All About Sandy

She's won eight Teen Choice awards and you've watched her since you were a kid in comedies (Miss Congeniality), romantic films (The Proposal), actioners (Speed), dramas (Crash) and spooky supernatural flicks (The Lake House and Premonition). Sandra Bullock is that everygirl. You feel like you know her. Now she's back on screen playing Mary, a quirky, eccentric woman who is both annoying and very charming in the off-beat comedy All About Steve.

Mary Magdalene Horowitz (cute name) is a cruciverbalist... she constructs crossword puzzles for a newspaper. Mary knows way too much trivia about everything. What she doesn't know is that her constant spouting of facts drives folks nuts! She's in her 30's and living with her parents. She wears '80's style red boots and a mini-skirt and once she's attracted to news cameraman, blind date Steve (hot Bradley Cooper), she latches on like glue and follows him from story to story until he'll either give in to her charms after their one-night stand or she drives him crazy or.... he falls for her.....or not.

We sat down at a posh boutique hotel near UCLA to chat with Sandy Bullock about her quirky role, her "look" in the film (which included straight blonde hair!), why she likes and relates to her character, the film's offbeat humor and how did she remember all that trivia dialogue anyway? Picture Ms. Bullock (aka Mrs. Jesse James) with very long, straight brown hair and wearing a floaty grey tunic over black skinny jeans. Her standout accessory was a chain necklace.

TeenHollywood: Sandra, did you have a lot of input into your character's look; her clothing, hair and boots? Did you voice your opinion?

Sandra: A loud one. It's an amalgamation of our writer, Kimberly Barker, and a 3 1/2 year-old little girl that I spend a lot of time with. There was the shag hair-cut. We'd try things on and they wouldn't work, but oddly, that worked. There was the evolution of the red boot. The boot was written as a red boot, but there are so many different ways to go with a red boot, as we women now. But, that was the right way to go, and that was $14.95, off of Shoe.com. It was 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.

TeenHollywood: You look so different as a blonde. Why did you choose blonde hair?

Sandra: Why not? I saw Mary that way. Kim Barker looks very much like that. I don't think she would wear the red boots, but she has that shaggy blonde hair. And, the 3 ½-year-old that I love so much is very much like that. When I read it, 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 didn't think you could suspend your belief as easily, unless I went, 'Okay, wipe out everything you know of me, as much as you can, and here's this sweet person, based on several people that I think are pretty amazing and special.' It's just what comes to you.

TeenHollywood: What is your own personal relationship with crossword puzzles? Has your name ever been a clue in a crossword puzzle?

Sandra: I have, and I get that one, every time. I get very excited and I'm like, 'I know that one!' (we laugh). But, the other ones, not so much. If you read quickly, you could just see, 'Actor Bullock,' and they'd throw you off with 'Jim J.' Or, 'Musician Bullock,' which could be Anna Mae Bullock, who is Tina Turner.

TeenHollywood: Nice trivia knowledge there! Your character Mary is the Queen of Trivia. What was that like to play?

Sandra: My head is filled with so much crap, or facts that I find important, but that some others don't. Kim Barker's train of thought is brilliant, in the knowledge of things that she has. All the knowledge that I have doesn't necessarily make me brilliant, but I love acquiring knowledge and then sharing it with everybody else. I love trivia. I love the knowledge of stuff, and I get very excited about it, very much like Mary Horowitz.

TeenHollywood: Mary spouts trivia rapid-fire. How difficult was it for you to remember all of this dialogue?

Sandra: What's weird, and most actors will probably attest to it, is that when you have a full page of well-written dialogue that has a thought process to it, it is pretty easy to memorize. It's a lot easier to memorize than if you're in a scene and other people are talking, and you have maybe one word or one sentence that you have to interject at the right time and in a natural way. The one-page monologue is far easier to memorize. And, because Kim and I are frenetically the same, with the way that we spew out information, her writing [was easy to remember]. When I want to get information across, it's like the firing of pistons. One goes off, and it 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 I felt very comfortable with that rhythm, and we matched it up with the physicality or running after them or chasing, or something. She just wrote in a rhythm that made a lot of sense to me.

TeenHollywood: How else did you relate to your character? Did you have more things in common?

Sandra: Yeah, very much so. It's that part of us that we're told to lose once we become an adult. It's that freedom of expression, joy, excitement and innocence. I had a lisp that I had to get rid of, and I had to have speech therapy. I just go, 'Why? Why did I need to get rid of a lisp?' It's that whole, 'What is normal?,' thing. Why can't we embrace adults like her? We're very excited to embrace children like that, but we don't trust adults who are naive, kind and happy. We want them jaded, cynical and street wise. Why is that?

TeenHollywood: Good question. Mary is at peace with all of her flaws, by the end of the film. Do you have any flaws that you're at peace with now?

Sandra: We think we have all these flaws, but Mary Horowitz didn't think she was flawed. Society made her feel flawed and question how she lived her life. She questioned it and made everything all about Steve and she realized it wasn't right for her. But, she met others like her that validated that they aren't flaws. They are unique traits that make special human beings.

TeenHollywood: It seems like women who are "different" have a harder time than men.

Sandra: Why is it that young boys and men are unique and eccentric and are mavericks when they're different, but women are odd when we are eccentric or different? What I wish someone would have said to me at 12, or 8 when I had my speech impediment? 'Don't change. Be who you are', but society is really strong in their opinions. So, I've made peace with the fact that the things that I thought were weaknesses or flaws were just me, and I like them. But, it took me awhile to figure it out.

TeenHollywood: What was challenging on set?

Sandra: It was a hard shoot because it was 112 degrees, and we had to accomplish a lot. Our director, Phil Traill, will tell you that it was very ambitions. You had to balance that tone. All of (the cast) come from a different comedic style, but I was surprised at how well it worked. If we wanted to improvise or go off book, it happened.

TeenHollywood: So some of the quirky, off-beat humor in the film was ad-libbed. Was most on the page?

Sandra: It was the stuff that would come out of Kim Barker's mind, and she was on set, all the time. If something was brilliant on the page, but we couldn't make it 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. We need it to be metaphysical, but Bradley's got this funny sound he does'. And, she'd go, 'Okay, hold on, just a second,' and she would spit out a page of thoughts and knowledge, and I don't know where she gets it.

TeenHollywood: So with you and comic guys like Brad Cooper, Thomas Hayden Church and Ken Jeong, was everything that you came up with brilliant?

Sandra: I think we were all on the same page of what it shouldn't be. We'd push the envelope, every once in awhile, and then you'd go, 'Oh, that's not so good,' and Phil (the director) would pull us back. You know when it's not working. It's very specific humor, but it had to be very real and emotional, to make it worth the journey. If we went to broad and crazy, the pay-off wouldn't have been there, at the end.

TeenHollywood: Mary is very sweet and determined, but everyone else labels her as a stalker. How do you feel about that label?

Sandra: It depends on what side you're looking at it from. It's not a 'he said, she said'. But, she heard society saying, 'You're not living a normal life', so 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 that, until she loses her job and says, 'Maybe it's the universe saying that I need to go in this direction. I was invited.' Steve should have just told her to get out of the car, if he didn't want her in the car.

TeenHollywood: The ending is kind of unique.

Sandra: At the end, both sides meet, and that's what I like about it. He's like, 'I'm sorry. Don't change.' In her quiet way, she goes, 'I know I was an idiot. I went down the wrong path.' There's the meeting of the minds, and they can both go on their way and admit their short-comings, but they also take away something. I didn't want her to change at all. I wanted her to continue being who she was, and be okay with it.

TeenHollywood: Didn't you say that you won't do romantic comedies anymore because they're not romantic or funny. How do you see this film?

Sandra: This isn't a romantic comedy. Why should it be? It's just as loving, funny and unique without needing her 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, but we don't do that to men? 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?

TeenHollywood: I like your thinking.

Sandra: She could have had Steve, if she wanted. She just didn't want any more of that. So, I made it for the very reason that you asked the question. If I can do anything, in this time of my career, I want to make it easier for other actresses and girls who are growing up to go, 'I get to be a part of a comedy or an action film or a romantic comedy or a thriller or just a romance, 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.