"The Beautiful Side"

For most established Hollywood actors, the true test of their craft often involves a larger-than-life personality being able to successfully play either another larger-than-life personality or even the greater challenge of a more ordinary individual on the surface.

Enter 45 year-old Sandra Bullock. Despite having scored plenty of box office success with the Speed films, While You Were Sleeping, the Miss Congeniality films, and her most recent one, The Proposal, she's mostly garnered her reputation as an actor as an everywoman.

The actress's latest film is the drama The Blind Side. In it, she fills the big shoes of one Leigh Anne Tuohy, an upper-class East Memphis, Tennessee woman who took in and adopted Michael Oher, who transformed from an inner-city, underachieving teen to a newly-minted offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. Sandra said she was instantly enthusiastic and inspired by the film, based on a true story originally accounted in the book The Blind Side: Evolution Of A Game, by Michael Lewis.

"First of all, it was a beautifully executed book and especially for someone who's been around football players her whole life, still knew nothing and didn't care anything about the game," Bullock claims, "By the end of the game, I was in such awe of what it takes to be an athlete and what the coaches contribute to these children's lives and how they support and push and inspire. I had a real sense of jealousy that they got to experience that and I never did as an athlete or as someone that is able to be brought to that point. But even though I never thought I could make this movie, the inspiring part of the movie is here's this family that does this, didn't do this because somebody was writing an article or book or making a movie, but did this because that's where the instinct said this is what we're going to do and we're going to give love and reach out

"The Beautiful Side"

a hand and everybody that came and questioned them."

"And of course, we don't trust anybody that does anything nice, that's just the sad world we live in, but they didn't care and they kept going and it makes you feel like you need to step up your game. So if whatever wonderful actress was going to play Leigh Anne Tuohy, it was going to be an inspirational story, a true life story that we're capable of so much more than we think we are, because we don't really live in a world that supports the good that we can do, they all want us to do something bad that sells some papers or some news report."

However, Bullock says as much as she instantly loved the film and the character, she was terrified she would not be able to embody the larger-than-life Leigh Anne Tuohy.

"Initially, when I was approached with the film, it was a beautifully written story," Sandra recalls, "You can see it played out. I didn't know how to play Leigh Anne. I didn't know how to approach it or what I could bring to it, so I kept saying, no, this is not going to work for me. Then [Director] John [Lee Hancock] said, 'Well, why don't you just come meet Leigh Anne.'"

"So I met Leigh Anne for the whole day and I left there completely exhausted because of the energy she has, but in love with this human being and who she is at this time on the planet, but I still didn't know how to play her," she continues, "I had no idea. I didn't know how to bring that to life and be truthful and do a good job with it. I don't know at what point I said yes. I don't recall. I don't think I ever said yes or agreed to do the film."

We asked Sandra how she did manage to muster the creativity to play Leigh Anne.

"That's

"The Beautiful Side"

a tough one," she says, "Because I do think that I try to get as close"¦I mean, you don't meet an energy like Leigh Anne's ever. She might not be famous here, but she's known in other places. I felt a great sense of fear in trying to tackle that person she is, but also a great sense of obligation to be true to this wonderful dynamic."

"John could not explain Leigh Anne to save his life and when I met Leigh Anne, I said, now I know why you can't, because she's original," Bullock adds, "But there's such a dynamic that exists between those people and their children that you want to pay homage to them. I wanted to as closely as I could, so I did my best."

Bullock had plenty of praise to go around, first to the young actors Jae Head and Lily Collins who play respectively Sean Jr. and Collins Tuohy, as well as Quinton Aaron, who plays Michael Oher in The Blind Side.

"The caliber of working with these three young actors was extraordinary." Sandra says, "They might not have had as many years as we do under our belt, but you'd never know that walking onto set. And the love and the comfort and the joy and the professionalism of these three gave on a daily basis. The hardest part is listening and reacting to what an actor gives you and they would just floor me. You'd see either one of them behind the camera."

"Once we told Quinton that yes, you do have to show up for my close-up when you're not on camera, once they realize that, was astounding," she continues, " It doesn't require a lot of years in the business because we've worked in the business for many years with people who don't even show up for your off-camera. But it's amazing the professionalism you get from these guys and I'm so excited to see what they do

"The Beautiful Side"

with their lives and their craft, because if this is where they are now, I cannot imagine what they are going to accomplish in the future."

Others Sandra praised included the local talent of actors in Georgia, where the film was shot.

"We just assume that the great actors are in New York first and L.A. second and it's so not true," Bullock believes, "It's a testament to John and his casting, finding the people, finding the best people for the role. There's such amazing talent everywhere and it's exciting that these sort of 'new Hollywoods' and new filmmaking communities that can benefit from these great faces and character actors and leading actors that just are fresh and exciting and bring an authenticity to the piece. But that's smart casting, too, and that's John."

Bullock says she came off inspired by the real Leigh Anne Tuohy after doing The Blind Side"¦and she says by just how real of a person she felt Tuohy was.

"WWLAD: What Would Leigh Anne Do? That's what I'd be saying on set," she says, "We are the same person now. The nice thing is we get to play these people and get to experience lives that we normally get to come in contact. The beauty of Leigh Anne is, one of my biggest questions was how do people use their faith and their religion as a banner and they don't do the right thing, but they go, 'I'm a good Christian and I go to church and this is the way you should live your life.' And I told Leigh Anne, and this was a live interview that we had, and I said, 'One of my largest concerns stepping into this was that whole banner hold.' I said, 'It scared me because I've had experiences that haven't been great. I don't buy a lot of people who use that as their shield.' And she was so open and honest and forthright. And I

"The Beautiful Side"

said, 'Wow! I finally met someone who practices but doesn't preach.'"

"You know, we're so quick to tell people how to live their lives and so lucky that I've been able to stay on my path, even though I've deviated sometimes, but I never felt like I was OK by 100%, didn't really matter, but, you know," Sandra continues, "And then, you meet someone who blazes trails and they do it as a family and you feel validated for taking your trip rather than someone else's. In terms of what she's getting, she's going, 'This is the last time I'm doing this,' and 'I'm not doing any more press junkets,' and 'This is your thing' and I go, 'This is your story, this isn't my story.' She has no idea the path that she's begun in terms of adoption and fostering. No one's really"¦It's not on the forefront of people's minds. It is on the forefront of my mind every day when I get up, when I look around, I go, is he, is she, what's their situation, and it's because of this family. And I think that what they're going to do for our country in terms of being aware of that is I don't think they realize the profound effect they are going to have. So I'm happy that being me is great for me. And you see this family, they were themselves for no other benefit than because they wanted to reach out, lend a hand, and had no idea that they would get a son in return."

Sandra says that she was particularly inspired by Tuohy's fervent devotion to Christianity in her desire to help Michael Oher.

"I've had the blessing of my not having a restored faith, but I now have faith in those who say they represent a faith," Bullock claims, "Where as before I would say, do not give me a lecture on how to live my life when

"The Beautiful Side"

I know I'm a pretty decent human being. I might not go to church everyday, but I know I do the right thing or try to. You're going to church and you're still sleeping around on your wife and spending everybody's money. How are you better than I am? So I finally met people that walk the walk and that's made me happy, really happy."

Bullock says that part of her determination to portray Leigh Anne realistically was to mimic her distinctive, real-life wardrobe down to a T.

"I mean, hello?" Sandra remarks, "Everything I wore was what Leigh Anne wears. Every design label was what Leigh Anne wears. Every makeup was from her palette. Her watch is her watch. Her nightgown wasn't"¦I remember sitting with John and going, 'John, you got to e-mail Leigh Anne and ask what nightgown she wears.' And you see John going 'Eh,' because he knew what the reply was going to be. All he gets back from Leigh Anne is, 'Y'all need to get a life!'"

However, the one aspect of Leigh Anne's distinctive style that the actress says she will not emulate is her blonde hair.

"I like blonde highlights, but I needed to have the whole thing," Bullock says, "Like I'd have to change my whole wardrobe. There was a very important person in my life who just didn't want me being blonde, thank God! Thank God! There was not an appreciation. There was a little person who thought I looked like an angel. But there was a big person who said, 'I don't like the blonde on you, take it off.'"

Despite years of critical drubbing for her choice of films, Sandra Bullock's box office success is bigger than its ever been with The Proposal, released earlier in the year, grossing $314,600,057 worldwide. Bullock shared with us what she felt made the film a success and why she's not rushing to do any more movies just yet.

"The Proposal,

"The Beautiful Side"

aside from all the right people and the right elements being in the right place, I think nudity had a great deal to do with the success of that film," Sandra says, "If I had known that, I would have done it a long time ago. Picking roles, My way of choosing them now is vastly different now than it was a long time ago. But that, I can only be that way now because of what I learned from the past, so I'm choosing now not to choose any work, because when you have had such a nice ride, unexpected rides and fulfilling rides, you don't really want to take a step backwards."

"So it's really made me satisfied in a way that I wasn't looking for," she adds, "But I was blessed with it and I really feel full, in a good way, where I don't need to rush out and go find something. I don't want to. The fact is that I'm staring at a stack of scripts and I can't bear to open them. I don't want to step in that world right now and enjoy where I am. I think it was over time, just having good life experiences that I was actually cognizant of in my work and could remember and that I was very satisfied with. I just want to enjoy the ride instead of blasting forward and trying to fill a void in the workplace that doesn't exist."

The same, Sandra says, goes for her second occupation as producer.

"To me, the producing falls into the same as acting," Bullock believes, "It requires so much time out of your life and I take it very personally, I realize. So if I do something, it has to be something I love and I don't want anyone else to do. So when I open projects, maybe something will appeal to me. I'm not opening them because I don't want anything to appeal

"The Beautiful Side"

to me right now. I'm so happy at where I am right now. I don't want to be tempted to move from this place that I am, I'd like to be just happy where I am, which is producing and acting right now."