FILM INTERVIEW: SANDRA BULLOCK & BRADLEY COOPER

Stars Of 'All About Steve' Discuss Romance, Oddness & Crosswords

By: Emmanuel Itier

September 4, 2009

Emmanuel Itier: Did you have a lot of input into your look for this character, Sandra? The boots, the hair, her clothes… What kind of voice did you have on that?

Sandra Bullock: A loud one. It’s an amalgamation of a little bit of our writer, Kimberly Barker, a three-and-a-half-year-old little girl who I spend a lot of time with, a little bit of Klute, a physical coat influence, and then the shag haircut. We’d try things on and they wouldn’t work, but oddly that worked, and the evolution of the red boot…it was written as a red boot, but there are so many different ways to go with the red boot, as we women know. But that was the right one, and that was $14.95 off of shoe.com, and genius. I had an idea of what her body felt like and what she was going to look like, but that’s how it came together.

EI: How did you guys relate to these characters? Did you find you had anything in common with these guys?

SB: Yeah, very much so. I was going to say I shouldn’t be proud of it, but it’s that part of us that we’re told to lose once we become an adult — the freedom of expression, the freedom of joy and excitement and innocence… I had a lisp that I had to get rid of and had to have speech therapy, so then I just go, “Why? Why did I need to get rid of the lisp?” It’s that whole thing of what is normal and why we can’t embrace adults like her. We’re very excited to embrace children like that, but we don’t trust adults who are naive and kind and happy. We want them jaded and cynical and streetwise. Why is that?

EI: Sandra, your character is filled with trivia knowledge. Do you find that you’re like that? Do you find, in researching roles, that you start to pick up a lot of this trivia-type information?

SB: No, my head is filled with so much…

Bradley Cooper: Crap.

SB: Crap, Bradley likes to call it, or important facts, or facts that I find important. Our writer, Kim Barker’s train of thought is brilliant in the knowledge of things she has. She’s brilliant. All the knowledge I have doesn’t necessarily make me brilliant, but I love acquiring knowledge and sharing it with everyone else. I love trivia. I love the knowledge of stuff and I’m very excited about it — very much like Mary Horowitz.

BC: I shadowed an NBC cameraman and I actually learned a lot — the little tidbits and the terms they used. I actually learned a lot.

SB: You were good at it. You had these swoop-down things. A lot of the stuff he shot we actually used — the on-camera stuff with Hartman Hughes…

EI: At the end of the movie, Mary makes peace with herself. What kinds of things in your life have you made peace with?

SB: I made peace with the fact that, like with Mary Horowitz, we think we have all these flaws. She didn’t think she was flawed. Society made her feel flawed and questioned how she lived her life. She questioned it and made everything all about Steve, thinking, “I must go on this path because that’s what society says,” and then she realizes that it wasn’t right for but she met others like her that validate that there are not flaws. There are unique traits that make special human beings. I always make this reference: why is it that young men and boys are unique and eccentric and mavericks when they’re different, but women are odd when we’re different or eccentric? I have wished that someone would’ve said to me, at 12 or eight, when I had my speech impediment…what do I want to say to little girls I know? I keep saying, “Don’t change. Be who you are.” But society is really strong in their opinions, so I have made peace with the fact that things that I thought were weaknesses or flaws were just me and I like them, but that took me a while to figure out.

EI: What was one of the most surprising or funny things that happened on the set?

SB: Ken Jeong getting naked, which now, apparently, he’s doing in every film he’s in. Everything with Ken is revealing. No. The most surprising thing, I think, was how easy…well, it was a hard shoot because it was 112 degrees and we had to accomplish a lot, and our director, Phil Trail, will tell you that it was very ambitious and we had to balance that tone. All of us come, I think, from a different comedic style, but I was surprised at how well it all worked and how well, if we wanted to improvise or go off book, it happened and how well everyone got along. It was a little scary how they got along, as you can probably get a sense of. I was surprised how effortless it was when they were together.

BC: Who would have thought that six months or a year later, [Ken Jeong] would be naked on my neck [again].

EI: What’s your opinion on media hype in our society, and is this one of the reasons that you joined the project?

BC: I chose to audition for the movie because of Sandra Bullock — to be able to work with her — and I liked the story, and then I met Phil Trail, the director, at the audition. I really liked him and I was lucky enough to then get the job.

SB: [Laughs] He asked about the media.

BC: Oh, I thought you said the job. I just saw the director back there and wanted to throw him a bone.

EI: But the script was kind of a media send-up. Is that why you did it?

BC: Yeah, I was answering the question. I was saying no, it was Sandra Bullock. I think the fact that breaking news is on TV now all that time, that line — “BREAKING NEWS,” whereas 15 years ago, breaking news meant that it was going to be something huge.

EI: Bradley, you’ve had such a big summer with this and The Hangover, becoming a Hollywood leading man. How are you dealing with all this new attention? What are you looking forward to now?

BC: Just promoting the movie — that’s about it. No real difference.

EI: No paparazzi following you around the city?

BC: Oh, you know, occasionally.

EI: Is there going to be a “Hangover 2″?

BC: I think so, yeah. It looks like it.

SB: Really?

BC: Yeah. You say that as if it’s a bad thing.

SB: No, I’m just trying to think, like, you didn’t learn your lesson the first time around?

BC: I think Warner Brothers would like to find out.

SB: I’d like to see it — I’m just saying…

BC: Actually, we’re really excited about the second one, and we were talking about it as we were filming the first one because we had so much fun, and then Warner Brothers actually wanted to do it before it even came out. So it’ll be cool.

SB: Can I be in it?

BC: Absolutely. We’re going to hold you to that, though.

SB: I’m trying to think of who I would play…

EI: There are a lot of quirky characters in the movie doing a lot of crazy things. Was there ever talk about how to keep the story and the gags grounded?

SB: Yeah, the stuff that would come out of our writer Kim Barker’s mind…and she was on set all the time, and Phil, our director, will attest to it, but if something was brilliant on the page and we couldn’t make work within the scenario that we were playing at that moment, she would write something else just as brilliant. We’d go, “Okay, Kim, it’s about rocks. We have rocks here and we need it to be metaphysical, but then Bradley’s got this funny sound…” She’d go, “Okay, hold on just a second…” and she would spit out a page.

BC: Yeah, she was incredible.

SB: It would be like she has this knowledge. I don’t know where she gets it, but we were all, I think, on the same page about what it shouldn’t be. We pushed the envelope every once in a while and we’d go, “Eh, that’s not so good…” and Phil would pull us back or we’d pull the other one back. We didn’t pull each other back, but you know when it’s not working, and it’s very specific humor but it had to be very real and emotional to make it worth the journey. If we went too broad and crazy, the payoff wouldn’t have been there in the end.

EI: You and Thomas Hayden Church are both from Texas. Did you guys bond over that, or do you ever see each other in Texas?

SB: We try not to, no. I mean, when we wanted to go to Thomas, someone said, “He lives in Austin.” I said, “Really?” They said, “Oh yeah, he lives in Texas.” I said, “Just because someone lives in Texas doesn’t mean…” “Oh, no. He lives in Austin.” So I found out that he’s nowhere near Austin. He’s on some farm with pigs and cows and geese.

EI: Can you talk about your dialogue in this? Was it difficult of challenging?

SB: You know what’s weird — and most actors will probably attest to it — is when you have a full page of well-written dialogue that has a thought process to it, it’s pretty easy to memorize — a lot easier to memorize than if you’re in a scene and other people are talking and you have maybe one word or sentence that you have to interject at the time and in a natural way. The one-page monologue is far easier to memorize, and Kim’s writing, I don’t know why, but she and I are phonetically the same in the way we spew out information. You see the way I talk now. That’s subdued, in terms of what I’m really like when I want to get information across. It’s like the firing of pistons. One goes off which sets another one off, and I just can’t stop. I have to explain everything and get it out of my head, and she’s that way too. So there’s that rhythm and I felt very comfortable with it, and you match that up with the physicality or running after them or chasing something. She just wrote in a rhythm that made a lot of sense to me.

EI: What about the blonde hair? Why did you go with that?

SB: Why not? I saw Mary that way. I mean, Kim Barker looks very much like that. I don’t think she would wear the red boots, but she kind of has that shaggy blonde hair, and the three-and-a-half-year old that I love so very much is very much like that. When I read this, I didn’t see me. You read something and you go, “If I were me in it, it wouldn’t have the same lightness and sweetness.” I don’t think you could’ve suspended your belief as easily unless I sort of went, “Okay, wipe out everything you know about me, as much as you can, and here’s this sweet person based on several people that I think are pretty amazingly special.” It’s just what sort of comes — blonde and very tan. I don’t think we said it like that, but that’s Thomas and the way he exaggerates. It’s not like we said, “Ken. Asian. Black hair.”

EI: I thought Mary was sweet and innocent, but all the other characters refer to her as a stalker.

SB: It’s funny because it depends on what side you’re looking at it from. I think Bradley can talk about it from his side, and it’s not like a he said/she said, but she heard society saying, “You’re not living a normal life,” and she started to doubt herself. At the same time, this guy says, “I wish you could be with me, but you have a job.” She doesn’t think twice about this until she loses her job and says, “Maybe it’s the universe saying I need to go in this direction. I was kind of invited.” As Angus said, “You should’ve told her to get out of the car if you didn’t want her in the car.”

BC: But then Mary starts to physically injure Steve.

SB: By accident.

BC: By accident — unbeknownst to him and waving a machete around.

SB: A piece of the car — the windshield wiper and she was waving.

BC: Hey man, you can defend it, but his logic is going down a whole different avenue.

SB: And at the end, both sides meet, and that’s what I liked about it. He’s like, “I’m sorry. Don’t change.” She’s like, “I’m Jewish Catholic.” I think, in their quiet way, she goes, “I know I was an idiot. I went down the wrong path.” And there is the meeting of the minds, and they can both go on their way and sort of admit their shortcomings, but they take away something. I didn’t want her to change at all. I wanted her to continue to be who she was and being okay with it.

BC: All of us did.

SB: You guys were affected, yeah.

EI: I remember several weeks ago, Sandra, you saying you weren’t going to do romantic comedies anymore, and yet here you are in the second on this year…

SB: This isn’t a romantic comedy. Why should it be? It’s just as loving and funny and unique without her needing to end up with the guy, and that’s the reason I made the film. Why does Mary Horowitz have to end up with the guy to be a complete woman? We don’t do that to men. But that’s sort of why I go, Why can’t we women have a diverse selection of comedies to play in and be actors in and make people laugh with? Why do we always have to end up being the woman who thankfully gets the guy? She could’ve had Steve if she wanted, but she didn’t want anymore of that because he didn’t appreciate it. So I made it for the very reason that you asked the question. If I can do anything at this time in my career, it’s to make it easier for other actresses and girls growing up to go, “I get to be a part of a comedy or an action film, or a romantic comedy or thriller, or just a bro-mance, without having to wind up with someone to complete  us.” I complete me. I just got lucky that, after I completed myself, I met someone who could tolerate me. I love good romantic comedies. There just aren’t a lot of them. But I love comedies, and I’ll never stop doing them.

EI: Have you ever been a clue in a crossword?

SB: I have, and I get that one every time. I get very excited with that: “I know that one!”

BC: Is it like “Actress Bullock”?

SB: Yes, but if you read quickly, you could just read “Actor Bullock” and they could throw you off with Jim J. Or “Musician Bullock,” which could be Anna May Bullock, who is…

BC: Your mother?

SB: Tina Turner.