10 March 2005
EmpireonLine
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The sting in the tail of winter continued to linger last night in Leicester Square, but as usual, hundreds of film fans ignored the chill in the air, and waited patiently for a glimpse of the girl of the hour, Sandra Bullock. And waited. She was in town to promote Miss Congeniality 2: Armed And Fabulous, but no-one was sure exactly which part of town. As the ticket holders made their way into the cinema, along the all too appropriate pink carpet, the occasional slender slice of unknown totty sauntered by (always interesting when fashion minded folks know the name of the dress’ designer, but not the woman wearing it), and the usual post-Big Brother fame hanger-on lingered hopefully in front of photographers. Hugh Grant did turn up, but was decidedly not talking to the press on this particular evening. We expect he just wanted to get somewhere warm, and no-one could, in all honesty, blame him.
It turns out that Sandra had run late filming a spot on Parky, and getting across London in rush hour may have been better achieved by her character’s trademark high heel dash. Luckily, it wasn’t too long before the delightful Ms B made it, and was meeting and greeting her captive audience.
When she arrived in the foyer, time was running decidedly short, and all manner of questions from the press pen were quickly fielded. Given that Sandra was looking particularly ladylike – even in jeans, we asked about the rather unfeminine fighting in the film. “There’s some good stuff, good butt-kicking. I think women should do a lot more fighting, that way we would get out a lot of the stuff we’re supposed to repress. I don’t think it’s fair that we can’t get into a good bar fight with a woman, and still be respected as a woman.” Fair enough, although we don’t expect Sandy to become a professional scragfighter anytime soon.
It wasn’t long before the inevitable subject of wardrobe came up, and it seems that playing Gracie Hart is having an effect on Bullock’s choices offscreen. “Oh, girls never dress for the weather at premieres - are you kidding?! It could be like 20 degrees below zero, and we wear a little strapless dress, little bag. But I did kind of dress for the weather tonight.”
Not getting any words with the man himself, someone asked about Hugh’s presence. “(Hugh is here) because he’s a great friend, and a great supporter. Anything he does, I’ll support him, and he’ll support me… He’s fantastic, and he takes a wicked good picture. Have you noticed he’s disgustingly photogenic?”
Dragging the conversation back to films, we asked Sandra what made her return to the character of Gracie. “You know what? A great script. Once the writer wrote a great script – we never had any intention of doing this, but we had so many ideas that we said ‘let’s put them on paper, and if it can stand on its own, like if the first one had never been made, and if this one looks alright on it’s own, then we should do it’ and we loved it. It’s kind of like good candy – you just can’t stay away from it.”
But what about the danger of doing sequels? “It’s hard to do sequels. I did one once, and it was unfortunate.” Touche. But then, Sandra does look like the optimistic type, even from behind as she was bustled into the theatre. Empire meanwhile, was left to brave the cold once more, but felt just that litte bit
