18 marzo 2007
BEVERLY HILLS -- If the world wanted to be your gynecologist, you'd be prickly, too.
Case in point: Sandra Bullock, who at 42, sounds exasperated by queries concerning when,
if ever, she's going to pro-create now that she's married to motorcycle mogul Jesse James.
"Why are you guys wondering what's going on in my reproductive system?" responds Bullock
during a press conference at the Four Seasons to promote her new foray into psychological-paranormal
romance, Premonition. "I know it's a fun thing to print --'When is she going to get pregnant?'
It may happen; it may not. But I'm the luckiest woman in this room. I'm already blessed. I'm already there."
That's because, she explains, she already considers herself a mother to James' offspring. The
Monster Garage star has a daughter, Chandler, and a son, Jesse James Jr., by his first wife, as well
as a daughter, Sunny, by his second wife, porn star Janine Lindemulder.
"I have children," says Bullock. "I married into those children. I love those children.
My love for those kids as a co-parent is no less than if I'd had those kids biologically... I don't
see the difference between that and having your own children biologically."
It was another child -- Bullock's godson -- who was responsible, albeit unwittingly, for the
actress hooking up with James in the first place; she arranged for the young chopper aficionado
to meet his hero as a Christmas present. As you may have surmised, sparks between movie starlet
and bad boy mechanic flew; they were married in July 2005. "I would've never gone (to see
James) in a million years... It was one of those things and whatever else that happened
afterward surprised everyone, I'm sure."
Sound like it was fated to be? Bullock is noncommittal about such metaphysical matters, but destiny,
particularly of the romantic variety, has been cropping up in her work lately. In last year's
The Lake House, she and Keanu Reeves starred as lovers separated by time. In Premonition, which opened
Friday, Bullock plays a housewife who finds herself shifting inexplicably between the present-day and
the near -- and tragic -- future. "To me, they're two different scripts," she says, describing
The Lake House as primarily a love story while Premonition is "a beautifully written thriller that
had incredible depth and (was) incredibly complicated."
But neither, she insists, reflects a personal belief in pre-destination. "I don't know (about fate).
I know I can look at my life and everything that's happened and now I know why certain things have happened
and why I'm here today. And I go, 'Oh wow, that's interesting. If something I didn't like hadn't happened,
I wouldn't have something good on Monday...' But I also know you have an incredible amount of control
over your happiness. I think a lot of people wait for it to come. If you're complacent and miserable,
you really need to look at yourself and what you can do to fight to make your life (the one you want).
This is it. This is one life of this life we have... Some things you can't control, but why aren't
we fighting for our happiness?"
Fighting for one's happiness is, not coincidentally, one of the themes of Premonition, in which Bullock's
character, having experienced the future, tries to prevent the death of her husband (Nip/Tuck's Julian McMahon)
from happening. In doing so, it rekindles a marriage that, after years of kids and a mortgage, has grown chilly
and complacent. Bullock sees the film as exploring "the shattering of the American dream. It becomes a nightmare
because it doesn't fit everyone. If you try to squeeze yourself into get a house, marriage, two kids,
success equals monetary success, it will shatter most people because it will lock you in a corner."
Being locked into a corner, career-wise any way, is something any celebrity of her stature can identify
with. Bullock, who became a star with her sweetly comic turn in the 1994 action thriller Speed, cemented her
status as a box-office force by becoming the go-to girl for romantic comedies in the 1990s. In recent years,
however, she has ventured into more dramatic fare including last year's Oscar-winning Crash in which she played
the bigoted wife of a politician. How Premonition is received commercially or critically is something she
insists she no longer cares about. "I couldn't give a s--- about my status. My status has been knocked
off the pedestal so many times. If I don't perform exactly the way everyone expects you to perform, your
status is knocked off whether you like it or not. I couldn't control if people liked me in the beginning.
I'll never be able to control if they like me in the end. At some point, if you're lucky, you have that
great epiphany -- 'Why don't I just do what I like, read as little as possible (about myself) and try to
get your feelings hurt as little as possible and just do what your gut tells you is the right thing to do?'...
Tomorrow, everything could shift. It could all go to video graphics and holograms and (actors) are no longer
a viable commodity. So you just do your thing rather than looking externally because you will lose your
mind if you do that."
In fact, Bullock stipulated one condition before she agreed to star in Premonition --that the producers
would have to wait a year for the newlywed's honeymoon to end. "(I just wanted) to be married for a
year (without working)."
Bullock reveals her next film will likely mark a return to familiar territory for the rom-com veteran.
"I'm getting ready to finally put together a comedy after four hard (dramas)."
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