Selina Scott Show (September 1995)

This is a transcript of Sandra Bullock's appearance on NBC Superchannel's talkshow "The Selina Scott Show", early september 1995.

Selina: She's the hottest female lead this sommer, the actress who's got Hollywood wanting more. She hurtled to stardom alongside Keanu Reeves in the movie "Speed"; her latest film "While You Were Sleeping" is now #1 box office. She's Sandra Bullock. Her mother is german, her father american. Sandra Bullock spent her early years commuting between continents. She's now based in the United States from where she joins us in just a moment by satellite, but first a quick look at her new movie; it's called "The Net".

[clip from "The Net" is shown]

Selina: "The Net" opens across europe at the end of the month. Just a year ago few of us had ever heard of Sandra Bullock. Sandra's joined me by satellite now. [turning to a screen showing Sandra in some small studio] Sandra, I was wondering if, in your career, there was a defining moment when you suddenly thought "Aha, I've cracked this"?

Sandra: I'd have to be honest and say that I have a level of insecurity that will - I hope - one day allow me to feel that I've hit a very fortunate spot; but I'm always in the actor's mode, the working-actress-mode that you don't... I don't feel that! [laughs]

I don't allow myself to feel that because it makes me think that once you do, you're not thinking about what's important, you're sort of getting caught up in the ride that I really had no control over, so it's been an overwhelming time. I've had a great time and it's just nice to sort of be able to sit back and watch something that I don't quiet understand yet, but it's pretty amazing. I think I'm a little more stunned than I am anything else, you know. I don't sit here and go "I've made it! I've reached the level!", because I don't think I'll ever feel that way. But I'm sitting in a very interesting spot, viewing some interesting things that are going on in front of me.

Selina: It's interesting, in a sense, that you use the word "insecurity", because insecurity is certainly not a word I would use to describe you. You had to go out, you had to pitch for your roles, you've developed yourself as an actress, you've turned into a real character. I wonder if in a way basic insecurity helps every actress, in this way?

Sandra: Well, I actually think it's one of my strength; something I can't control, but this insecurity that I have just makes me try even harder. If I sad down and thought about the things that I've done in my life, if I thought about them before I'd done them, I know for a fact I wouldn't be sitting here. I think just insecurity makes me not think to much about what I'm getting ready to do and forces me to dive in a little deeper than the last time, and it just pushes me a lot harder.

Selina: Already you've worked with highly publicised, very experienced actors like Silvester Stallone and Keanu Reeves, and I wondered if it was all just a bit daunting for you at first?

Sandra: One of my first films that I did was with some of the, I think, best actors that we have in our times today, Robert Duvall and Richard Harris. That was one of the most intimidating experiences I've ever had, because it was at the beginning of my career and the audition process for that was very nerve-wrecking to say the least, but I had to go in with the thought that we're two actors trying to make a scene good, and everything else is just things that I sort of made up in my head and sort of come in with expectations of who this people might be, and you realize that they're just actors who wanna do good works. It takes me about a week everytime I work on a film with people like Sylvester Stallone and working with Keanu, and you just... You have that week of getting over the image that you've placed in your head and the things that you've read which aren't the people. You know, they're actors who are very, very kind and nice, and I've just been really lucky in the fact that I've worked with people who seemed to have a good time with me - I don't know, maybe they didn't [laughs], but seemed to have a good time with me, but were in it for the right reasons, which were to do good work, and... It usually takes me about a week to override the fact that they happen to be these huge superstars and then we get down to the work again.

Selina: Your big break came in "Demolition Man", but we've been reading that for "A Time To Kill" you're going to pick up something like seven million pounds.

Sandra: [in mocked amazement] Oh really? [laughs] Not really, but I read the other day that I was getting really to make ten million, and everytime I seem to make more in the papers I call my parents and let them know we're gonna have a good time with the money, but no, that's... Seven million [laughs] is not right.

Selina: But you must have a good agent; you must have someone who goes out and pitches for you?

Sandra: I've know these people since the beginning of my career and that's what they do really well. That's the business-side that I enjoy watching and being envolved in for some degree but that's why I'm fortunate to have people that I trust, that are great at it, and they love what they do and it's all part of the business - that is something I can't control. I don't pay attention to it. I say: "This is the role that I've chosen. You come back at the very end and let me know what the deal is." If I can live with it, great, if not...

But if you go into roles based on the money, you have lost what you have started in this business for. I mean it's not a good place to enter into a piece of work based on the money or even the commercial value of a film. The last film that I did was one of the lowest-budgeted films that I've done in a long time and it was probably one of the most enjoyable.

Selina: But now that you're commanding such enormous fees, producers, directors, movie-makers must see you in a completely different light. The standard that you set yourself originally must have changed.

Sandra: Well, if that's the case, I don't mind breaking the image that they might have or the standards that they have. I can only do what I know, and live how I've lived all my life, because I'm a fairly stubborn person, but that's why, with in terms of money and business-things like that, I've made a conscious effort recently to try to keep that as protected as possible. That's not something that I like reading about other actors. I know it's interesting for some people, but I don't want that to be what people concentrate on first. I don't want that to be what people know me as, so that's why I will go against it again.

Selina: So tell me how you go against it, because it seems to me that now you're successful you've got to go out and be seen at the right places and go to the right partys.

Sandra: I don't go to partys. The partys I go to [are] the barbecues I have in my house. Being seen in right places is something that I don't believe in. I don't believe in going to events just for the sake of being seen. I'm so nervous when I go to anything that I have to go to in terms of like my own premieres. Doing it on a basis where you're doing it just for no reason - I don't understand!

I have a very low-key life, I have a great life. I love what I do and I love how I spend my time which isn't in a public place. I mean it could be in a public place, but my first inclination to go out and have fun will not be go to a club where there is a lot of cameras, go to a party where there is a lot of industry-people. [There] you're playing in a work-area and I can't relax. So my down-time other than work is spend in a very fun way, but works with the people that I've known for years, and friends that I've had for years and doing the same things. You know, I keep out of that. Not so much anymore do you have to be seen in the right places, I think. I think people appreciate when you get out of the lime-light after you've done a certain amount of work. They don't want to see you that much. [laughs] I don't wanna see me that much!

Selina: But what about the business of money? Has it become harder for you to handle it? Nancy Griffith, for example, has already said that it will not change her life-style even though she is making a lot of money. Do you still believe that your life-style should remain the same?

Sandra: Absolutely! I mean there is a few things that I have to concern myself now with that I didn't before, which is, you know, safety and making sure I live in a safe place for anybody that happens to be in my life will also be protected, but my life-style is exactly the same. If this has happened to me when I was ten or fifteen, maybe things would have been different. I'm sure I would have changed, but I'm so set in my ways right now that... I mean it took me all this time to find out what really makes me happy, and how I like to live my life.

Selina: Sandra, what makes you happy? What gives you a buzz?

Sandra: What I have in my life: the people that surround me and the sensibility that I've managed to put together through the years and just work, hard work and good fun and if you're gonna be adventurous and go crazy, just don't harm anybody but yourself, if you have to... I don't know. I just love what I love. The money in the business, what I appreciate it for is it enabled me to set up my own production company and produce small films, which I've done. I produced my first small film and now we are getting to produce a full-length feature. So that's what I've always wanted to do: pull together the people that I've known from many years, who I know are great artists, and we can sort of band together with our own company and just use the money for good, as opposed to, you know, a really expensive car which I'll probably get stolen or wreck it in the first place myself. It's all a waste to me, so I appreciate the monetary side for the fact that I can now do more of what I love to do, which is work, but in different areas.

Selina: Let me ask you briefly, I mean a lot of people compare you to Julia Roberts. I wondered if there was anyone that you liken yourself to in Hollywood, that you've watched and thought: "Well, they've got something I could use a little bit or could learn a little bit about."

Sandra: I picked from a lot of people, I mean, just people whose works that I'd really admired; male and female. I've never had one person that I'd idolized. The comparisons to Julia Roberts are incredibly flattering. But I think they are just a reference point. I think in three month they'll be comparing someone else to Julia Roberts, because she carved out an area for herself that is long overdue and really had an impact on people. People love her, they really identify with her and really opened up to her, so it's very flattering, but I think it's just a reference point now.

I don't really know who I would compare myself to. I'd like to a combination of a lot of people. Everyone from Jerry Lewis and on. A little bit of everything, really. I haven't quite figured out where my strengths are yet, and I've definitly found my weaknesses.

Selina: Where would you like to see yourself in a couple of years' time? I mean, would you like to stay in Los Angeles or do you fancy moving back to New York?

Sandra: Good Question. I'm definitely moving my grading back towards the east. I'll always have my little house in L.A. because it's my little house and it's the first thing that I bought and I love it. I like to be able to go everywhere. I hope in a couple of years that I was a little less driven and ambitious to do something everyday, all day, and just sort of take more time off and just enjoy, but I don't know, I'm in a good place now. Everyday changes sort of my ideas of what I want. I become a little less aggressive because I've accomplished a lot in what I want out of life and the more I accomplish, the more I can sort of sit back and let go of a lot of things that seemed really important a year ago and now they just don't seem that important anymore. So, as long as I can enjoy my work, and enjoy my down-time... I don't know, whatever happens happens, I mean I'd like what everyone else has, you know, home, family, to grow old gracefully and just stay relatively healthy and have a lot of fun. So, I mean, who knows in two years I might be sitting in the same seat saying the same things going: "I'd like this for this to happen", but I think everything happens when it's supposed to, I'm a true believer in that.

Selina: Sandra, congratulations on your success. Great to talk to you. I hope we talk again soon. Thank you.

Sandra: To you thank you very much.

© 1995 by NBC Super Channel