Sandra Bullock Said She Made Keanu Reeves ‘Panicky’ During Their ‘Speed’ Audition for This Hilarious Reason
Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock had amazing chemistry in the 1994 movie Speed — and it seems they tapped into that from the first minute of working together during their audition. Bullock once shared how she jokingly gave Reeves a hard time when he accidentally grabbed her butt during an audition scene.
Sandra Bullock said she made Keanu Reeves ‘panicky’ during their audition
Bullock and Reeves’ audition story is pretty adorable and revealing of how they instantly clicked. Based on Bullock’s retelling of the audition, there was an ease between them and she couldn’t help but have a little fun with the actor, causing him to panic just a bit.
The two met when they auditioned but, as Bullock shared with Entertainment Weekly in 1994, there was a playful moment between them.
“I had to read for Speed. Just to make sure the chemistry was OK between me and Keanu,” Bullock explained. “We had to do all these really physical scenes together, rolling around on the floor and stuff.”
“At one point Keanu stumbled into me and sort of grabbed my butt,” she continued. “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.’”
Too. Cute.
Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock’s off-screen chemistry was seen in an old video
Their on-screen chemistry was off the charts, but Reeves and Bullock also had a great connection in real life, too. A throwback video of Reeves during a 1994 interview for Speed showed the actor gushing about his co-star.
“Ah, she’s a beautiful lady,” he said about Bullock. “Yeah, very beautiful, giving … She has such a wonderful energy about her and light.”
He continued, “It’s just wherever she goes, she really gives and wants things to be … springtime. So, I don’t know. I’ve enjoyed her company immensely.”
“Oh yeah, and she’s a really great actress too,” he continued. “She’s brought a very, you know, she’s been fighting the direction of just being like, the complete damsel in distress.”
Bullock crashed his interview as he was saying all those lovely things about her and the two shared a bit of a moment, hugging each other and having a brief chat before she ran off again.
Ellen DeGeneres said she was supposed to star with Keanu Reeves in ‘Speed’
While Reeves and Bullock were big screen perfection, Ellen DeGeneres dropped a surprise on Reeves when he was on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2019.
“The way we should have met, Speed was originally written for me — did you know that?,” DeGeneres asked. “This is a true story. And Sandra Bullock will tell you.”
She continued, “So the guy that wrote Speed wrote it with me in mind and then Sandy got the part but it would have been you and me and it would have been … it would have been nice … it would have been phenomenal.”
“It just would have been different,” she added.
To show just how different it would have been, DeGeneres rolled a clip showing her driving the bus and, well, it certainly didn’t offer the same Reeves and Bullock chemistry everyone knows and loves.
