How Sandra succumbed

July 27, 2006 - 9:04AM
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Sandra Bullock.
Photo: AP

There was a time when Sandra Bullock was not fond of marriage.

White frilly dresses, wedding bells and bomboniere ... it simply was not an option.

"I never wanted to get married," the 46-year-old Hollywood actress put it bluntly.

"It was a death sentence."

Bullock has had a few long and short term relationships with well-known Hollywood leading men. She was engaged to actor Tate Donovan, dated Matthew McConaughey and Ryan Gosling and reportedly was with American football quarterback, Troy Aikman.

Romance and long term relationships were fine, but walking down the aisle?

No way.

Why?

"Oh my God, how many marriages do you see that you really admire?" Bullock, sitting before about 20 journalists at a Beverly Hills hotel, recently asked.

There was silence in the room.

"Thank you," Bullock, taking the silence as confirmation wedded bliss is not so common.

"How many people who are in a marriage go 'Oh my God, I'm in the greatest relationship. I am so happy' or 'I married too young and I have kids and they are taking away from my life'?

"I want to enjoy everything that I do and be the best of myself that I could.

"Being married wasn't a thing. I wasn't raised with 'You have to have a white dress and a wedding'.

"I was raised with 'Have a good life and push yourself and achieve what you want to achieve in happiness'."

That all changed in 2003 when her eight-year-old God son revealed his Christmas wish. He wanted to watch a taping of the grease monkey reality TV show, Monster Garage, starring tattooed former bodyguard with the outlaw name, Jesse James.

Bullock did not know who James was and knew little about the show, which involved James and his welding mastery turning VW Beetles into working swamp boats and a simple Ford car into a garbage truck.

"He said 'I want to go to this place'," Bullock said, recalling her God son's Christmas wish.

"I was like 'Whatever. That's your Christmas present'."

Romance soon sparked between Bullock and James.

The visit changed her view on marriage.

Less than two years later Bullock and James surprised their family and friends with a wedding near the Californian coastal retreat of Santa Barbara. The guests thought they were going to a party.

The theme of taking a chance to pursue love underlines Bullock's new romantic comedy, The Lake House, which co-stars her good friend Keanu Reeves, who she starred with in 1994's action blockbuster, Speed.

Bullock plays Dr Kate Forster, a Chicago doctor who falls in love with architect Alex Wyler (Reeves). The twist is the two have never met, but live in the same house.

Through some unexplained time warp, they discover they can communicate by writing letters and leaving them in the home's letterbox.

Wyler is living in April 2004 and Forster is in April, 2006, but the letters appear instantly in the letterbox.

Bullock laughed that if presented with a letterbox where mysterious letters from two years before magically appeared, she would be suspicious of being the victim of a prank.

"I would look for wires or a remote control," she said.

But, she adds there are times in life when you have to "step back and eliminate all the things that are the tricks I've experienced in life".

That is what Forster, a respected doctor, but emotionally unfulfilled, does.

"This person was ready in her life to be open to something like that," Bullock said.

"She's a logical doctor who bases everything she does on science and is presented with this other worldly happening.

"Obviously she needed something like that in her life to wake her up.

"You forget about the magic of things.

"Kids don't care about how it happens.

"They get lost in it.

"I think as adults, we have become really jaded and it takes a lot for us to let go."

That is what Bullock did when she met and then fell in love with James.

"It was bigger than what I was in all of the right ways," the actress said.

"I'm a control freak who can take care of everything myself.

"I carry my own luggage, take care of the car, run my own business.

"I can do anything you tell me. I'm going to do it. I don't need it. I don't need a man. I can take care of everything.

"But, it just happened."

The Lake House opens in Australia Thursday

AAP