I wanted to be the adventurer
Oscar winner Sandra Bullock talks to LAURA HARDING about her movie The Lost City and why women should get to have as much fun as men on screen
SANDRA BULLOCK has kicked her heels off and nestled her feet into fluffy hotel slippers. She is not in the business of putting up with something irritating or uncomfortable, just because it might be expected of her.
“I thought, ‘Why have I been wearing high heels when I’m sitting?”’ she laughs.
Sandra, 57, has never much been one for sitting quietly and putting up with things as they are. She took on a part written for a man in her 2015 film Our Brand Is Crisis, and hit back at the dominance of male critics when her all-female Ocean’s Eleven spinoff Ocean’s Eight met with lukewarm reviews.
This attitude is why she fought tooth and nail to get her latest film The Lost City made. It puts a new spin on a romantic comedy adventure in the vein of the classic Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner caper Romancing The Stone, but with a woman at the centre, and a somewhat useless man along for the ride.
Sandra plays reclusive romance writer Loretta Sage, who is promoting her new book with her cover model, Alan, played by Channing Tatum, when she is kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire, played by Daniel Radcliffe, in the hope she can lead him to an ancient city’s lost treasure that features in her books.
“It was the possibility of what it could be, rather than what it was on page,” Sandra says as she reflects on what made her want to tackle the project.
“What could this be that hadn’t been done in a while, or hadn’t ever been done, especially with women? The prospect of how to get it there was daunting, but it was like a dog with a bone and once you get it, it becomes a little obsessive.”
Ever since her breakout role alongside Keanu Reeves in Speed in 1994, Sandra has defied gender conventions and proved that films with female leads can be critically and commercially viable.
She has a string of much-loved movies to her name, from While You Were Sleeping to Practical Magic, Miss Congeniality, Two Weeks Notice and The Proposal, to her Oscar-winning turn in The Blind Side, and hits like The
Heat, Gravity and Netflix juggernaut and meme-machine Bird Box.
It was vindicating for her then, when The Lost City opened in the US to a better-than-expected $31m in its first weekend – thanks to overwhelming turnout from older female audiences – de-throning The Batman from its number one spot at the box office in the process.
She reflects that entertainment content for women is often under-valued, dismissed as ‘chick flicks’ or ‘chick lit.’
Her own character in The Lost City refers to her romantic books as “shlock”, prompting Tatum’s Alan to scold her for being dismissive about material that is meaningful to her fans.
That line, and Alan’s defence of a female readership, was “very specific”, Sandra says.
“You know, it’s hard to respect something when everything coming at it is disparaging. And then you have to look at the source of why is it being talked about or thought of in that way, and if you really get down to why, it’s heartbreaking.”
Reeves in Speed, her
“It’s heartbreaking because you’re a woman. And you’re thought of as less than, and thought of as whatever your needs are, the things that bring you joy or escapism, are not valuable. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
“We’ve been swallowing it, but when you really look at it, you’re like, ‘Oh, God, there’s absolutely no respect.’ So that was a really important line, especially coming from a man, or someone who typically would be saying those things or having us believe those things.
“It was really powerful, especially how he said it. It was so genuine and full of love, saying, ‘All these millions of people, you’re bringing them joy? Why are you being disparaging towards their joy, their happiness, so it takes it out of yourself?’ It was beautifully said by him.”
Daniel Radcliffe, who is sitting next to Sandra and her fluffy slippers in the London hotel room, is nodding animatedly.
Her comments remind him of his own experiences of playing Harry Potter for so many years.
“It’s so crazy, what people are so dismissive of... like romantic literature,” he says.
“This is really bad, I shouldn’t tell his story, but I was with a couple of friends once and the guy was so disparaging about everything that his girlfriend read. His girlfriend, who is – I know – an infinitely smarter person than him. And I feel that kind of attitude permeating things is so toxic.
He continues: “I had this, obviously with a different kind of literature, but as a teenager growing up in Harry Potter, I didn’t feel cool.
“And then realising later how much joy it has brought to people. It is an incredibly special thing. And if you do anything except be incredibly grateful for that, it’s a shame.”
Sandra says she is determined to do all the things that she wants to do, and all the things that she believes women want to see, capers in the jungle included.
“I always enjoyed all the things that the men got to do,” she says. “I wanted to be the man. I wanted to be the adventurer. I wanted to be the swashbuckler. I wanted to be the one who could get their way in and out of things, but I didn’t see that for the ladies.
“You are always envious and jealous. You can enjoy it and romanticise it, but there was always something missing. So, to have that opportunity to make something like that was exciting. But that requires scope and scale, funding to be able to get big and make it for the theatres – and that’s the tricky part.
“When there’s no comparison, or no recent comparison that justifies it, you have to come up with ways of making it, and then proving it should be the comparison.
“And that makes you more driven to make it work, because you know what the reward will be.”
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