Sandra Bullock: There's Something About Sandy

Q: Was this why you'd already moved away from LA.?

A: I'd found myself changing neurotically in L.A. I didn't like who I was. I was afraid of being one of those people who said, "Oh my God, if I don't do these big commercial films I may never work again."

Q: So you're up to something different now?

A: I love the idea of getting back to smaller films. Nothing makes me happier than pulling together creative, wonderful people and hammering out short films. What's nice is you get to develop a writer/director and have the option to work with them again on a larger level.

Q: It's good to see that you are having fun with the money you're earning doing features.

A: To me that's why you make this kind of money, so you can have this great creative space to do what you want.

Q: These changes in your life seem to be related to the changes you made in the people helping you manage your career.

A: There were good reasons for what I did. I'd worked with my lawyer and manager for a long time, and I didn't want to work with them any more. I left my agent over a year ago. I didn't have the sounding board I needed to help me look at things. It was, "Here, they're offering you umpteen million dollars" and then, "Here's the script, read it." I didn't want someone else's need to make money forcing me to make decisions. And I had no one there to tell me what was happening in my life. It was cash, cash, cash, scripts, scripts, scripts. No one said to me, "Take your time. Worry about your work rather than the money that you're making." It got to a point where I sat down with the people who were working for me and saw that their agenda went one way and mine another. Nobody got sued. Everyone got their money.

Q: Your dad took over some of these functions after that, right?

A: My dad had been involved with me since I started in this business. I called him and said I made all these decisions and didn't understand the documents I'd signed. He got on a plane the next day and two days later was with me. How many fathers would drop their entire life for less pay, less reward, no artistic reward whatsoever? It's shitty work. My dad had to kick my butt into thinking a different way. He'd say to me, "Look at all the mistakes you've made. Look at how you signed away things. This is the money you had, and this is what you could have had." He's a brilliant businessman. It took me two years to deconstruct and be rebuilt so that I could run this production company. I hated every minute of it, but now I look at things differently and I appreciate things far more.

Q: Does your father run your production company?

A: No. I have all these projects that I do and I need him to run all the financial stuff. How do I make a contract and what do I do with the money? Every day it's, "Dad, I want to buy this old building and restore it. I want to make this indie film." And he'll tell me, "You just lost $150,000 making this indie, let's think about this." He's not a producer, he doesn't want to act or make films, it's not what he's about. He's there to help me decide what building I want to buy, what stock market investments should be made, what fun things in the computer world we should be playing with.

Q: He wants to take care of his baby.

A: This is someone who has my best interests at heart. He's not like Macaulay Culkin's dad who wants to come in and take over his child's life because he didn't get what he wanted out of his career. My dad got everything he wanted, but he gave it up earlier than he should have to help me. That's family. They say never work with friends and family, but I say always work with friends and family.

Q: How many of your films do you feel have held up?

A: Speed. While You Were Sleeping. Hope Floats.

Q: Hope Floats did OK at the box office, but several critics felt it suffered because Harry Connick Jr. lacked the "dream-boat appeal" the script called for.

A: I disagree. We didn't want your stereotypical hunk. It would have been a sad day for me if anyone else had done it.

Q: Hope Floats seemed a particularly hard time for you. You've said that you had a broken heart.

A: Everybody's got a broken heart. If you didn't ever have a broken heart you're not a well-rounded human being.

Q: It was assumed that your heartbreak had to do with Matthew McConaughey. True?

A: No, it had nothing to do with Matthew.

Q: What's your feeling about McConaughey now?

A: Nothing that I can ever say will explain what Matthew is in my life, but the one thing I can say is that two people met at a time when what one lacked in life the other was the only person who could supply it. The admiration I have for him and I know he has for me, it's something that's so rare in life you can't explain it. No matter where we are when we see each other, the whole world falls away. I feel he's always watching my back. He's one of the best friends I could ask for. He's never asked for anything in return.

Q: I hate to quote only from bad reviews, but as you know, those are the ones people remember. When you and Chris O'Donnell made In Love and War, The New York Times called it "unremittingly bland" and described your performance as "flat and without personality."

A: This was a time when I didn't know how much I could fight, for something or against. I wound up making some stinkers and had to work my way out of that. I wish I knew these lessons earlier. I don't set out to make rotten films, but I have. The best thing that happened to me was to get slammed. And the straw that broke the camel's back for me was Speed 2. If it's not working, speak up.

Q: But did you realize when you read the script for Speed 2 that there was a problem?

A: The fact was, Titanic wasn't out and Fox wanted to get something out so this was rushed. They kept promising that the script was going to get better. I can't pull things out of my rear end to make a scene. We had 12 cameras going and the stuff that Jason and I did, we should be dead.

Q: Why do you think Keanu Reeves bailed?

A: He was at a point in his life where he didn't want to be a part of something big. I respected that. I just wish somebody had told me! But as hard as that experience was, and as angry as I was when I saw the final cut, when I wanted to do Hope Floats I went to Fox and said, "This is a little movie, it's a chick flick. Either people are going to hate it or the few people who are going to get it are gonna get it, but we're not spending a lot of money here." And they were really good about it. We all learned a really hard lesson from Speed 2. I will never do a sequel.

Q: Never say never.

A: I will never do a sequel.

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