Blogs

A tip of the hat to Christina Martin. Writing at Live Action News, she alerted me and everybody else to a wonderful interview actress Sandra Bullock recently gave to Vogue magazine.

As Christina began, “Who doesn’t have a soft spot for Sandra Bullock? From ‘Miss Congeniality’ to ‘The Blind Side’ her funny, sweet performances have captured the hearts of movie goers worldwide.” (My entire family would add to that list, “While You Were Sleeping.”)

Vogue writer Jason Gay, like most men, clearly is in love with Bullock. But the profile is more than a 3,396-word-long hosanna. Mr. Gay makes us understand early on that Bullock is very uncomfortable being a mega-star and that she is determined to live a grounded existence. At the center of her universe is Bullock’s son, Louis.

Image

Adopted in January 2010, Louis, an African-American, is now 3 l/2. While the profile, obviously, focuses on Bullock’s many successful movies and the much anticipated sci-fi “Gravity” film, what holds it together is Bullock’s love for her adopted son.

She won an Oscar and the period leading up to and after was also the time of a particularly rocky time in her life. That no one knew about Louis was a “tiny miracle,” Mr. Gay writes. The secret lasted even though she was doing almost daily publicity for “The Blind Side,” which coincidentally is a “a true story about an affluent white family that took in an African-American teenager who later went on to play pro football.”

Louis’s arrival was sudden and, Mr. Gay writes,

“Her life was transformed. She was stunned, exhausted, sleep-deprived, ecstatic. She thought about screaming out the news at the Oscars—‘I wanted to get up there and say, ‘Guess what?’ ”—but she decided against it. She did make a veiled reference, however, thanking ‘moms that take care of the babies and the children no matter where they come from.” Everyone assumed she was referring to the movie and Leigh Anne Tuohy [the mother in the movie] and she was. But she was also speaking about herself.”

No one is going to confuse what a woman with the resources Sandra Bullock has would through in adopting a child with how the rest of us would cope. But what jumps out is how clearly Bullock relishes her role as a mother. She tells Mr. Gay

“If all of a sudden someone said, ‘You have five more kids,’ I’d be totally OK with it.” At the moment, “I’m having such an amazing time. Whatever comes our way, we handle as a family. It’s not just me anymore.”