US Magazine May 1995

US Magazine (May 95)

If you think about it, you'll remember her. In recent years, Sandra Bullock often showed up as third-tier characters. There she is in "The Vanishing", with barely enough time to flash her Mentadent smile before Jeff Bridges boxes and buries her. There she is in "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway" as an ineffably melancholic hash-slinger and in "The Thing Called Love" as a tin-eared fluffbrain. According to her curriculum vitae, she made her major screen debut in 1992's "Love Potion No. 9". For the record, that cartoony love story didn't really work; it's worth noting mostly because it also featured Tate Donovan (her sometimes ex-boyfriend who, if you read between the lines, makes a few uncredited appearances in our conversation below). For all of the cult status bestowed upon 1993's "Demolition Man", no one mentioned that Sylvester Stallone never seemed like a seasoned jokesmith before Bullock provided him with her tip-top comic setups. It was only last summer that she and Keanu Reeves appeared in the action hit "Speed". While Reeves' act was a triumph of deft physicality, it was Bullock, with her smart-alecky line readings and her can-do demeanor, who managed to make us forget that she was executing most of her scenes from a stage the size of a bus driver's seat. The result? Snap! She flew ahead of the sizable ingenue pack and began receiving scripts in which the action revolved around her. While it's true that in her new movie, "While You Were Sleeping", she has co-stars - Bill Pullman and Peter Gallagher - she was the one hired to carry the romantic comedy. "As excited as she was, it was also scary for her," says Sleeping director Jon Turteltaub. "It's daunting to say 'If I suck this movie will suck, too.' " To make it more of a stress test, everyone in show biz knew that the film was originally meant for Demi Moore (whose fee was too high). As it turns out, Bullock, who plays an emotionally isolated subway employee, turns in her wittiest, most textured performance to date. Since then, the 28-year-oldArlington,Va., native has proved that she's either in a zone or out of her mind. Included in her string of back-to-back projects is "The Net", a techno-thriller on which director-producer Irwin Winkler found Bullock "bubbling with great ideas. She'd make notes all over her script, then come to me and say, 'What about this and this and this?' " After that, she teams up with Denis Leary in his hard-core comedy "Two If By Sea". There is talk of her playing a brainy law clerk in Joel Schumacher's goldstar project "A Time to Kill" before she goes on to "Kate and Leopold", a low-budget flick which she also plans to produce. So nowshe is a movie star, but exactly the kind you hoped she'd be: On a Culver City sound stage where she is shooting "The Net", she greets you with an outstretched hand, a mouth set at full throttle and a celebrity posse that consists of her 25 year-old law student sister, Gesine, who is reading a textbook. But somehow it was this strikingly frill-less image that made Bullock's subsequent behavior seem all the more poignant. A couple of days after our first meeting, she made a Garboesque retreat, leaving a heretofore unseen assortment of official handlers to explain for her. Then, unexpectedly, she resurfaced via telephone three days later. And one can't help but suspect that this actress, who is so wedded to the notion that she can fill every request, is currently in the midst of an unsettling crash course in how implausible that notion might be. But on this afternoon, Bullock comes off so decidedly uncomplicated that when she needs primping, an on-staff hair stylist does it by grabbing the actress's head, then, using open palms, flattening her unruly locks like they were wrinkles on a bed. As for the place on her trailer door where the DO NOT DISTURB sign usually goes? That's where Bullock has taped a handmade poster featuring a photo of her belove Jack Russell terrier.

First things first: Explain the sign on your trailer door.

My dog, Luigi, got stolen (deep sigh). It happened outside a friend's house. He was there for, like, two minutes, and then he was gone. He was heavily tagged, and everybody in that neighborhood knows him. So we just put posters up everywhere. I stuck one the door because when we go on location, people always look on the outside of these things. I figure someone will find him eventually. People who don't have dogs don't understand. I called him the Ambassoder of Goodwill because everybody loved him. He was like a little Italian man in a Jack Russell terrier's body. (In an Italian accent) "Hel-lo, very nice-a to see you. You look-a beautiful, very nice. I'm-a going to kiss-a your wife's feet." Sometimes I feel like an idiot because people ask, "Why are you so depressed?" (Wistfully) "Because Weej is missing....." I lost a dog once when the airlines killed it. I thought it was the end of my world.

The airlines killed your dog? How?

You know how they put the cage on the little conveyor belt to take it to (the cargo hold). Apparently somebody had taken her off and placed her cage in front of the exhaust pipe of the conveyor belt. She had carbon-monoxide poisoning. She was alive for two weeks and then died. Six months later, I'd be at a nice dinner, and someone would say "How are you?" And I was like: "I'm fine. (Huge, gasping sob) My dog was.....killed!" And they're like, "Sorry I asked!" I'm trying to find another direction for my life other than the dissapearance of my dogs.When everything else is coming apart, your work must provide some solace. Especially when you're paired with attractive leading men.

Is chemistry an extension of the job, or does it just happen?

You know, I've experienced chemistry with people. It doesn't have to be sexual-it just makes you alive, makes you do things you didn't expect to do. It makes people watching the screen go, "There's something going on here"- and there is. But it doesn't mean you're going to go off and get married afterward- it just means that you enjoy each other's company. You know what else? When my humor clicks with someone else's. When you throw things out at the audition and they volley it right back, you're like "This is gonna befun!" That's what it was like with Bill Pullman. The minute he walked in the room.That sounds simple enough.When you do scenes where you have to look at somebody off-camera in a loving way, you feel like a complete ding-dong. How do you look when you're in love? But I would look off-camera, and Bill would give me one of those looks where you just melt, I would have heart palpitations. I had no problem looking at him and thinking, this guy is wonderful. I respect what he stands for as an actor and as a human being. He has a family, and he's a devoted husband, and he's great and funny.Around film sets, you are known as one who appreciates a good practical joke.

How elaborate are your pranks?

I don't do anything where somebody's going to get their eye put out, put it that way. But on the last show I did, me and a crew member had it out for each other in the best way. So I got a big fire extinguisher and I had someone tell him: "Go get Sandy. She's on the set and she's being difficult." He came out, and I completely doused him. Things like that. The panic of knowing that you're going to be walking around the corner and something's going to happen. It just keeps your energy going all day.

What's falls under the category of going too far?

Just don't draw blood, that's all I ask.

You're a hacker in 'The Net,' and in real life you subscribe to America Online. How often do you visit cyberspace?

I haven't been on in two months, because my modem broke. When I first got on AOL, I went on the chat lines. But I would always say something and nobody would ever respond. And I'd feel like: "Hello! Hello! Doesn't what I have to say matter to anybody out here?" I hated that.

Here are a few questions that your AOL fan base suggested that I ask you: "Has she ever met other Washington-Lee (high school) graduates?

They are Warren Beatty and Shirley McLaine."I worked in a movie- Wrestling Ernest Hemingway- with Shirley McLaine and never got to meet her. I've never met Warren Beatty. I've seen Warren Beatty, though.

Where?

I was standing on Melrose Avenue with a friend. I looked like garbage. All of a sudden, Warren Beatty drove by in a beautiful black car with the window down. It was almost like in slow motion. I was saying to myself, "Oh my God, that's Warren Beatty." And then my friend screamed, "Oh my God, that's Warren Beatty!" He was, like, staring straight at us, looking beautiful and probably thinking, those are the most uncool people on Melrose Avenue.

More than one of your followers wants to know, "What's Sandy's favorite food?"

My No. 1 favorite food is Kentucky Fried Chicken, extra crispy, with mashed potatoes, biscuits and corn on the cob. This is something I just can't do without.

Several people wrote about Mrs. Filpi, your high school drama teacher.

Why?(Laughs) Mrs. Filpi and I had this love-hate thing going. I always questioned authority. Especially in drama class. It was funny because she would often get on my case. She'd say, "If you make a D in this class, don't ask me why." Then, of course, I would give it that pregnant pause and then say, "Why?" (Laughs)

You mouthed off to Mrs. Filpi?

When you're young and you don't know how to home in on what you have, you behave in nightmarish ways. That's what Mrs. Filpi got tired of. But I think we reached a level of respect at the end of the last year of school. We had to do these monologues, and I was like (defiantly), "I'm not even going to bother memorizing one, because I'm just so over this!" So I just rambled for two minutes about being a beautician in a mortuary. At the end, she was like: "Great! Where did you get that?" And I said (cautiously), "Well, what grade did I get?" And she said, "You got an A." And I said, "Will I still get the A if I tell you that I have no idea what I just said?" I'm sure I gave her a couple of gray hairs (laughs).

Even though we're adults, when it comes down to basic needs and wants, we're still essentially the same people we were in the seventh grade.Based on that theory, describe yourself in the seventh grade.

Oh my God! I was a little behind the times- or a little ahead of the times. I couldn't quite figure out which. I was still in the velvet green bell-bottoms when everybody else was wearing straight legs, because I'd just come back from Germany. And I always had these stupid little barretes holding my hair back. I was just a couple of beats off.

You weren't "Most Likely To Succeed"?

Actually, I was voted "Most Likely to Brighten Up Your Day"- I was so proud when I went up there and won that award. I wasn't going to rule the world or be president, but I was going to make you laugh or make your day a little better. That's why I think I'm attracted to comedy so much- it's really hard to make people laugh. Most of the time they've heard it all. If you can come up with something new, that makes them feel good.

Let's talk about your early life as a globe-trotter. Your mother was an opera singer who often worked in Europe- did it bother you to be constantly uprooted?

As a kid you hate it- we were constantly being carted back and forth during opera season. But now the things that I know how to do! I can knit you a sweater in four days. I can speak German. I can show you the place in Salzburg where Mozart was born. I think my sister and I are incredibly open-minded people. We're not afraid to travel, to be thrown into things. When I have kids, I want them to be that way. Even though my mother took me kicking and screaming half the time, now I look back and I think it's a really good thing.

While self-sufficiency is a positive thing, recall a recent experience that made you wish you'd brought company along.

I went to Beverly Hot Springs the other day, and I was tired, I still had make-up on, and I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden I hear "Sandy? Sandy?" I can't see-it's steamy, it's foggy. I'm naked, getting scrubbed and massaged, and somebody's caling out my name. You know, it's weird. But at least it was somebody I knew really well.

And you went there alone because......?

I'm trying to force myself to do things like that. This is my discovery period. This is the first time I've been alone.....since I was born, I think. Being by myself has been a long, really tough adjustment period. It makes you painfully aware of who you really are, as opposed to who you put on when everybody else is around. (Pause) Not that I like it all the time. Sometimes it's miserable, because you come home, and it's dark, and it's late, and you're thinking: I am so alone right now. I just want somebody to brush my hair, tuck me into bed, turn on the alarm.

Do you socialize out of necessity, or is it a natural impulse for you?

I'm the kind of person who wants to know how to do it all myself. That way, I don't have to call up everybody and burden them. But I'm getting to the point now where I know how to do it all by myself. I'm at the point where I'm like: "I'm tired of being responsible. Will somebody else drive the car please?" I'm going through this period where I wish I had it in me to be irresponsible, late, rebellious, stay out until five o'clock in the morning. I wish I was not so much about being on time, always having it together- when, in fact, I want to be a slacker. I want to be somebody who has a bag of stuff and just goes.

When do you plan to put this personality adjustment into effect?

I had this epiphany: After I finish these next two films, I'm going to get three friends-one friend I always go on vacation with is Samantha (Mathis)- and we're going to get a big old RV with televisions and VCR's and great music, and drive from one end of the United States down through the bottom. So what if it's two miles to the gallon? I don't care. I'm going to Nashville. I'm going to Elvis' house. To New Orleans. I'm going to eat grilled-cheese sandwhiches the whole way and let my skin break out. I'll never change out of my overalls.

Do you believe, as some therapists do, that dreams are your anxieties revisited in a creative way?

I have dreams where I go on the set and forget my lines. I have dreams with (other cast members) in them. "The Net" I probably couldn't have done a year ago. "While You Were Sleeping", I never would have been able to do except for at that time- I was going through a really rough period.......I'm sorry. I'm lost. What are we talking about?Dreaming. I'm getting to the dreaming part. (Laughs) I ramble sometimes. In fact, I can take care of three different conversations at once. My friends get that Ricki Lake look.Don't you love that look that Ricki gets when things get out of hand? Like she can't believe what's happening? That's the way my friends look at me sometimes. Like, "I'm scared!"

You remodeled your house yourself. What's your technique for making construction skills seem nonthreatening to guys.

I don't do that good of a job. (Laughs) I'm good at what I'm good at, and other things I can't do. But I like people who work with their hands, who create with their hands. I don't care whether it's ripping things out or writing, painting or sculpting. Because I can't do that. I can barely write letters. I can't even draw stick figures. But I can lay tile, knock down walls. I do as much manual labor as I can because it stops me from thinking, gives my mind a rest. And there's this satisfaction when someone walks into my house and says, "Great floor!"and I go"Thanks I did that myself." I love that. But I'm not intimidating at all. To somebody who's never lifted a hammer I might be intimidating, but those aren't the kind of people in my life. Everyone I know is really good with a hammer.

In order to have a romantic relationship with you, must a man know his way around a Sears tool department?

It would be preferable that he did. Because I do. If he didn't know his way around the Sears tool department, I wish he'd know his way around the M.A.C.cosmetics counter. Because he should know something that I do or something that I don't. It would be great to be involved in a romantic relationship with someone who knew what a drill and a bit were. Or at least be willing to learn.

What's the most startling place you've ever seen a likeness of yourself?

My sister. (Laughs) No, the scariest place I've ever seen a likeness of me is on a pinball machine. Once I went into a bar and my friend goes, "Oh my God." And I looked at this pinball machine for five minutes before I realized it wasSylvester, Wesley, and me. Then it was "Oh my God! Do I look like that?" And you do......but you're thinking, I thought I was so much hotter than that. (Laughs) I had that futuristic (Demolition Man) hairdo. That was a shock, because when I started that film, my hair was down to here (points to the middle of her back).

How did you feel about completely transforming your appearance?It was very liberating. You know why?

A friend of mine told had told me, "You're like Stevie Nicks with this mane of hair that you just hide behind." So I thought, okay, maybe I need to get used to not using it at a shield. So they cut it off, and I felt like I had a whole new life. I bought a whole new wardrobe. And by the end of the week......I hated it. I have such thick, wild hair that I looked like Roseanne Roseannadanna. It just wasn't me.

And a "you" haircut would be?

"Speed" was more like a "me" haircut because it was more shredded. If anything is too perfectly laid out, I can't deal with it. I need to be able to look messy. I like hair to look real. This is my hair. They'll say, "Sandy, face facts: You can't look like a pig. You have to look somewhat attractive on this film." And I'm like (doggedly) "It's not real." So I try to find a happy medium. I can understand that no one wants me with a garbage can over my head. But if I'm supposed to have been running for an hour? I should be out of breath, sweaty. I hate it (in movies) when some one had been madly making out and they still have a full face of make-up. What's that about? When I'm doing that, my make-up starts on one side and winds up on the other.

A 'Speed' question: What was going through your head as you were sliding out from the bottom of the bus with Keanu Reeves?

The thing was, my dress kept flying over my head as we were sliding. They tried two-sided tape, but it kept blowing up. So I asked Keanu to hold it down. All he kept hearing was "Hold down my dress. Just hold down my dress." I mean, wouldn't you worry about that? I had no time to think, Oh, this is nice. All I was thinking was, Oh my God, I'm going to be naked!

Much has been made of your Everywoman appeal. Do you think, as your marquee value rises, that audiences will continue to buy you in working-class roles like the token-taker in "While You Were Sleeping"?

I do think that I could always play a token-taker if I wanted to. You know, some people are just glamourous, and you think: You're a movie star. You can't help it because you're gorgeous. You have it, you like it, you are that way. People don't look at me that way. (Laughs) But, like everyone, I have my moments when I feel sexy and good, and then I work it for everything it's worth. I go to the grocery store, I go to the mall, and I work it. I stop when they whistle and I say (benevolently) "Thank you." (Laughs)

Recall a time and place when you felt like everything was working.

I love to go into clubs and dance. That's when I feel sexy- I know I'm sexy. (Pause) I might be living in my own little world here, you know? (Laughs) When I go to Salsa and Latin clubs, when me and my partner are dancing to great music, a different side of me comes out. I dress differently. The skirts are short, you wear the higher heel, the tighter top. You know, your hair is everywhere. I suddenly become Charo. I am Charo reincarnated. (In a dramatic hiss) "Don't speak to me! I'm s-s-smokin'!"

Do you think that personal happiness comes from knowing how to duplicate that self-assurance, or accepting that it comes and goes?

Half the time I have no idea what I'm doing. The only thing I know is that I seem to barrel into things. I get going in a direction, and I have to ride it out. Then I get bored with that and go in the next direction. It justs depends on the day. Some days I have it together, and I feel good about myself. Other days I'm in my car, and I almost kill entire families because I'm "off" for some reason. These days, instead of worrying about it I tell myself: "You know what? I think this is what they call life, and I think I'm just going to stay and deal with it."