Sandra Bullock: The Star Next Door

Sandra Bullock parlayed her role as the Everygirl bus driver of Speed into a career so hot she's making four back-to-back films and counting--at a couple of million each.

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It used to be that a girl would have this town eating out of her palm for the way she tossed a mane of hair and slid off a pair of gloves. Or the way she slinked across a Steinway crooning a torch song. Or how she ray-gunned space aliens into kingdom come. Sandra Bullock got Hollywood eating out of both her palms for the way she drove a bomb-rigged bus all over the urban sprawl of L.A. Last year's high-rpm low-brainer Speed made a zillion bucks and plunked Bullock in the driver's seat for a good couple of years of starring roles in biggish movies, including, probably, another Speed. Already raking in, post-Speed, a reported $2 million per, Bullock boasts a schedule so clogged it knocked her out of the running to play the captivating Sabrina opposite Harrison Ford, as well as the Caped Crusader's love interest in Batman Forever.

Meanwhile, with three movies due out this year, she seems to be everywhere. Looming large on magazines' yearly "hot" lists. Wowing Dave on his talk show. Presenting an MTV Music Award. Why, even the town's hottest celebrity deli is fighting for the chance to name a dish after her. But what would the dish be? Would it be the Sandra Bullock Steak Bomb? Or, maybe, the Sandra Bullock Vol-au-Vent--lots of puff, not much inside? Bullock has so far struck me as wholly likable, kind of an un-neurotic, comfy, man-on-the-street's Julia. So, as we're sitting down for a Sunday morning powwow at Larry Parker's diner. I clench my teeth and wonder: is This Instant's Brownette going to be full of herself?

Bullock turns up right on time, fresh-faced, in farmer bib overalls, emitting an instantly friendly, baggage-free vibe. Smiling up from the menu, from which she can select such star delicacies as Wesley Snipes's Grilled Chicken Breast or Michael Jackson's Hot Tuna Melt, she orders a gooey slope of cheese fries as a side for a BLT and recites the recipe for her celebrity deli sandwich. "The Sandra Bullock Sandwich has to be marsh-mallow fluff and peanut butter on toasted white bread. I told them, 'If you're going to do it right, you have to make it with good fluff, not the cheap fluff, and the bread can't be mushy, it has to be toasted crispy. But the bread's definitely white.'" Hmmm. She certainly sounds hip to herself.

"What do you make of all this post-_Speed_ Sandra Bullock hoopla?" I ask her, hoping to find out exactly how hip to herself. "I look at it this way," she declares. "Lots of people in this town go with what's 'hot' at the moment--you know, like, that's who you should make movies with or, socially, that's who you should be with in a relation-ship. The mistake people make is to jump in and go for something that's like a nice, shiny new sports car rather than looking at a Chevy that'll last you your entire life. A Chevy is, you know... nice. It'll always come back into fashion. Things always come around every three years. I'll always be in fashion every three years." So, she's closing in on Porsche-level salaries for her movies and she compares herself to a Detroit workhorse? Let the fun begin.

First, however, Bullock obviously wants to check me out, too. "Do you pick the people you interview or do the magazines say, like, 'We want you to do this Speed girl?'" I tell her that, as a free agent. I say yes or no, and add, "If you're asking if I liked Speed. I thought it was a piece of shit. Did I like you in it? Sure." Bullock lets out a loud guffaw. "I love the fact that you say it's a piece of shit." she says. "Most people go on and on, 'Oh. I love that movie." But look, it was what it was. I read Speed and I remember thinking, 'Now, why do I want to do this?' Everyone was telling me, 'I don't think you should do it.' But I was like. 'Hey, I'm not doing anything right now and I want to go have some fun.' Everyone on it had a warped, twisted sense of humor and it turned out fine, didn't it?"

At this point, Bullock is merrily wagging her head and boogying in our booth as the deli's video monitors blast out vintage "Soul Train" clips. The TV screens erupt with an afro-coiffed dancing machine writhing in electric lime green, skintight polyester. "Oooh, yeah, here we go," she shouts, beaming, dancing with him in her seat like her back ain't got no bone. "Hippity-hop, hippity-hop, baby. Do the Funky Cowboy! Oh, my God, I love 'Soul Train.' Starring Mr. Don Cornelius, the man with the lowest voice who never, ever aged. What is it about dance show hosts, anyway? Like Dick Clark, too. Forever young." The waiter, who's been setting out more of our grub during Bullock's "Soul Train" epiphany, looks that close to proposing marriage.

"I really eat sloppy,'" she warns once the waiter's gone. "I'm such a slob that I figure instead of going against it, go with it and palm it off as my style." Sure enough, she drops a fry splat on the tabletop photo collage featuring Angelyne, the pneumatic. Dynel-wigged, aged sex kitten whose billboard ads bombard this city. "And everything she's got is totally real," I josh, noticing Bullock eyeing Angelyne 's improbable gazongas. "Gravity is not that kind," she fires back. Sighing, she muses. "Angelyne, now that's famous."

No two ways about it, Bullock is pretty famous right now. In fact, just as I'm about to ask what sort of fan reaction she sparks these days from mall rats, two young guys who've been pretending not to watch her since we walked in sidle over to our table. They're 17, 18 tops, and cute as hell, all gelled hair, Beverly Hills-style hip threads and moves that shout "Actor!"

"You came out in Speed, right?" asks the Billy Baldwin-in-training of the pair. Bullock answers with a nod and a moonbeam grin. The second kid, a Doogie Howser type, chimes in, "But you came up in Demolition Man with Stallone and. like, in that other one that never came out, with River Phoenix?" Only in this town would someone remember the star-crossed The Thing Called Love, in which Bullock sang a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll alongside Phoenix, Samantha Mathis and Dermot Mulroney. "Yup," she says, cheerfully rifling through her bag for a pen to autograph the napkins they've handed her.

"How old are you?" they bark, almost in unison. "Twenty-eight," she answers, which slays them. "Man, you look so much younger." says one.

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