Celebrity Interview: The House of Sandra Bullock

The last time Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves were on-screen together, they were trapped in a bomb-rigged bus in Speed. Twelve years later, they've reunited in the mystical fantasy romance The Lake House with their chemistry fully intact. This remake of the Korean film Il Mare casts the stars as people who discover via letters that they're living in the same lakeside retreat two years apart.

Wearing pinstriped shorts, a sheer blouse and snakeskin heels, her hair lighter than it appears on-screen, Sandra discussed her leading men — costar Keanu Reeves and husband Jesse James, the motorcycle mogul she married last July. For Sandy's take on movies, tattoos, hogs, love, marriage and more, read on...

How was it working with Keanu for the first time since Speed, 12 years ago?
We'd seen each other since then. It wasn't like we hadn't seen each other in 12 years.

Did you fall back into a natural rhythm?
No, because there wasn't a rhythm on this. There was a lot that had to be figured out, and we were thrown into the process. But we work well together in general — though we disagree and argue and butt heads. The more I work, the more freedom I feel I'm allowed to have to argue in order to make stuff right. He's very much that way too. I get that in him. We have a nice history. There's a great level of comfort.

What qualities in your Lake House character, Kate, do you admire and relate to?
Something that I didn't allow myself before, which I do now, is being comfortable with the silences and the melancholy, or being alone and enjoying that. She goes from a people-pleaser person to someone who can be honest with how she feels and not feel guilt and remorse about it.

Your role in Crash was such a great one for you, and people got to see you in a different light. Was that a strategic move on your part?
The decision was made before Crash. I'd taken a year off that became a year and a half. I was going to try some different things, but it required me to start from scratch. I'd stopped doing romantic comedies a while back. I love comedies and I will continue doing them, but the romantic comedy — I have nothing else to add to that right now. So I told my agents, "The cash cow is no longer the cash cow. I'm going in a different direction." They started looking, and Crash was the first thing that came along. Then Infamous, the Capote film based on George Plimpton's book.