How was Sandra Bullock cast in the movie ‘Speed’?
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(Credits: 20th Century Fox)
In 1994, Sandra Bullock became an undisputed A-lister with her performance as amateur bus driver Annie Porter opposite Keanu Reeves in the action thriller Speed. Before that, with the sole exception of her secondary role in the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Demolition Man, Bullock’s entire film career had consisted of low-budget limited or direct-to-video releases, as well as several high-profile flops.
It was quite the gamble, then, for 20th Century Fox and Speed producer Mark Gordon, who was overseeing his first big-budget production, to cast Bullock as their female lead. She wasn’t their first choice. The part was initially written for Halle Berry, who’d just had a hit starring in Eddie Murphy’s rom-com Boomerang. “I stupidly said no,” Berry later told Entertainment Tonight ruefully. “But in my defence, when I read the script the bus didn’t leave the parking lot.”
The character was rewritten once Berry turned it down, but Gordon and Fox still went through several actors before they got to Bullock. In retrospect, it’s hard to imagine any of Meryl Streep, Kim Basinger or Anne Heche getting that bus over the gap in the freeway as Bullock’s character does, but at the time, any one of them would have been a coup for the studio.
“The City of Los Angeles should give me a kickback,” Bullock joked with Entertainment Weekly while promoting the film. “’Have you seen the lines at bus stops lately?” she asked her interviewer. “I made riding the bus hip.” She certainly owned the part, making her character’s sudden transformation from unthinking commuter to terror-fighting hero one of Speed’s most compelling elements. She described shooting the entire movie on a bus as the “best acting lesson” she’d ever had, as it challenged her to make scenes entertaining.
So, how did she get the part?
Despite being at least fifth choice for the role of Annie and coming off the back of her blockbuster success with Stallone, Bullock still had to audition just like everybody else. ”I had to read for Speed,” she remembered, “to make sure the chemistry was OK between me and Keanu.”
Bullock and Reeves, who was also way down the list of actors initially sought out for the role of Officer Jack Traven, would spend much of the time shooting the film together at close quarters. “We had to do all these really physical scenes together, rolling around on the floor and stuff.”
Their chemistry couldn’t have been better, elevating a movie written around its action sequences to the level of a human interest story. On the other hand, Bullock proved her credentials as an action star, setting herself up for various gun-toting roles over subsequent decades, alongside more drama and romance-focused performances.
She might not have been needed for Speed at first. However, she turned out to be the only person who could have played Annie Porter, the role that launched her rise to stardom.
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