PRESS:: "Hi, I'm Sandy..."


Empire October 1994

"I THINK WOMEN HAVE GOT AN OVERLY BAD rep for being lousy drivers," insists Sandra "Sandy" Bullock, "I keep saying, "Look, at the accidents on the freeway and see how many of them involve women - not many."" For her role in Speed as the L.A. commuter who finds herself behind the wheel of large automobile - well, a bus any-way - set to go kaboom! should the vehicle dip below 50 m.p.h., Sandy, method habe that she is, actually learned how to drive a bus.
"I am union member number 200," she beams. "I went out and got my licence more or less as a joke to see if I could pass the test, and I passed first time. I earned the respect of many publick transportation people."
Post-Speed, Sandy's career has, like that of her co-star Keanu and director Jan De Bont, gone into overdrive with her name connected with every plum female role currently available in Hollywood, including that of Bruce Wayne's love interests in the forthcoming Batan Forever. She passed, because it conflicted with While You Were Sleeping, a romantic comedy that Joe Roth signed her up for $1,2 million.
"Anyway, I would much rather play someone insane in a Batman movie," she laughs, oviously no too concerned about missing out on a smooching session with the Caped Crusader, "like the Joker's sister."
The doughter of a German opera singer and an American voice coach, Sandy - who can also be seen as a waitress in this month's Wrestling Ernest Hemingway - trained with Method maestro Sanford Meisner in New York where she assayed the Melanie Griffits role in the short-lived TV series of Working Girl. After the fairly inauspicious Roger Corman-prodused quickie Fire on The Amazon, she steadily made her mark with a series of performances that had Hollywood, if not audiences, sitting up and taking note. Producer Joel Silver saw her as the girl who disappeared 20 minutes into the US remake of The Vanishing and cast her as a future cop opposite Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man - "We were like the brother ans sister team from hell" - after Lori Petty left two days into shooting.
Now in a position to co-produse her own movie, Bullock realises that it may all have been so very different if director Jan De Bont hadn't stuck up for her when the studio wanted a bigger star for Speed. But despite her sudden fame and fortune, Sandy, bless'er, has her feet firmly planted on the ground. She was, she says, somewhat taken aback when her fee for Whyle You Were Sleeping appeared in Variety and her friends started telephoning to rib her about her new millionaire status.
"It really hurt my feelings, even though my friends were kidding," she admits, "because the joke was "Is One-Point-Two there please?" It seems to be something that catches people's attention..."

Mark Salisbury