Sandra Bullock Called This Movie With Keanu Reeves the ‘Best Acting Lesson I’ve Ever Had’
Sandra Bullock got an early lesson in acting when she co-starred in a hit movie with Keanu Reeves. She once said the action movie Speed gave her the opportunity to dig deep as an actor because of her role in the film.
Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves shared a hilarious moment during their audition
Bullock and Reeves are known for their on-screen chemistry so it’s not surprising to hear that they bonded during their audition for Speed.
Bullock shared the story of a playful moment between them during their audition, telling Entertainment Weekly in 1994, “I had to read for Speed. Just to make sure the chemistry was OK between me and Keanu.”
“We had to do all these really physical scenes together, rolling around on the floor and stuff,” she continued.
“At one point Keanu stumbled into me and sort of grabbed my butt,” Bullock added. “I asked him, ‘Are you copping a feel?’ He got all panicky and was like, ‘Nooooo! I wasn’t!’”
“I was like, ‘Relax, Keanu. Just kidding,’” she recalled.
Sandra Bullock credits ‘Speed’ with giving her ‘the best acting lesson’
In the 1994 movie Speed, Bullock famously played Annie, a bus passenger who has to take over driving the bus when the driver is injured. The bus has been rigged with a bomb that will detonate if the bus speed goes below 50 miles per hour so Annie has her work cut out for her.
Bullock told EW that acting in the movie was a bit tedious but she was up for the challenge.
”After two weeks I was like, ‘I can’t take it anymore!,’” she shared. “I mean, I’m sitting in a bus for the entire movie.”
“But it was the best acting lesson I’ve ever had,” Bullock added. “How do you make sitting in a bus interesting?”
Bullock and Reeves had crushes on each other during filming
Years later, Bullock and Reeves both admitted that they had crushes on each other when they were filming Speed.
During a 2018 interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Bullock recalled what it was like to work with her co-star. “I think about how sweet Keanu Reeves was and how handsome he was,” Bullock recalled. “It was hard. It was really hard for me to really be serious. He’d look at me and I’d [giggle].”
“There was just something about me that I guess he didn’t like,” she said about why they never dated. “I think it’s true … I think we’re probably friends for that long because we didn’t…”
DeGeneres shared the Bullock clip when she interviewed Reeves on her show in 2019 and it seemed he had the same feelings about his co-star.
“She obviously didn’t know I had a crush on her, either,” Reeves explained.
He had a reason why he never acted on the crush, however. “We were working!,” Reeves explained.
“It was nice to go to work,” he added. “She’s such a wonderful person, such a wonderful actress.”
