I always go, "When
you make a movie with me, just put your head down
and do the work." People will nit-pick.
They won't pay attention. They'll cut your budget. They will not assume
you know what you're doing. And then,
if the film's a success, they always ask,
"How did that happen?" I'm like, "I… I don't know.
I honestly don't know." Sandra Bullock may not know
how the magic happens, but there's no denying,
it does. From a bus that can't stop to a space shuttle
that won't start, Sandra has spent 30 years
winning over audiences with an eclectic mix
of action thrills, goofy comedies,
and hard-hitting dramas. Early TV roles
included a sitcom adaptation of the film
Working Girl in 1990 and put Sandra
on Hollywood's radar, leading to her role as
scientist turned man magnet in 1992's Love Potion No. 9 Before going head-to-head
with Sly Stallone in 1993's Demolition Man. Now all restaurants
are Taco Bell. No way. Sandra's career
accelerated in 1994, quite literally so, thanks to a bus
that would explode if it drops below
50 miles per hour. Directed by Jan de Bont, Speed was
a box office smash. But did Sandra see this
monster success coming? No. You could sense the snicker when people were like,
"Oh, so you're doing Speed. You know, it's the bomb
on the bus movie." Look, I was ecstatic
to be there. I was choice number 74
on the list for the studio. Some women turned it down and Jan de Bont
did a little fighting for me and I got to be the Annie
in the driver's seat. Yeah, the concept seemed quite far-fetched
at the time, but when you look
at how realistic the people on the bus were, and how authentic it felt
to LA, and how diverse, and how simply
it was executed, but, you know, not in
the complexity of the shots, but it's a simple premise,
it just struck a chord. Miss, can you handle
this bus? Oh, sure. It's just like
driving a really big Pinto. And look, it didn't do
well because of me. It did well because
of divine Keanu Reeves, and a great concept
by Jan de Bont, that I got to ride along
with and benefit from when it had success,
you know. Hitting the brakes in 1995, she starred
in While You Were Sleeping as a lonely
train-fare collector posing as the girlfriend
of a commuter after he falls into a coma. It's less sinister
than that sounds. It's a romantic
comedy classic and earned Sandra
a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress
in a Comedy or Musical. You know where it's parked,
don't you? Oh, yeah. I… I'm… Yeah. Expect fewer laughs
in 1995's The Net, where Sandra's
computer programmer tries to prevent her life
being erased in a shady conspiracy. This more serious side
carried on into 1996 wartime weepy
In Love and War, where Sandra's nurse fell for Chris O'Donnell's
Ernest Hemingway. I can't stop thinking
about him. And then,
the blockbuster adaptation of John Grisham's
A Time to Kill, where her idealistic
law student teams up
with Matthew McConaughey to dish out some
Deep South justice. Romance was in the air
in the late 90s as Sandra played a jilted
wife finding new love in 1998's Hope Floats, a witch trying to break
a husband-killing curse in Practical Magic, and then whisked
Ben Affleck off his feet in 1999's Forces of Nature. I'm… I'm a rebel. Little jumpy for a rebel,
aren't you? In 2000 film 28 Days,
Sandra went to rehab, but it was another film
that year that would deliver
an iconic role as detective turned
beauty queen Grace Hart in Miss Congeniality. But just remember to sing. S. I. N. G. Solar plexus, instep, nose, groin. So much of it is a blur, because I didn't
have my family then. Work was my family. I was a working actor,
New York City worker. You take anything
that comes your way and you just
make the best of it. Miss Congeniality
was sort of my first big producing job. I'd done other smaller ones, but I had this one
by the reins. I remember
I was making 28 Days, we were making script notes, we were going through
and "Who do we hire?" And with Mark Lawrence,
"Where are we gonna shoot?" "Let's shoot in Austin,
Texas, where it's 120 degrees and we're in
a pageant outfit with a beehive on our head." And "What are we doing?" But it just felt right
to make that film for those girls that didn't
have the ingénue in them like I didn't have
the ingénue in me when I was looking at films. You know, I was
basically playing myself and who I wished had been
on screen for me at 14. It's my daughter's favourite
film, annoyingly so. The stuff that she repeats,
I'm like, "Oh, my God. I need to apologise
to so many parents 'cause now
I'm getting it back." But it's physical comedy, and she's a tomboy,
and my daughter is that. Definitely
don't show your kids 2002's Murder by Numbers,
a grim game of cat and mouse between Sandra's detective
and two teenage murderers. Though you are probably
safe to show them her delightful double act
with Hugh Grant in Two Weeks Notice. George, I think you're
the most selfish human being on the planet, That's just silly. Have you met everyone
on the planet? In 2004,
she starred in Crash, a searing look at race
relations in Los Angeles that won Best Picture
at that year's Oscars. And if that sounds
too intense, you only had to wait until
2006 for The Lake House, a remake of classic
Korean romance Il Mare that reunited her with Speed
co-star Keanu Reeves. And it's this versatility that has defined
her choice of roles. I think back on my dreaming
of what I wanted to play. Since a very young age, I always wanted the roles
that the men had. I would never imagine myself
as the beautiful blonde, like the girlfriend, 'cause I was like, "Well,
I don't look like that, so I'm not gonna
get those roles." What I was drawn to was
the energy, and the fire, and the comedy,
and physical comedy, and the action,
and the drama that the men got to do,
the substance. I didn't see myself
as the sexy bombshell, which is really
what was being represented when I was watching movies
as a kid. You definitely see
that substance in Sandra's choices. In 2006,
she completely transformed into To Kill a Mockingbird
author Harper Lee in the Truman Capote
biopic Infamous. And in 2009, she won Best Actress
at the Academy Awards for her incredible turn as ultimate soccer mom
Leigh Anne Tuohy in the NFL drama
The Blind Side. Yes! Michael! How do you follow an Oscar? By making two
of the best films of 2013. She made for
a killer double act with Melissa McCarthy in the raucous cop
comedy The Heat. Are you a nark? "A nak"? I'm sorry,
I don't know what that is. Before taking
a doomed trip to space with George Clooney in the
technologically-astounding survival thriller Gravity. Almost single-handedly
holding your attention for 90 minutes,
this is astonishing stuff. She was nominated
for Best Actress at the Oscars
for her efforts. Sandra came back
to Earth for 2015's Our Brand is Crisis as a political consultant
trying to win a Bolivian election,
before teaming up with a monster cast
of Hollywood talent for the all-female reboot
of Ocean's Eleven in 2018's Ocean's 8. All that time in space
with George Clooney must have rubbed off on her. So go home,
get your affairs in order, because tomorrow,
we begin pulling off one of the biggest
jewellery heists in history. 2018 also saw her, or rather
didn't see her, in Bird Box, the Netflix phenomenon where even looking
at the mysterious entities triggers people
to kill themselves. For an unbelievably
bleak concept, it did lead to one of the
goofiest social media trends as people took
on the Bird Box challenge and tried to complete
everyday tasks while blindfolded. How many kids were slammed
into walls by their parents? And I laughed. I laughed so hard,
and I was like, "I'm not supposed to laugh. That poor child just got
nailed into the wall." But it was funny. It was funny. Which leads us to 2021 and Sandra's
newest Netflix movie, The Unforgivable. It's another
hugely impressive transformation for the actor as she plays Ruth Slater, a convicted cop-killer
who leaves prison and tries to reunite
with her little sister in a world that isn't ready
to forgive her. There just felt like
there was a lot on the line for this. Having these women's
stories, and having these women
open up so honestly, and seeing
how their entire lives, they didn't have an ounce, an ounce of what I had. And yet they are still in belief that
they can figure it out, that they can survive,
that they will make it. And when they get outside
of one system is a step into a great,
unknown system. And I just go, "If we don't represent
the humanity in that belief, regardless
of what the end result was of what they did,
then we've failed." You don't have to
give me a speech. I'm looking for Katie.
She's my little sister. I raised her. Hey, next time,
don't drag me through three bus transfers to tell me something
I already know. I think we all
kind of came at it with such a good amount
of fear, desire, hopefulness, but respect
for those stories that we were responsible
for carrying, while entertaining and making this
as accessible to anyone who can watch it. Sure, I think there's gonna
be a handful of people who will look at it and go, "I have no idea
how to relate to this. Why would someone do this?" And I guarantee you, it's someone who was born
with affluence, someone who never once had to fear
for their freedom. Never once. And that's OK. Maybe they'll learn
something along the way. You can watch
The Unforgivable for yourself
as it's streaming on Netflix now.
