Sandra Bullock: “I don’t want to be in control”

Speed ​​made her a star. That was the name of her first big film, which brought her first big success. An actress with an appearance that does not fall under the Hollywood canon has become famous, not least because of her outward non-standard. Dark, muscular, open. Without the “shadow on the fence” and the mysteries of “eternal femininity.” She is still like this, even though 20 years have passed. I would even say that she is not feminine at all. Not feminine, but beautiful. In the movies, I didn’t notice that she was so beautiful. She has a bright blush and olive skin, she has dark, dark hair and eyebrows, she has incredibly bright, almost black eyes. It seems to have more colors than a human being should. Therefore, she does not need additional coloring – I do not notice serious cosmetics, she is dressed in black – a knitted short dress, high suede boots with stable low heels … Softness and intelligibility. Her face is also distinctly, exceptionally distinct: high cheekbones, a sharp chin, a crooked nose, a clear oval. She is like a hieroglyph filled with thick black ink. And the hieroglyph, it means only what it means … And now I understand why I’m interviewing her, and not, say, she is with me: it’s all about her amazing unambiguity, clarity. In a world where everything is so ambivalent, so relative, we must have missed her heroines from The Web, While You Were Sleeping, Time to Kill, even the goofy Miss Congeniality: them—and her, Bullock— unambiguity, directness, courage, devotion.

Sandra Bullock is who she is, she doesn’t look up to anyone, she doesn’t try to be like anyone, she doesn’t correct herself in accordance with external requirements.

Her ideas about the world are as clear as her face. And just as clearly, excluding interpretation, she answers my questions.

S. B.: Let’s say … such a desire is understandable to me. But it’s still strange for me. Probably, this is because of my childhood, upbringing on the move, living in two languages. A year in Nuremberg or Salzburg – after all, my mother was a German, an opera singer – a year in America, in my father’s homeland. Of course, this was not a stable American life. My father served in the army, then he was still a military man, my mother is completely devoted to the opera. So the opera, the theater was both my nanny and my best friend, even a little family. Mom came to rehearsals and gave me to the choir or extras – in big opera productions there is always such an acting group as a flock of gypsy children. So a grimy “gypsy” child was always welcome. Therefore, probably, I became an actress – I already mastered the stage at the age of three. José, in Carmen, throws change to the gypsies with a generous gesture, the gypsies collect it and run away. And I didn’t run away, but walked around Jose! The tenor – he was forced to perform an aria while a gypsy child was hanging around him – was horrified, my mother was upset and tried to convince me that the stage is discipline, and the role is immutable and gag is punished …

She seems to have succeeded…

S. B.: Unplanned! But I was definitely not brought up in the spirit of traditional American values ​​- they didn’t raise me as a princess, they didn’t inspire me that my life would be forever beautiful, that I must definitely get married, anchor, buy a house, have children and continue to live under the sky without a single cloud … And most importantly , to be like others, to worship the same idols … Yes, in our family there was not even a TV! And when I came to the States as a teenager, started going to school and everyone laughed at my green velvet bell-bottoms – I should have worn jeans – my mother, in response to my complaints that I was not like everyone else, sincerely puzzled asked: “Do you want to be similar to everyone? Why?” She believed that individuality is our main asset. And to live according to common standards – in the feeling that you must certainly become happy, that this is the norm? .. Why, then the joy of being is overshadowed by the expectation of joy from the fate. It also makes you rush. And the rush in life is the best way to poison yourself with it. A person feels that it is necessary to hurry up – to find the right partner, to give birth to a child, to equip a house. But it’s pressure, pressure all the time. And for me, it’s also a kind of cowardice. An attempt to hide from reality behind a wall of stability.

What does it mean for you not to hide from reality?

S. B.: Well, for example … Over the years, I appreciate my father’s deed, his fearlessness more and more. That he married his mother. American – in German. In the 50s. After all, he was in military service through the Pentagon in Nuremberg, in the Palace of Justice – the very one where the Nuremberg Trials took place. And it was not supposed – and it was not supposed to! – that the military man implementing the German denazification program would contact a German woman whose father developed rockets for the Third Reich. But dad fell in love with mom, and nothing else mattered. You know what’s funny? Mom studied at the conservatory as a singer, dad was an officer. But only some time after they met, it turned out that dad graduated from the Juilliard School as a singer! That they are colleagues, they have common interests and a common life is also possible for this reason! .. In a word, I appreciate … courage. Yes, there is no other way to say it. Courage. Fearlessness.

You yourself are doing fearless things. For example, at the age of 45, they starred in the first completely “nude” scene in their entire career …

S. B.: Well, yes, completely in the cinema, I undressed for the first time in The Proposal, and I really had already turned 45 by that time. But this is not a demonstration of the sexiest of female bodies! This is a scene in a comedy, there is nothing erotic about it, it is played and filmed to be funny. I don’t see anything wrong with the fact that my nakedness was funny to people. I did ballet, then spent years in the gym and in the Pilates studio, I trained the body more or less all my life – to use it at work. For one notorious beauty, I would not try. It’s… like sharpening a barber’s tool. Or – ha! — butcher! The body helps me create heroines, just such a profession. There was no ethical choice – to act or not to act without clothes. It will be funnier – so I’ll take it off.

Another bold act is that you decided to adopt, but did not abandon the plan after the divorce and became a single parent. Were you not afraid that you would not cope, that something would go wrong with someone else’s child?

S. B.: No, because it seems to me that my child is the same random game of genes, a chaos of chromosomes. There are no guarantees that yours will become really close. This is work. And it doesn’t matter if you yourself gave birth to the one you are trying to make close. I do not believe that love can be conceived and given birth. It’s not that easy with her. And Louis, when I was able to take him to me, was only three months old. I have a chance. For me, adoption is more of an act of love, an attempt to give what you have. What you have a lot, and others lack. At a certain age, you think about the fact that you will die. Will you die with nothing to share with the world? When we are young, we all do a lot of presumptuous, selfish things to get something from the world. And then… I’m not very interested in receiving anymore. I no longer want to receive, acquire, have. I want to share. It now seems to me that our mortality is a good incentive to live life to the fullest. Give receiving, for example.

You denied marriage for many years. You said that you always thought he required a certain renunciation of himself. And yet they got married at 40. And faced change…

S. B.: A few months after the betrayal of Jesse (Jesse James – Bullock’s ex-husband. – Approx. ed.) Became obvious to me, I was just scared. I felt the years of marriage as a fatal mistake. And then I realized that there was no mistake. Jesse is a man of exceptional talent. I was struck by this in him and fascinated from the very beginning, from the first minutes of our acquaintance, when my godson – he was a teenager – and I came to Jesse’s garage for a birthday present. Jesse is a connoisseur and fan of motorcycles, technology in general, his enthusiasm is incredibly contagious, which is why he was successful in broadcasting on MTV. I spent these years with a very interesting person. Who, by the way, made certain sacrifices for the sake of our marriage – as the husband of a celebrity, he was under constant pressure of targeted attention. And this is not easy, psychologically difficult – out of habit. Why, if I wasn’t a celebrity, this girl, the model, you know, who was with Jessie, and wouldn’t tell the press about her adventures. And I could not have known about it for a long time… Although, of course, I would have felt… But I could still live for a long time in the circumstances of lies, deceit… No, everything is so relative, so unsteady. Keeping the balance is our own concern. For me it was a divorce. Only he balances treason.

Many in such circumstances admit that they felt resentment, a desire to take revenge …

S. B.: Revenge? It never crossed my mind to take revenge! Never, not even in my youth. When we arrived in the States and I started going to school, my classmates simply harassed me for being different and “European”. Mom didn’t even think that I was crying for good reason. Until one teacher said to her directly, backhand: “Helga, wake up you: they are just poisoning your daughter!” I still remember the names of everyone who poisoned me. But it was precisely that persecution that taught me to be tolerant of people – so that no one would feel themselves in that position of mine through my fault. It would be terribly uncomfortable for me. Divorce is not revenge. Just the final. But now… You know, the first film that was important to me was Peter Bogdanovich’s Thing Called Love. There I played a young country singer. I then fell in love with the script and for the title too – it made me think about what I call love. So, now I have absolute clarity on this matter. Love is when you love a person not for yourself, but for him. When it’s scary to inflict even a tiny wound on him. Just this.