Over the past couple of years, Sandra Bullock has evolved from the wisecracking sweetheart-next-door to a wised-up, self-protective, enterprising woman with a life. Here she talks about sweating through her new film with Ben Affleck, Forces of Nature, struggling through her company's new production, Gun Shy, and breaking out of the prison of "cash, cash, cash, scripts, scripts, scripts."
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There's something about Sandy that's different from Mary--or Cameron or Julia or Meg or Demi. Something that makes her the kind of girl (she's 34, but "girl" seems the correctly affectionate term) audiences embrace. Even when she appears in movies that drop out of sight quickly, she's still the gal we love to watch. That's what the People said in January when they gave her the People's Choice Award for favorite movie actress. It isn't that she's dripping with sexuality or that she can do any accent and pass for a native speaker. It's that she looks like somebody you can trust, and she throws out sarcasm with the right balance of sincerity and leg-pulling, and she's enjoyable to watch whether you're a man or a woman. She's the star who still wears bobby pins in her hair, who squints without glasses, who prefers junk food to haute cuisine, who doesn't do drugs but will chug a beer and lick the foam from her upper lip. She always seems to be giving her best effort, and because of that, we root for her and applaud her perseverance.
Two economics professors recently reported that according to their esoteric statistical analysis of box-office winners, Sandy was one of the two surest keys to a movie's ultimate financial success. So is she worth the $11 million she reportedly got paid for Hope Floats? Well, the movie did over $60 million and is still strong at the video stores. Speed, the movie that made her famous, grossed over $121 million; the modestly budgeted While You Were Sleeping (1995) grossed over $80 million; A Time to Kill raked in $109 million. But too many lukewarm efforts like The Net and Practical Magic, not to mention outright bombs like Two If by Sea, In Love and War and Speed 2: Cruise Control, and Hollywood's confidence in you gets shaken.
Sandra Bullock wasn't just thinking about her box-office clout a few years ago when she got rid of her management team. She just didn't like the choices she'd been making. So she started her own production company, brought in her father and lawyer sister to help her with business affairs, sought out smaller, more comfortable films to make, and began to finance low-budget independent films for her friends to work in. You can trust that whatever Sandy is doing now, it's exactly what she wants to be doing. Certainly her teaming up with Ben Affleck in Forces of Nature is something to look forward to. And the first film her company has independently produced, the tentatively titled Gun Shy with Liam Neeson and Oliver Platt, will be worth checking out, too.
LAWRENCE GROBEL: I saw The Blue Room on Broadway and went backstage to talk to your Practical Magic costar Nicole Kidman, and she said to say hello to you.
SANDRA BULLOCK: I saw the play in London. She was so magnificent. I was so proud of her.
Q: Could you do something like that--play five roles, appear in the nude eight times a week?
A: Not that role. They were right there, with no TV screen to make the separation. Usually I get embarrassed--though I love naked people as much as anybody else--but it was beautifully done. The fact that she has that body, I hate her so much! It made me want to start fasting. She's elegant, she's like royalty. That's why she's able to pull off certain roles, whereas I probably couldn't.
Q: I understand you were once naked on the Internet.
A: Yeah but it wasn't me--the boobs were much better. [Laughs] They were big, a nice rack. And they were not mine.
Q: You've just finished your company's first independent production, Gun Shy, starring Liam Neeson, haven't you?
A: I felt like I lost 10 pints of blood. I did more yelling and cursing about every fucking thing. But it was great.
Q: Was the yelling usually about money?
A: Always the fear of the budget running out. It was odd and really liberating being on the other side, seeing how disgusting the antics are between agents and clients. I was shocked. We had speakerphone conversations with agents where they'd threaten to pull their clients at the eleventh hour. And I thought, "Isn't it amazing? The business is overtaking the artistic side."
Q: The business usually overtakes the show in show business.
A: As an actor you're protected from that. You have no idea what your agent is doing on your behalf. I had no idea.
Q: Is there anything you thought of telling Liam Neeson about Jan De Bont, who directed you in Speed and Speed 2 and will be directing Liam in his next project, The Haunting of Hill House?
A: The thing about Jan is he does a certain type of film. When they're done well, they're really good; when they're bad, they are horrible! And I know--because I was a part of one of those horrible things, Speed 2. [Laughs]
Q: We'll talk more about Speed 2, but let's get to your new movie Forces of Nature first. What attracted you to it?
A: The script was wickedly funny. Perfect for me. I didn't want to work, but when I was doing looping for The Prince of Egypt Jeffrey Katzenberg asked me to please read the script. What was I going to say, "No, Mr. Katzenberg"? So I read it and realized it would be stupid to pass it up. Then I met with Ben [Affleck], who was, of course, late. Ben shows up on what we refer to as "Ben Time." But he's so bloody charming he gets away with it.
Q: Did you enjoy making the picture?
A: It was hot, a difficult shoot. Cast members and crew were dropping like flies because of the heat--110 degrees in Savannah in the middle of summer. We smelled so bad.
Q: When you finished it you said you didn't want to act again for a year. Was it that draining?
A: When I finished Forces of Nature I had too many other things in my private life that I wanted to enjoy. I felt like I was at a junior high school level in terms of my mental state. I didn't want to talk any more about what designer I was wearing. I'd done nothing to contribute to the growing of my brain. There were too many conversations I was drawn into where I felt I was immature and wasn't educated enough. I had a great upbringing in Europe--I was very educated on a lot of different levels, but not the levels that I felt I'd gone into.
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.
Q: On Practical Magic, one reviewer quipped, "It's Barbie joins a coven time."
A: That was The New York Times. Practical Magic was a whimsical, magical tale all about women, definitely a chick flick. It's all a matter of taste.
Q: You turned down Batman Forever because it conflicted with While You Were Sleeping--any regrets about that?
A: They talked about me for Batman Forever, but I wasn't the type they wanted. I wasn't pretty enough. That's the word that got back to me. But While You Were Sleeping I wanted so badly. I auditioned left and right for that. I love that film.
Q: Were you pleased with your looks as you grew up?
A: No. Never, until years later when I'd look back and say, "I like who that person is." Why didn't I like her at the time? I don't know anybody who goes, "God, I am so beautiful."
Q: I think Raquel Welch did.
A: She still should. She looks fantastic. I'm not a confident person in that department, nor do I want to be. I don't want to rely on it because once it's gone, what do you do with yourself?
Q: What did you look like as a teen?
A: I was a total dork.
Q: So you weren't among the most popular kids in your class?
A: I was the target in school and I got the shit kicked out of me, because I was from Europe. I cried and ran. I'm glad that I got my ass literally kicked the way that I did. What it did was make me more aware of how I treat people. You think twice before making a crack or being cruel to someone.
Q: So you learned early on how to deal with rejection?
A: I deal better with rejection than I do with success.
Q: I noticed that when Two If by Sea flopped you said it felt good. And you've said you like rejection because it made you more competitive. Are you alone among actors in liking rejection?
A: It's not like I like to have my teeth kicked in, but if you don't go through the hardships in growing up you're not going to appreciate when things are going well. Especially in this business.
Q: Since I've quoted all the other bad reviews, I might as well add that The New York Times called Two If by Sea "inert and oddly confused."
A: They're right, that's exactly what it was. The fault was that they put me in the film. Because the company that made it just saw While You Were Sleeping and wanted so badly for it to be like that, they crushed the spirit of their film.
Q: What's your take on Denis Leary?
A: He's a fucking poet. You have to use the word fucking, because every other word he says is "fuck." He's going to amaze people one day with what he can do.
Q: Let me ask you about some of the other leading men you've worked with. Say whatever pops into your head. Jeff Bridges.
A: Passed out in his lap. That was my first big film The Vanishing and I passed out in Jeff Bridges's lap and I thought, "I made it!"
Q: Did anything stir?
A: Not that I was aware of, no. But I was plenty happy just to lie in his lap and look up at him. Chicks dig him.
Q: What about River Phoenix, with whom you did The Thing Called Love?
A: Didn't know him that well. He felt too much, but wasn't able to handle how he felt about things in this world.
Q: Sylvester Stallone, with whom you made Demolition Man?
A: A dear. He was very kind to me.
Q: Keanu Reeves.
A: Keanu's special. I call him Fuzzy. He's a beautiful human being.
Q: Do you think his career has been mishandled?
A: No, he does exactly what he wants to do. He has people around him who allow him to do that. Every choice he makes, he makes himself.
Q: Chris O'Donnell.
A: No one can spin me over his head quicker. There's never a moment when you're not thrown over his shoulder. He's Party Boy.
Q: Jason Patric.
A: He hates it when I talk about him. He's the only person I know who's ever taken the time to figure me out.
Q: Are you in a relationship now?
A: No. I don't want a relationship right now, there's too many other things going on. I wouldn't wish myself on anybody. I'd just do damage. I'm where I'm supposed to be. I'm incredibly happy.
Q: How many serious relationships have you been in?
A: I've had two four-year relationships. The others, not that they weren't serious, but they were two years.
Q: Was your four-year relationship with Tate Donovan the great romance of your life?
A: We had such a live relationship, we grew up together, and that's why we've remained friends. We didn't always do the right thing. We had a year where we couldn't be together, but now it's fine. When I look back on it, I really have to say I've only known what love is just recently.
Q: What makes a guy a good kisser?
A: Soul. You can't hide how you feel in a kiss. You can hide it in everything else.
Q: How often in your life have you experienced where your mouth absolutely fits with another person's mouth?
A: No one's ever asked me that. It's a really great question. [Pauses] Once. And the sad thing is, you spend the rest of your life looking for it again. There's nothing like it.
Q: So can I ask who it was?
A: You can ask, but I'm not going to tell you.
Q: You keep a high wall around your personal life, don't you?
A: I don't bring my trash into the public world. I mean, I get into trouble, I explore, I have a great time like everybody else, but my private life is private.
Q: How private is private?
A: I've been almost violently private--my mother will attest to this. If she asked who I was talking to on the phone, it would flip me out. "Where were you?" It's none of your business!
Q: Have you had great secrets to be so private about?
A: Oh yeah.
Q: Can you give me an example from when you were a child?
A: I don't think so. I've got so much stuff, I don't know what I want to let out of the bag. I store my journals in a locked closet. If somebody read them it would be horrible. I code names all the time, but then I forget who people are. I went back and read something about a person I code-named "Carrot." Who's Carrot?
Q: Growing up, was sex always a very private thing?
A: Oh yeah. Anything that was intimate between me and somebody else I would never share. Now I'm a lot more open. I have friends who are like steel drums--they've proven themselves. I've got nothing to worry about, and I've got enough garbage on them.
Q: Did your parents ever try to talk to you about life, sex, strangers?
A: No. I was very rebellious and wild. I later found out that my mother was exactly the same way--ahead of her time in Germany, expressive, free. What scared her was that these times are not as protected as those times, and she feared I would get myself knocked up.
Q: Did you hold on to your virginity until college?
A: Yeah, I did. The end of my freshman year. That's important information that I'm sure the world needs to know.
Q: You mean the world doesn't yet know this?
A: I've never been asked about losing my virginity before.
Q: Was it something you were afraid of doing?
A: No.
Q: Was it fun?
A: It's always fun. Even when it's not fun, it's fun. There were no fireworks. It was neither here nor there--it just was.
Q: What kind of kid were you?
A: My grandmother said I was the Devil's spawn, that I was Satan. Because I talked back, I never did what I was told. I really should have had more respect for the teachers I had. It was my insecurity.
Q: Did you ever steal anything?
A: Sure. Stole money from my mom's purse.
Q: How often did you want to kill your younger sister, Gesine, who now works for your production company?
A: I hated her so much. I was so jealous, because she was the cutest little thing when she was born. I was four--and it was just wrong that this cute person came into the world. I was a horrible sister.
Q: Your musical side comes from both your parents--your father was a vocal coach, your mother an opera singer.
A: They're brilliant people. I had role models who were exceptional, and also incredibly human. My father's a Renaissance man: brilliant opera singer, voice teacher, wonderful carpenter, builder of houses, painter, gardener. My mother was an incredibly successful opera singer in Europe. She was young and beautiful and strong and had a very similar voice to [Maria] Callas--a very rich, almost painful soprano which was haunting.
Q: Who inherited the musical talent, your sister or you?
A: We both did. We both played piano for years. She danced ballet, I did jazz. She has a better voice. Our tastes are different. That's why I love her opinion, we come at things from different avenues. That's why I need her. She's smart--she passed the bar. Our smarts are in different places, they balance each other.
Q: Your sister's getting married before you. Any jealousy there?
A: Please, no. I would like to be married when I'm ready for it. And when I find THE guy. I haven't come across the guy I respect so much that I want to battle things out with yet. One day I will. Up until this year I wasn't ready to be that for somebody. I wasn't good enough to be someone's wife.
Q: How much of a control freak are you?
A: I used to be tremendously. Now I hear the words "I don't care" coming more and more out of my mouth. Unless it's something that I feel very passionately about.
Q: How often do you cry?
A: Lately I've been doing my share, but hardly ever.
Q: Is there a lot of sadness in your life?
A: Oh yeah, lately. It has to do with life and death. It happens to everyone--it's just that I'm dealing with mine now, and I don't like it. But oddly enough, I've never been happier.
Q: Are you dealing with family illness?
A: Everything. Not me. But it's that curveball.
Q: Have you experienced death yet?
A: Not yet. A dog. My grandmother, but she was really old, in Germany, and I wasn't there.
Q: Have you ever taken any hallucinogens?
A: Please, I can barely keep my mind together as it is. I've altered my mind, but not with hallucinogens.
Q: You've spoken in the past about being remorseful about lots of things: action, dress, comments. Still feel that way?
A: I question myself constantly. I wonder if I've done the things I should have done. A leaf falls and I feel guilt. You'd think I'm Jewish and Catholic, and I'm neither. These days what makes me remorseful is if I don't speak my mind. And not spending enough time with people I really love--my mom, dad, sister, close friends. I am so loved on a level that I feel I don't deserve, but I got it; they save my life all the time.
Q: What have you learned about fame that you didn't know before?
A: That it's nothing, has nothing to do with anything. You can't control it, it's not yours: It's a good publicist, and what great designer you happen to be wearing that week and who you're on the arm of. It's fleeting, as the fashions are. It's tricky and engulfing. For anyone looking for validation and to be filled up by it, it's painful to watch. It distorts. And it affects everybody. Anybody who says they're not affected by it, bullshit. I found myself doing things and later going, "I can't believe I did that." There's no way you're immune to it, nor can anyone prepare you for it.
Q: What are some of your favorite books?
A: Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving. Tuesdays with Morrie. Anything by Dr. Seuss.
Q: What are your three favorite films?
A: Cinema Paradiso. The Wizard of Oz. Sophie's Choice.
Q: Comedians?
A: Jerry Lewis. Carol Burnett. Jim Carrey.
Q: Quotes?
A: "Those who know do not speak, and those who speak do not know."
Q: Who are the men you most admire?
A: My father, Pablo Neruda, and a really close friend of mine.
Q: What band would you like to sing in?
A: Any authentic blues band. And I'd like to sing like Etta James.
Q: What kind of dreams do you have?
A: Very violent, very vivid. Extensive. Telling.
Q: What actor makes you grip your seat in the movies?
A: Oh my God, I'm so glad you asked this. Because I just watched Devil in a Blue Dress. Oh ... my ... God! Denzel Washington is so sexy... it's scary! I love that film.
Q: What's your favorite food?
A: Anything fried, pathetically. Kentucky Fried Chicken with the biscuit, a cold beer, and Dairy Queen. That's what I had on my birthday.
Q: Is there anything you collect?
A: Homes. I'm crazy about architecture and designing and redoing houses.
Q: Do you resell the homes once you're finished remodeling?
A: I should but I end up renting them out to friends. I'd rather have people living in it for next to nothing who will take care of it and love it, because it becomes so much a part of you.
Q: Your own home now is in Austin, Texas. How long have you lived there?
A: Almost two years. This was my opportunity to create heaven on a piece of land that I had in my head all my life. A stone French Provincial farmhouse, New Orleans-style balconies and porches, wide-planked flooring, all the textures and tiles I've saved from my travels.
Q: When did you find you had an ability to install toilets and tile floors?
A: At a young age. My dad didn't have a son, so when he started building something, I was out there.
Q: What happens when you use grout between the tile and an aluminum strip at a door entrance?
A; I always use wood. I hate aluminum. It's not a natural texture. And the grout won't stick to aluminum.
Q: You actually know what you're talking about. Besides remodeling, you love to dance. Why is dance important?
A: Dancing is such a natural part of who I am, I've been doing it all my life. It's one of the most liberating expressions of passion and sensuality.
Q: You were a waitress once. How big a tipper are you now?
A: I'm a huge tipper, because I know the shit they have to go through. I've got the money, I leave it on the table.
Q: Didn't you get held up at gunpoint once in those days?
A: I was leaving the place I worked at. It was some guy with a gun with an apple on top of it--I think he was pissed at Eve and was taking it out on me. He was really messed up. I couldn't understand a word he said except for "pussy." He dragged me into an alley. I had $189 and I certainly wasn't going to give it to him. And I told him if he wanted pussy it was going to be dead pussy because he'd have to shoot me. At first I thought about kicking the gun, because I was a dancer, but then I thought, what if it went off in my face? So I thought, if I turned and walked away he might shoot, but he might not hit my spinal cord. That's all I kept thinking. I walked back to the restaurant and I was fine.
Q: You noted once that every project that you pick parallels where your head is at--is that still true?
A: Yeah.
Q: How do your latest projects parallel your mind-set?
A: Once you see Forces of Nature you'll figure it out.
Q: Hey, that's not an answer.
A: I can't honestly help you on this one.
Q: OK, final questions. Why is wearing men's underwear sexy?
A: It just is. I love it. You're taking on the role of the guy. And they're just comfy.
Q: What about being with a guy who likes to wear your underwear?
A: I don't think so. [But] I had a boyfriend who was very funny, who put them on his head.
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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Nicole Kidman for the October 98 issue of Movieline.