L.A. to New York. That was the worst..."
Ms. Bullock is
in London to promote While You Were Sleeping, a sweet romantic comedy
which excelled at the American box office. She's all power-dressed up
in a smart grey-ish suit. She wishes she was wearing jeans, t-shirt
and boots. That's what she put on when she got up this morning. When
she realised that this- like most promotional days- will not be free
from Men With Cameras. (This is not lazy sexism. It's just that the
ones who snap in packs are generally, men.) "I knew I'd be, 'Why
did I decide to look like a pig today?' I'm trying my best not to
leave the house looking like a slob too many times. So I'm trying.
I'm trying."
And, of
course, she is distressingly attractive (this is, I suppose, lazy
sexism) in a likeably flustered way. She has just been shopping.
Harvey Nichols, "naturellement". She was picking out stuff
not for herself but for her younger sister. "My sister's fun to
shop for because she's going to law school and she works for a
lawyer, so she needs all those kinds of clothes. She's very hip, so
I'm trying to get her really funky stuff. It's funner...."- she
says "funner"; how charming- "...to shop for someone
else because you can get a little more adventurous."
The coffee
arrives. Or, rather, her coffee arrives. Hers is a cappuccino. Mine
is a black coffee, but it has failed to appear. She insists that I
drink her cappucino instead. She swears she doesn't want it. She
justs wants to eat. She says she's ordered some risotto. I make an
appropriately meaningless expression. "It's just glamorous
rice," she says.
I inquire
about the infant Miss Bullock. "The infant Miss Bullock? I don't
think she was very far removed from the adult Miss Bullock. I have my
infantile moments. I know that, as a little infant, I was a little
fat bald infant, and I was a very happy child. For some reason I was
bald up until the age of one-and-a-half or two."
How gruesome.
"I know.
And I was fat. But I was happy. But- and my mother just told me this
recently- I did have problems with projectile vomiting when I was a
kid. She said it was incredible the distance I could achieve with
mashed carrot. It was pretty impressive."
Did they
treat it as a talent or as a syndrome?
"I think
it was a syndrome at that time." You
can still do it?
"Not so far."
I'm a
little worried about the risotto...
"We'll
set up a target on the wall. It could get messy in here."
Further
childhood reminiscence follows. You may wish to bear in mind the
following two well-documented facts about Ms. Bullock. First, that
she goes rock-climbing. Second, that she is fond of serious
power-tool DIY home handiwork.
"My dad
is pretty much a jokester and every sort of wild and fun, and I think
I was more daddy's girl in my formative years. So I spent a lot of
time chasing after him and doing as he did. At the weekends he'd
spend a lot of time building and making stuff, and I was always a
part of that."
So you did
the practical boy's stuff from the start?
"Yeah. I
think I was raised as the son. I was very much a tomboy at a very
young age, just because most of the kids in the neighborhood were
boys, and that seemed like the only way you're going to get to be
able to play in those games. (Laughs) The reindeer games."
The what?
"Oh, you
know; the reindeer games. You've never heard of that?" I shake
my head. "Santa Clause's reindeer? Rudolf the Red-Nosed
Reindeer? He wasn't allowed to play in the reindeer games becauses he
was different. So if you're not allowed to play in the reindeer
games, it means you're Rudolf with the Red Nose; it means you're different."
Oh. You
obviously have a more sophisticated Santa Claus mythology. We just
have the basic sleigh bells, red nose and presents.
"Well, in
Germany you also get Saint Nicholas Day, where you get a stocking
full of candy on your doorstep if you've been good- or, if not, you
get coal."
Sandra
Bullock knows about German traditions because her mother is German.
Mrs. Bullock was an opera singer, and so Sandra would spend part of
the year there when she was a kid, during the opera season.
So you had
to grow up to the sound of lots of horrible opera?
"Well, as
a child it was just incredibly loud music. That's all you heard. And
I'd have to sit through the operas."
Ughhh.
That's almost like child abuse....
"I think
it was a form of. (Laughs) But you know what's great? Every once in a
while- it's sort of a snobby thing- if I'm some place and I hear an
opera blaring, nine times out of ten I can guess who it is and I'll
start humming along to the aria. It's a nice thing to have in your pocket."
You
appeared in some of them, didn't you?
"Yeah. I
just always did it. It was a nice way to make money and it was fun
and you got to goof off."
These were
big operas?
"Yeah.
With my mum. Huge operas in the Festspielhaus in Salzburg."
And your
father ended up teaching opera?
"He's a
voice teacher. He was an opera singer too. He worked his way through
Juilliard after being a blacksmith in Alabama. He had the wildest
life. He had eight brothers and sisters and used to steal little cars
and drive down the street. A real little troublemaker. Now I know
where I get it. My parents wondered why I was rambunctious. They
could not figure it out. I'm like, 'Look at you guys!' I hear stories
about my parents.........my mother used to tie up kids in the
courtyard at school and leave them there, and they'd be, 'Where's
Hans?' (Laughs) My parents are going to hate me."
Anyhow....
"My
father teaches people how to breath properly from your diaphragm and
not ruin your voice. He had Anthony Quinn, who he taught while he was
doing Zorba, teaching him how to use his voice on stage. He's get
rock musicians where he'd have to retrain them in the basics of singing."
Who, for instance?
"I don't
know. I just remember as a kid in Virginia there was this rock
musician and I think it was somebody famous. I can't figure out who.
I'd like to think it was K.C from K.C & The Sunshine Band. But
that was my fantasy, because he pulled up on a motorcycle and I was,
'Oh look, there's the leather-clad K.C and The Sunshine Band man.'
(Breezily) They're making the club scene again, you know. They seem
to be making a little comback."
I wasn't
aware of that.
"Yeah,
well, you know. I know what's going on in the underworld."
Did you
sing when you appeared in the operas with your mother?
"In the
chorus a little bit. But I'm not a good singer at all. At all."
Viewers of the
weak River Phoenix-starring Country-and-Western romance The Thing
Called Love are able to decide for themselves on this matter. Bullock
plays a particularly poor would-be singer-songwriter. ("I was
cast," she says, "for a reason.") At the beginning of
the film she fails the songwriting audition. When the filmmakers
wanted a suitably bad song, she offered to help: she was quite
convinced she could deliver. The song she wrote, "Heaven Knocked
On My Door", goes "I had a dream last night and there you
were/ standing by my bedside/ a devil in angel's clothing/ talking
about your crazy ride/ I didn't know what to say at first/ I couldn't
get by those wings..." And so on. "I took great pleasure in
making it as bad as possible. I write a lot of songs, just for the
heck of it. And I write down daily occurences, and poetry that's
really bad. Little stories. But they're all for me."
Do you let
anyone at all see them?
"No. No.
I don't want public humiliation. I do that enough, thank you. I have
the best hiding places for them, and I even write in code. If it's a
diary, I come up with the most bizarre codes for names. So unless
they were there and remember the situation, and they realize that
Carrot was their name in the book- Carrot is the name for one of
them. When I die, I'll leave you the name of Carrot, and you'll know."
Recently,
Sandra Bullock's mother found one of her daughters youthful diaries.
It included the following entry: I want to be an actor because you
get to sing, dance and meet people from different
countries..."Can't get anymore basic than that," says
Sandra. More recently, her mother also unearthed a film of Sandra
made at the age of 9 with her father's camera. "I cast it, did
the wardrobe, I got all my neighbors to partake in the production.
I'd set up the camera. And apparently- I haven't seen it; I'll see
the footage when I go back home- I was wearing a blonde wig and I had
stuffed myself to the nines in the front and the behind. My mother
said I had huge boobs and a huge butt, and this purple glittery
outfit on. I was a secretary of some sort. At some point there was a
toilet flushing, which I thought was hysterical. (Laughs) Obviously
my sense of humor, it's been sealed at that point."
It sounds
like the sort of film you'll end up showing on David Letterman's show.
"Yeah.
Well I was thinking about taking it on David Letterman. They always
want to see your work.."
This is the
peculiar tale of how her parents met.
"They met
in Nurenberg because he was working as a civilian for the Pentagon,
and she was his secretary. (Laughs) It's one of those great stories:
she would bicycle her way to work and he'd drive the Mercedes by her.
And she was the fledgling opera singer, and he didn't know it, and
she didn't know he was into opera. She was taking shorthand, you know..."
And then....
She laughs
abruptly. "I don't know if they were sleeping together, you
know. I'd like to think they were, but...."
You could
always ask them.
"Were you
guys doing it?" she giggles. "I maybe could now. But I just
feel, that's your parents. It's an image you don't want to conjure
up. All of a sudden realize they're human animals."
So he was a
bit older than her?
"Yeah. My
mum was a young filly. A young German girl. The hot little tamable
that she is. My father, I was pulling pictures out of this box at his
sister's house and I was, 'Who is this guy?' And she was, 'That's
your father.' He's a handsome guy, really handsome: jet black hair,
ice blue eyes. He's half English, half Irish, so he's got that pale
skin and those blue eyes. But he's always let us know how
good-looking he is. Every morning he's, 'You know why you're so
good-looking? Because your father's good-looking....' "
What was
his job in Germany exactly?
"I dont
know. He was working with...it seemed like he was taking care of all
the stuff that the offices needed. Stuff. I don't know."
He sounds
like a spy to me.
"Exactly!
I like to make it really glamorous, to think he was some sort of spy
and mad scientist. But it seemed really pretty basic. He did a lot of
the contract negotiations between the States and Germany. In terms of
their stuff. It's funny. You can know your parents all your life, and
a friend can come to your house and ask your father what he did and
then say to you, 'Oh my God, your father did the coolest stuff...'
And I'll be, 'What did he do?' I didn't know why he won a medal of honor."
What did he do?
"This is
what he told me as a child. He had a chipped tooth and he said he won
the medal of honor in the Second World War because everyone had their
own foxholes, and he was fighting and he was getting ready to jump
back into his foxhole, and there was another guy in the foxhole with
his gun up and he slammed his tooth down on the gun. I thought, What
a great story! He chipped his tooth and got a medal of honor. I don't
think he wanted to tell us the story of what it was. I think the
story is- and I sort of heard this in a roundabout way and I'm too
afraid to ask it because I'm afraid it might be painful, but one of
my friends, who probably has no manners, asked it- that he was with
about five guys, and his best friend was one of them, and they were
in an abandoned house. Or a castle. I like to think castle. I seem to
glamorize everything. And my dad went out to do something and trudged
out in the snow and the building was hit and the guys were killed,
and he went back in and pulled everyone out of the burning building.
And rescued some people... I don't know. It's such a scary thing. You
don't want to ask your father. My dad is jovial and funny and tells
jokes and is such a Good Old Guy, you know. Just a dad. And you don't
think that they go through things like that....."
It is time we
discussed that surname.
Was
"Bullock" a funny name to have, growing up?
"It was
never brought to my attention until I got into this business. People
were, 'Why didn't you change your name?' I didn't know what it meant
until I got into this business."
A Bullock
is a castrated bull, isn't it?
"Yes.
Well. (Nods) It means castrated bull. (Quizzically) Or does it mean
bull's...?" (She means bulls testicles.)
No. That
would be "bollocks". Which of course it sounds like.
"Yes."
I only know
because I grew up in a house in a field surrounded by bullocks.
"Yes.
(Laughs) And we are proud to have been there."
So you
really never knew what it meant as a child?
"I
didn't. I think my dad did. There are some things that I think our
father kept from us."
And you
never seriously considered changing it?
"No. It
obviously isn't a very flowery name. My name doesn't conjure up
lovely flowery memories of fields. My name says nothing. Some people
have very musical names. Loretta Lynn is musical. Sophia Loren is
musical. Sandra.....Bullock. (Laughs) You just imagine a girl in a
field of castrated cows."
When Sandra
Bullock was ten, a bulldozer crushed her father on their mountain
property. He lay there for 24 hours. "He stayed alive because he
was doing vocal excersises," she recalls.
"I felt
like I was the man of the house in a very weird way, because I got
the phone call. I had to relay it to my mother. My dad was in the
hospital for a year. They wanted to amputate his legs, but my mum
was, 'No, I will not have it,' and after the seventh doctor they
found a young guy who was amazing. My father had been a tower of
strength to us, and even all through his hospital stay, he'd know we
were coming so he'd have the nurses set up a bottle of vodka or
whatever on the IV and he'd pretend he was drunk. Now, he's got scars
and he can't go jogging, but he's back to normal- as normal as you
can get when you've been run over by a bulldozer- and does all the
things he did before."
As for its
effects on her.....
"It
soooort of made me fearful. It sort of established that people went
away, so I never really allowed myself to get close to people that I
really love, or I never let myself show it. Because if I showed it,
all of a sudden something's going to happen. And you get over that in
time, but I know it moulded my personality."
And as for
the property...
"That
mountain property was a disaster. I cracked the side of my head open
the year before. And now we can't sell it. Nobody wants to buy it. I
wonder why..."
Sandra Bullock
studied theatre arts at the university in the relatively remote and
unfashionable state of North Carolina.
"Don't
ask me why. I think it was a rebellious streak. My parents wanted me
to go to somewhere like Juilliard and I was just so green and I
wanted to go to a school where you could meet people, have a
boyfriend. Where they have fraternities. I wanted to grow up and I
wanted to grow up in a normal school."
Fortuitously,
an inspirational teacher versed in high-minded acting technique moved
from New York to North Carolina to begin a family.
"I was so
young and intimidated, and here came a teacher who brought New York
to me. And if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have had the discipline.
They always say there's one teacher who inspires you- there were
actually two who were amazing, and they were just so good at seeing
someone who was insecure and needed nurturing and was a baby
and...."- she is interrupted by the arriving risotto. "Do
you mind if I scoff this down? You have to try this. It's really good."
Her speciality
was comedy. "I'd usually steal from The Carol Burnett Show."
One of her favorite performances was one of the final scenes of the
Burt Reynolds/Goldie Hawn comedy Best Friends. I obviously look
doubtful. "This scene is absolutely hysterical, and it goes from
comedy to hysterics- these 2 people love each other but they hated
each other at that point- and it was just so well written."
She left
college 3 credits shy of being able to graduate.
"It was
probably some psychology class that I probably should have taken- I
might be able to explain my childhood a little better."
Still, she was
in a hurry.
"I had
things to do. I just wanted to go and do theatre and work in New
York. I packed up the car and went. That was the ultimate. I went
knowing one person, and I was kind of glad because you could start
from scratch. You didn't have the cliques you had in school, where
everyone knew the best one in class- the one who could cry the best,
the one who did Shakespeare the best. And I wanted to be the best
comedian. I wanted to be the female Jerry Lewis."
In the
obligatory Struggling Actress Years, when she would act in student
films for nothing ("You'd have to go out to New Jersey and bring
your own clothes and make-up and act horribly"), Sandra Bullock
did the appropriate service industry jobs: waiting tables, checking
coats, tending bars. One of the better places she worked in was a
posh, trendy Italian restaurant on Park Avenue. "Very elite.
Really great North Italian cuisine. Where everybody who's anybody went."
Having said
that, the most famous person she actually served was Peter Gabriel's
drummer. Which, I suggest, is not spectacularly famous. "To me
that was unbelievable," she protests. "I always seem to
concentrate on the bass player and the drummer. I love rhythm. So
naturally I always migrate towards the one who establishes the
rhythm. Except for Sting."
Sting?
"Yeah,"
she insists. "I like Sting. His music seems to stand the test
of time. My sister's the one who turned me onto Sting.
Anyway.....enough of Sting."
It was
after leaving the restaurant one night, with the impressive $186 she
had earned that evening, that she was held up at gunpoint.
"I was so
tired, and I left work, and I was held up on Park Avenue and 21st. It
was really weird. He had a gun, and an apple sitting on top of it.
(Laughs) I was king of getting mixed messages."
You didn't
ask about the apple?
"No. I
wanted to, but I didn't think it was an appropriate time."
I think not
knowing about the apple would really bother me. You can get $186
back, but to never know what the apple meant...
"Well, he
wan't going to get the $186 or what he wanted. He wasn't getting
either one. All I remember is, he was using the gun and going, 'Get
in the alley' and I couldn't understand him. He was obviously really
doped up and he was sweating, and I didn't quite know what to do. But
all I could understand of what he was saying, the only word I could
understand was the 'p' word, referring to a part of the woman's
anatomy. (Laughs) I'm not going to say what that is."
How very coy.
"It's
like the 'c' word and the 'v' word," she laughs. "Anyway,
it was bizarre. My first thought was, 'Kick the gun out of his hand'-
I could go 'Awwwarrrrr!' and be very heroic. But then I thought, with
my luck it'll go off and shoot me in the face. So I was just standing
there and I was, 'Well, you're not going to get ...' -the 'p'-
'...and you're not going to get my money. You're going to have to
shoot me in the back.' "
You didn't
give him the money? I ask incredulously.
"No! I
had made $186! I had rent to pay."
You're mad.
"Well, I
didn't realize how mad I was. Your instincts take over. But I don't
think I would have done that if he hadn't been really messed up and
sweating and looking around a lot- he was just as scared as I was. So
I just walked away, and all I could think to myself was: if you shoot
me, please don't hit me in the spinal cord. That's all I was
thinking. And he didn't. So I went back to the restaurant, and they
consoled me. Because you're fine until you walk in and people see
this look on your face and then it's (she mimes bursting into tears).
It's like little kids when they fall. They don't cry until they see
somebody they can cry to. That's the way I was. I wanted to be
consoled by our beautiful Irish bartender. But he had left, so I just
had a beer and got over it."
At first Ms.
Bullock is a little sensitive when I mention that, during this time,
she made a film for the legendarily sensationalist B-movie producer
Roger Corman.
"Well,
who didn't?" she barks. "That was my step
to......greatness." She says this with the required ironic
overtones. Then she tells the story. "I was doing this TV series
called Working Girl. Really great performances there, I might add. A
piece of garbage. The worst experience I've ever had in my life. I
knew it was going to fail and I was hoping. And then I was offered
the Roger Corman film from that horrible series."
They
thought: she's good!
"Yeah.
(Laughs) I don't know. Excuse me for speaking with my mouth full.
(She points towards my tape recorder.) It's going to sound terrible
on that tape."
I don't
think it'll show when it's written down.
"Well,
will you remove all the 'I know's'? I always sound like a Valley
Girl. Anyway, somebody offered the film to me, and it was about the
Amazon and I got to go to the Amazon. I thought: I can make it good.
Then a week later they reneged and I was so humiliated. Roger Corman
gives you a film and then he takes it back. And this is the story
that I heard. One of the producers told him I had the part and he
was, 'Who's she?' And they were,'Well, she's got a series.' And he
goes (derisively) 'Nobody knows who she is.' And he went on the
street asking people, 'Do you know who Sandra Bullock is?' 'No' 'Do
you know who Sandra Bullock is?' 'No'. And he was, 'See! Nobody knows
who she is.' So he took the film back. And then he gave it back
again- I don't know why.
So she went to
the Amazon- "the greatest experience I've ever had"- with
Peruvian director Luis Llosa, who would later direct The Specialist.
There she played with baby leopards and snakes, and got violently
ill, and moved her bed to the center of her hut to avoid spiders
"the size of my head", and met lots of people with no
possesions- "they didn't even have a toothbrush," says
Sandra- who seemed happy and discovered "that everything else is
B.S." The film, naturally, was never released, though she has
seen it.
"It had
some nice.....scenery in it."
You mean it
was terrible.
"It was
not good."
I'm sure
they'll put it out on video soon.
"I bet
they do. But, you know, my first film. You learn. I had some horrible
acting in that, and I admit it, and I'm glad I did it."
Which was
the most humiliating scene?
"Uggghhhh.
The love scene. I was violently ill throughout the entire thing, and
at the end I was sick. I was so nervous about it. And I didn't want
anything to show. I made sure it didn't, with duct tape. There's a
bikini made out of duct tape in the Amazon."
After her
Amazon experience, she got to make Love Potion No. 9, "a
low-budget mad-scientist, ugly-duckling movie.
" Then
she didn't work for a year, and she was on the verge of giving up
acting altogether- "I wanted to produce, on the creative side-
reading books, stories, articles to make into films"- when she
was cast in The Vanishing with Jeff Bridges and Keifer Sutherland.
She credits
Sutherland with insisting that she be used for the tiny role of the
girlfriend- the one who vanishes, and Sutherland spends the rest of
the film trying to find- after they had auditioned together, an
audition in which she says, "I wasn't smart enough to be
fearless. I wasn't jaded enough to be cautious. That's hurt me a lot,
but it's also gotten me where I am. Put yourself out on a limb every
once in a while, get the good stories later on."
Then there was
another small film, When The Party's Over, then The Thing Called Love
and Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, in which she played a young waitress
who elderly barber Robert Duvall has a crush on.
"I
auditioned for both parts for 3 months straight and I had no work,
and then on the same Friday I got the call: one line I got one job; I
beeped over to the other line and got the other job. The weirdest thing."
When she
returned from those, she had decided that she wanted to "do
something more commercial". She told her agent: "I'd love
to do an action film." The next week she was painting the
bathroom when she got a call asking her to be in Demolition Man. Not
even asking her to audition, simply asking her to come right now to
meet producer Joel Silver. An hour later she was walking around the
studio being fitted as people looked at her hair, and she was walking
up to Sylvester Stallone going, "Hi. I'm your co-star."
What about
the bathroom?
"I was
painting it an ugly color yellow. You know when you paint and you
think it's one color and you put it on your walls and it just doesn't work."
What was it before?
"It was
an ugly white. And I had said, 'I want sunshine when I wake up in the
morning. I want the room that I spend most of my time in in the
morning to be yellow!' But I never finished it. I don't live there
anymore, and the new people got an unfinished bathroom. I left the
can of paint, so they can finish it themselves."
The world of
action films was something of a shock to her.
"I was
used to small little talkie films, where all you have is the other
person." She wasn't used to taking her cue from an explosion and
a piece of machinery moving over. She wasn't even sure if you could
ask for another take. The shoot for Demolition Man lasted for 5
months. "Unfortunately it took me about 4 months to not be
intimidated and scared anymore. I was afraid of getting fired."
Then again,
some of the big-budget film behavior she liked.
"Joel
Silver is so generous. We were sitting at the craft service table and
I said something about marshmallow fluff. There's 2 kinds- the glass
jar kind, and the plastic jar, which is the best kind. And I was
saying that I had not had that stuff for so long and that I had a
craving for a fluff sandwich, which is with peanut butter. Pure
garbage. Three days later, there's a crate of it in my room. They
couldn't get it in California so they had somebody look for it on the
East Coast and flew it out. I was, 'Hey! If this is what it's all
about....' "
But it's
also ridiculous...
"But you
know what- food means a lot to me. It really does."
Which 3
foods make you the happiest?
"Ice
cream, ice cream and ice cream. If I could live off pasta and ice
cream and coffee, that's all I would ever need. Ice cream with no
fruit in it. Can't have fruit. Can have nuts if it's Vanilla Swiss
Almond, but otherwise it has to be a basic Chocolate Chip, Vanilla.
And Kentucky Fried Chicken I love."
Eurrghhhhh.
"My poor
mother, she's an extreme health-food nut, almost macrobiotic, and
this is what she ended up with."
What advice
do you have for the next woman who has to spend several months with
Sylvester Stallone?
"Have a
great sense of humor and a lot of energy. He's a lot to keep up with.
I thought I had a lot of energy, but we'd be shooting until 4 in the
morning and I'd go back to the truck and be sound asleep, and he'd
bang on the doors with golf clubs to wake me up. But he takes himself
very lightly and I was scared he wouldn't, so it was such a relief.
It's almost like, if I'd been given a brother in my lifetime it would
have been him, and we would have driven our parents to drink. We
spent hours like kids. He taught me a mean right hook."
What's the secret?
"It
depends if you want it to hurt. It's about popping the shoulder. If
you want to cause pain, you angle it a bit and use the knuckles. It's
just fun to have. So when I do movies now and I throw a right hook
I'm very proud of it. I've only had the occasion to do that once. It
was with Denis Leary. He's the comedic genius of our decade."
When she
finished Demolition Man, the last thing she meant to do was make
another action film. "But I wasn't getting offered roles. I
wasn't getting offered that either- I had to audition- but the role
was so much fun and I'd never read anything like that before."
The studio wanted someone else for Speed, but the director, Jan De
Bont, wanted her, eventually got his way and- hey presto!- she was
famous. Not that she imagined it would be the success it was.
"Not in a
million years. Because all people did was make fun of us. We were The
Bus Movie. The Bomb on a Bus Movie. But I think we were a little more
human and real on film than people in action films used to be. If the
fantasy is too great and too far out- so that you could never achieve
that- it makes you sad. Whereas girls that come up to me, thay say,
'You remind me of me.' And women are tough critics to other women,
and rightly so because in action films we're usually tied up, and
that's not very appealing."
Some further
facts about Sandra Bullock. She is obsessed with Latin dancing and
indulges up to 3 times a week when she is home in Los Angeles. She
has never been to a funeral, but she has been destroyed by the 2
times in her life when a dog has died. Her next movie to be released,
after While You Were Sleeping, is The Net, in which she plays a
computer nerd. She loves books by the recently deceased American
children's author Dr. Seuss ("the greatest philosopher of our
time," she once claimed.)
"Someone
just sent me a first edition of one of the first ones- The Butter
Battle Book. The first one that was ever released of those. I know it
must have cost them gobs of money."
"Who
gave it to you?" asks her publicist.
"Melissa
Ethridge and her wife Julie. It was so sweet. I almost busted my lip.
I was so excited I was yanking it out of the package and it flew out
and hit me on the lip, and my lip was out to here. Dr. Seuss, it's
amazing. People say, 'It's just Dr. Seuss.' And I say to them, 'Read
it! It's for adults too. The Butter Battle Book is about America and
Russia. Read it!' "
Her new film
is While You Were Sleeping. I see it just before I meet it's star,
and I even cry a little. Sandra Bullock had had the script with her
when she was shooting Speed. It was considered out of her league at
the time- and it was earmarked for Demi Moore- "but I wanted it
in my pile as a reference point." Then, after the success of
Speed, she got her chance. Nonetheless she says that she feels sorry
for the producers because- shades of Roger Corman- when they told
people she had the role, some would still say, "Who's that?"
"The girl in Speed," the producers would explain. "Oh,
the bus driver," people would say. The irony that in While You
Were Sleeping she plays a token attendant on the subway didn't escape
these people. Sandra Bullock points at herself: "Poster child
for mass transit."
She must go.
It is time for her press conference for the UK Regional Press. They
will ask her whether she really now gets $8 million a movie. ("I
read the other day I was being paid $10 million- I had to call my
mother. Actually it's $22 million and I want to make sure everyone
knows I'm the highest paid actor...")
They will ask
whether she has bought her parents nice presents. (She got her mother
a new black BMW. She tested it by listening to how the doors sounded
when they shut- "you know when it's expensive because of the
thnnnnnnnnn when the doors shut"- and by test-driving it on a
4-hour search for antiques. "How are you going to buy a car
unless you know how it shops?")
They will ask
her about her new film. (She liked the script because "it
reminded me of a role Tom Hanks would play." Only much later,
after finishing the film, did she discover that it was originally
written for a man- it was about a fish salesman in New York who sees
a gorgeous Scandinavian woman.)
She will
enthuse about Tom Jones. ("I love Tom Jones. My parents don't
understand it either.")
They will ask
her about love at first sight and having children and...
Midway
through, the phone rings.
"It's
probably for me," she sighs. "It's my mother. Don't talk
about your family like that..."
© 1995 by British Premiere Magazine