Sandra Bullock recalls auditioning for 'perverts'

Sandra Bullock is opening up about two pivotal, deliberate turning points in her career during a candid conversation with Jennifer Aniston for Interview magazine's cover story tied to Bullock's Practical Magic 2.

When Aniston asked whether she'd ever made an intentional decision about the shape of her career, Bullock pointed first to her earliest days grinding through New York auditions before landing steady work. 

"I was in New York, I was a waitress, I was auditioning for every pervert that existed asking me to drop my pants. I was like, 'Nope, not the role for me.' I was working my way up," she said, adding that the pressure to simply take whatever came her way was intense at the time. 

"Every working actor thinks you will never work again so you just take what you can get and make the most of it."

The second turning point came years later, once Bullock was already an established box office star, when she chose to step away from the romantic comedy genre that had defined much of her early success. 

"The only time I was intentional about my career was when I said, 'I need to stop right now with the rom-coms,' because I was getting so much s— for them," she said. 

"And I took a role in this film called Crash… I wanted to start flexing other muscles." 

Bullock built her early career on hits including While You Were Sleeping, Two Weeks Notice and The Proposal, before her pivot into Crash, the 2004 ensemble drama that went on to win Best Picture. 

Her most recent rom-com was 2022's The Lost City, a post-pandemic box office success alongside Channing Tatum.