Allure (April 2000)
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With her role in
the edgy new movie 28 Days, a mouth like a trucker’s, and a model’s sexy strut,
Sandra Bullock is moving away from the girl next door.
SANDRA
BULLOCK IS THE UNCELEBRITY She hates cell phones. She spends
most of her time in Austin, Texas, obsessed by the house she's been building
for years. She walks into a restaurant in SoHo, assesses the noise level and
dimly lit tables, and suggests going somewhere that "isn't so trendy"
(never once letting on that celebrities like her are what makes a place trendy
to begin with). When a waiter shyly asks for her autograph, she obliges-and
engages him in a five-minute conversation about the brass hardware on the
restaurant's front door. She is, if such a thing is possible, even nicer than
the girl next door, an image that has followed her around like a lost puppy
since her breakout role in Speed in 1994. Betty Thomas, who directed Bullock in
this month's 28 Days, says the 35-year-old actress “should give lessons on how
to be a movie star. She's accessible to the entire crew on the set, and then
she can tune it all out and go in and play her role." As Gwen Cummings,
Bullock is an alcoholic party girl who's sent to rehab; Thomas admits,
"This is a tough subject. I picked Sandy for the part because she is so
accessible, and people feel that they know her. They might accept seeing her do
things they wouldn't accept from anyone else. She could be your sister, your
cousin, or you, on a really good day." As for real life, Bullock is
hard-pressed to recall a moment when she so much as vandalized something,
though she does have a vague memory of leaning over the rail of a bridge with a
can of spray paint in North Carolina during college. Even so, she promises that
she's done lots of risqué things--really, lots--she just has the good sense to
do them in private.
"I
read the script for 28 l7ays and
said
[to director Betty Thomas], `Don't cast me if you're going to make it really
sweet.' I've already got that element, and I'm not saying that I'm really
sweet, I'm just saying that there's something about me that will always back
down to nice rather than
attack.
And that's the baggage I come with-not that that's bad. There's a vulnerability
and a humour that's sort of self-effacing. Even though [my character is] making
a really nasty mistake, there's a lot of laughing involved. It's not like all
of a sudden I'm playing What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Something that comes
across, say, Angelina Jolie's desk probably would not come across mine, because
we're not considered for the same roles. But eventually, if there's something
that I want to play, I'll play it-if I want to be an actor for the rest of my
life. I'm in no hurry."
"Understandably,
it was really hard for any [rehab center] to let an actress go in to do a
little research. If I were a patient in there, I would've been like, `Tell her
to fuck herself.' But we found a great place where a counsellor said it was OK
to come into the group, and I entered as though I were one of them. A lot of the
people in the group were really angry-one woman left. The only way I figured I
could do this honestly was to go in as though I were there for a reason.
Everything there is based on confidentiality--each person says, `I pledge you
my confidentiality so I figured, ‘What have I got to lose?' When I left the
group, I kind of didn't want to go. I'd started this, I'd opened up a lot of
things for me, and I kind of wanted to finish."
"I've lived next door to people all my life. I don't know how cute
they think I am. '~hen I was little, I didn't really do anything bad-I'd just
do stuff like pull plants out of their yard, pot them, and resell them to them.
I made a lot of cash. I'd build skateboard ramps and put on plays and make
everyone come, cheesy stuff like that. I was just wild-I didn't mind getting
into anything or hooking up with anybody. When we were living in Germany, I was
always running around, and my mom said somebody came up to her and asked, `Does
anyone know who that gypsy child belongs to?' And my mother was like, `Uh,
that's my daughter."'
"When
I finished doing Gun Shy, which was almost all guys, it's like we had all
become Denis Leary I carried that truck-driver mouth into 28 Days, and then I
got around Betty, and everything with her was like, `Listen, you little fuck,
fuck, fuck, fuck.' It's kind of a guilty pleasure, being able to talk like
that. Towards the end of shooting, I couldn't stop--it's like I had Tourette's.
It took me awhile to curb back."
"When
I was picking out the dress to wear on stage, I wanted to go to a place where
no one would expect me to go. I needed the ultimate gown. My living room was
full of clothes from every designer on the planet. Then I pulled
out
this tiny little dress. It's amazing that it even fit over my kneecaps. So I
called Versace and told them I loved it. I wanted to copy Kirsty Hume's model
walk. I was trying to do that walk while carrying a mike-not easy If anyone
thought I was taking myself seriously, I could never have done it."
"You
see someone like Gwyneth or whoever looking great and you say, `That's great, I
would look good in that, too.' They're great marketing tools because I'll buy
whatever they have on. But one day I decided, `I like what I like to wear and I
know what I look good in. It's not a lot of things, but I know those few things
and I'll stick with them.' It's like I grew into my own skin and I knew the
clothes that made me feel comfortable and
sexy.
The other night I must have gone through about 20 tops to end up with this '70s
Wonder Woman T shirt. And it fit perfectly, it said what I wanted to say. But
there was a pile of shirts and sweaters all along the stairs. Some people have
a knack for getting dressed-I have temper tantrums."
"There's
one dress in particular from what my friends and I call the Pink Walrus Period.
I gained about 15 pounds for my part in In Love and War [1997), and I
decided to wear a pink satin Calvin Klein dress for the premiere. But I'd been
measured for the dress months before, so I had to pour myself into it. I was
busting out at the seams-I was a fat, shiny, pink walrus. [After the
screening,] I bent over to get in the car and busted the strap, and my boob fell out. My friend had to jump
out to get a sewing kit, and we drove in circles as we mended the dress. Do not
go pulling out pictures of that night. I will never buy your magazine again if
you ever..."
"Makeup
is scary. When I do it myself, it's just mascara, and sometimes I forget even
to do that. If I'm going out, I use an eyelash curler I like lip balm or gloss,
because I'm always chewing on my lips. Frederic Fekkai has a perfume, Beaute de
Provence, it's like a lemon; I like things that smell fresh. And I really ask
that other people try to use deodorant."
"About
two years ago, I started eating healthy. I love to run, and I do light weights
and exercises. On the .weekends, I give myself all the leeway in the world. I
love raw cookie dough, right out of the tube. The other thing I eat is
marshmallow fluff. Every time you break up, you lose a good five pounds. Then
you fall in love and you get huge. You start going out again, you get the new
boyfriend, you start going out
to dinner all the time. You wake up in the middle of the night, gnawing on
chocolate, `I'm so in love."'
"I
needed to create my own space to figure out who I was and develop my
personality again, because I really lost it somewhere between Love Potion No. 9
and Gun Shy. I had a personality that was good on the set, but the minute I
stepped off, I didn't know who I was. I didn't want to become somebody who was
so used to being on the set that I didn't know how to deal when I was at home.
There's a way that everyone takes care of you and you don't realize it until
you get into real life and you're dealing with Con Ed and you're like, `What do
you mean it can't be done?' And that's the nice thing about Austin-you get
things done, but you might have to slow down a little bit."
"At lunchtime, I have a construction team that throws sheets around
me or wraps me in paper towels, because if not, I'll come back with mustard on
my shirt. The wardrobe guy I work with once told me, `Clothes go to you to
die."'
"That's
like asking me to decide between my mother and my father. I'd pick me, since I
was their offspring on a movie of the week [Bionic Showdown in 1989]. We had a
very high [Nielsen] rating. I had bionic everything-the arms, the legs, the
ears. And I got the bionic music: Dee-dee-dee-dee. When 1 got that part, 1'd
just finished studying the [Sanford] Meisner technique at the Neighborhood
Playhouse, and I remember being on the set, and my character was in a
wheelchair, and 1'd
wheel
off to prepare for these great scenes, and then I'd wheel back. And people
would be like, `You're preparing to play a bionic teenager?' But seriously, if
those people hadn't given me a shot, I wouldn't have gotten Working Girl [the
1990 TV series], and I wouldn't have gotten the next thing and the next thing
and the next thing. My biggest break was being bionic. I know it, and I will
never deny it."
"I
was raised on opera-my mother's one of the most beautiful lyrical sopranos on the
planet. But if opera is done poorly, it's like Chinese water torture. And The
Sopranos is
pretty
good. So I'd choose that unless I know who's singing the opera."
"The
Grinch-because of that little dog with the antlers in front of the sleigh. It
gave me the idea to get Styrofoam antlers for my dogs and take their picture.
Friends of mine saw it and called it `The Dog in a Hat Syndrome': If you put a
hat on any dog, the dog just freezes and makes this face. [She makes a
humourless, very noble facial expression.] And I subject my dogs to the same
thing every yea r."
"I've
kind of swung towards Pumas, the old-style ones. I run in Nikes, and my
flip-flops are Adidas."
"Birkenstocks."
BIKINI OR A-? "Bikini."
"At
which time? During the day, I don't need a bra, so I usually run around in
these great DKNY little-strap camisoles. 1 live in them. When I run, I wear a
jogging bra. When I'm on a date, Wonder Bra with those gel fill-in
things."
"Cotton, and the highest thread count
possible." CHOCOLATE, VANILLA, OR STRAWBERRY? "Vanilla. No, wait, I
always get a mixture of vanilla and chocolate and then swirl it together."
COUNT CHOCULA, FRANKEN BERRY, OR B00 BERRY?
"I
don't know. I love cereal Golden Grahams, Sugar Pops, Fruit Loops. I like the
ones with more sugar, that look like something they're not-like in the shape of
a waffle, or a piece of toast."
"`Shit.'
I get it from my mom-it's very German."
WHO WOULD BE YOUR LIFELINES ON WHO WANTS TO
BE A MILLIONAIRE?
"My friend Dan, who knows everything on the planet. I don't think I
should mention his last name, but he knows who he is. And then my [younger]
sister, Gesine, who's so brilliant it kind of makes you sick. And, uh, Howard
Stern."
© 2000 by Allure
typed out by the webmaster
of The Famous Sandra Bullock Page