10 maggio 2007
There's no doubting that Sandra Bullock is a gifted comedienne. When she
portrayed an unlikely beauty pageant entrant in Miss Congeniality, international
audiences fell in love with her fumbling heroine, as they had earlier with her
hapless romantic in While You Were Sleeping and her manic woman-at-the- wheel in Speed.
After Miss Congeniality however, Bullock's movies began to fail. She
had good intentions for The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood,
which she also produced; her laconic cop in Murder By Numbers was a
little tired; while her teaming with Hugh Grant in Two Weeks Notice was
surprisingly tedious.
So she took a two-year break.
Bouncing back with an eclectic mix of movies and newly married to her biker
television presenter husband, Jesse James, she turned up at last year's Oscars
with her Lake House co-star Keanu Reeves, and was as surprised as
anyone when her more serious effort, Crash, became the big winner.
"I hopped up, ha ha ha," she cackles at the memory, "and I literally climbed
over Keanu to congratulate Paul (Haggis, the writer-director of Crash).
You know, nothing that I've ever done has been tagged as award-winning. I get
like Best Kiss or Best Hissy Fit. Keanu and I had Best Kiss two times. And
that's something to be written about," she adds sarcastically.
While Bullock recently reasserted her lovable leading lady status with her
biggest box-office hit to date, Premonition (yet to be released in
Australia) – a thriller where she foresees her husband's death – she is
determined to pursue quieter, meatier roles as well.
Her latest is as Nelle Harper Lee in Infamous, and Bullock is almost
unrecognisable as the dowdy, self-contained author of To Kill a
Mockingbird. The two women do, however, share a certain wit and nouse.
The second film to tell the story of Truman Capote and his writing of In
Cold Blood, Infamous may be a far better movie than last year's
Capote, for which Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Actor Oscar, but
there's no doubting that Capote benefited from releasing first.
We are meeting at the Venice Film Festival, in the Hotel des Bains (of
Death in Venice fame) and as Bullock enters the room she brings an
irrepressible energy with her. She opens all the windows. "Don't you like fresh
air? Look at those beautiful yachts out there!" she says gazing out lovingly
over the Mediterranean.
Relatively unadorned, the youthful 42-year-old wears a simple black dress
with frills and admits she prefers wearing black of late.
"Black, I love it. Why not? I used to always wear black and then I thought I
should incorporate colour. But the past couple of days I've wanted to wear my
black, so damn it, I'm going to. It's easier to travel with too."
In many ways, Bullock, who is hardly a creature of fashion, was in sync with
Harper Lee, who was not a big dresser either.
"It's fun to play someone who's glamorous and sexy but most of my films
aren't based on glamour and I'm not really looked at that way. That's a benefit
to me. We just let Nelle be natural and accentuated the things I would probably
spend most of my time covering up.
At that time in the early '60s all the women were enjoying the lipsticks and
the style that accentuated their beauty, whereas Nelle had such power and
comfort in herself.
Anyone who could write a book like that must have been completely
comfortable in her own skin. She was saying this is who I am, I'm going to have
the basic haircut from the barber and wear clothes that allow me to move."
Most importantly, Bullock found in the press-shy Lee a kindred spirit.
"The way I played it I was honouring what she chose not to do in life, why
she chose not to go for fame," she says.
"I think she was above it. She would never, ever promote or sell anything of
value to her – including why she and Truman ceased to be friends."
Bullock appreciated her disdain for public exposure.
"I understand the inclination to disappear. I guarantee no one has any idea
of what I am – outside of something that I want you to see," she insists.
Bullock was born in Virginia to an American actor and voice-teacher father
and a German opera-singer mother. Her mother's death in 2000 from cancer took
its toll on the actress and was another reason she needed a period away from work.
Now Bullock is clearly happy with where her career is heading. "I literally
took off two years and purposefully said no to work and lived life," she says.
"It's scary when you're not working, but you really have to pull yourself
away from it – and not work in order to be able to work again."
During the period she concentrated on producing the television sitcom,
The George Lopez Show and even appeared in several episodes. She admits
her penchant for renovating anything she can get her hands on has kept her busy
too. And there's more.
"I have a real estate company, I do architecture, I've opened a bistro, I
have a flower shop and we do a lot of charitable foundations like for New York
City kids," she reveals.
"I thought maybe I should buy this hotel and restore it," she says, waving
her arms around in the antiquated room where we are conducting the interview,
obviously on the hunt for a new project. "You could restore the artwork, bring
it back to its original form and then my husband goes, Stop! No more building."
Which brings us to the other big change in her life: the husband.
"Ahh they said it wouldn't last, they said it wouldn't work," she sighs of
her marriage. "Seriously though, it's happened at the right time for me. I feel
very, very blessed."
Bullock, who had previously been linked with Matthew McConaughey and Ryan
Gosling, and who was once engaged to Tate Donovan, married Jesse James, 37, in
July 2005 after a brief romance. Tall, thick-set and tattooed, James is a
descendent of the famed outlaw and a noted builder of custom motorcycles. He
found fame presenting cable TV show Monster Garage and has had two
previous marriages, the last time to a porn star named Janine Lindemulder. On
paper, not the Mr Right we might have imagined for Bullock, but it works.
"There's no doubting that my priorities have changed," Bullock admits.
"It's actually helped, because now a movie needs to be really, really, really
good for me to leave the house."
|
.gif){kind=small}