Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston Work Their Magic

Sandra Bullock is one of the last true American movie stars. Hopping between rom-com queen, action heroine, and dramatic lead, audiences have never lost trust that she can pull off anything. She hasn’t starred in a movie since 2022’s The Lost City, only adding to our thirst to see her back on the big screen. It’s finally happening with Practical Magic 2, where she returns to the role once savaged by critics that a generation of mothers and daughters made into a cult classic anyway. Bullock sat down with her longtime friend Jennifer Aniston to talk about what pulled her back after four years away, the exhausting mechanics of maintaining a public image, empty-nesting, and maintaining longevity against shifting industry winds. What comes through strongest is two women who have known each other for years, doing what old friends do best: getting each other to say the true thing instead of the practiced one.

SANDRA BULLOCK: Hi, mama.

JENNIFER ANISTON: Hi, mamacita bonita. I literally want to start out by saying, “She was on a break!” Too on the nose?

BULLOCK: Oh! I get it. [Aniston is referencing the episode of Friends where Ross, talking about Rachel, says, “We were on a break!”]

ANISTON: Honestly, you’d think you disappeared for 100 years and you’re crawling out of a cave.

BULLOCK: I am. There’s some barnacles, some cobwebs, some sticks.

ANISTON: It’s been, what, four years?

BULLOCK: Yeah, The Lost City came out in 2022. Isn’t that crazy?

ANISTON: It’s crazy. No matter how many years we’ve been doing this, does it still feel like the first time? Do you still get nervous?

BULLOCK: Oh god, yes. You know that. But some people do say, “I don’t get nervous.”

ANISTON: Jason Bateman does not.

BULLOCK: Jason Bateman is a fucking freak of nature. He’s made of different stuff than we are.

ANISTON: And he has hair that won’t fall out of his head.

BULLOCK: I know. We both have good hair. You didn’t even comment on my blowout.

ANISTON: You’re one of the only women in my life with a head of hair that makes no sense. How you still have this mane is beyond me.

BULLOCK: Well, the only reason I don’t look like a Chia Pet is because of your stuff. [Aniston has a haircare range called LolaVie.] I’ve had two bouts of stress-induced hair loss, so I’m very lucky it came back. That’s also thanks to my German grandmother. Full head of thick, crazy hair. I got those genes.

ANISTON: God bless her. So, was it, “Hey, remember Practical Magic? Do you want to do that again?”

BULLOCK: When we made the first film, we were absolutely eviscerated. If you look at the reviews, they were scathing. “How many women do you need in a film? How many emotions need to be in a film?” I had a decent amount of shame because I thought I’d done something wrong. You just go, “Okay, okay, okay. I won’t do that again.” And then it just took off.

ANISTON: It turned into a cult classic.

BULLOCK: That was because of social media. Everyone was able to communicate why they loved it. Mothers watched it with their daughters and daughters grew up and watched it with their daughters. It was a total surprise. Then I was in New York, sitting in that little sunroom thingy off the kitchen, and I literally thought to myself, “How great would it be to do another one?” I reached out to Denise Di Novi, my producing partner, and said, “You know what? The only way it could work is if these things were addressed with the daughters and we could talk about what’s happening in the world.” And she went, “Sandy, that’s exactly what’s in the second book.” And I was like, “There’s a second book?” [Laughs] Alice Hoffman wrote a second book. So I said if we can say these things for the people who deserve to hear them, we should make it.

ANISTON: That’s what got you to “Let’s go do this.”

BULLOCK: Then that “Let’s go do this” took five years, but it’s okay. You and I have learned things happen exactly the way they’re supposed to, when they’re supposed to, which is frustrating for A-types.

ANISTON: I imagine that’s correct.

BULLOCK: What do you mean you imagine? Don’t pretend you’re not that person. [Laughs]

ANISTON: I wouldn’t know anything about an A-type personality. No.

BULLOCK: No. Nothing.

ANISTON: So you guys go back to the old stomping ground. What did it feel like? I’m sure you’ve seen Nicole [Kidman] over the years.

BULLOCK: Not really. I saw her maybe once or twice on a red carpet. And I’m always so panicked at those things. You know how much I love them. I’m like a deer in the headlights, sweating and trying not to make stupid faces.

ANISTON: Yeah.

BULLOCK: Coming back, not just with Nicole, but with Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing—we did a Zoom to see everyone, and then we heard that Dianne Wiest voice. We all just combusted with tears. It felt like, how often do you get to
go home?

ANISTON: I imagine you women on a set 30 years ago. Then 30 years of life happens. The stories that must have been exchanged, the life lessons.

BULLOCK: Except most of us are public, so everyone already knew what we’d been up to. [Laughs]

ANISTON: That’s true. But you’ve been in this business for so long, and we know it’s changed. Did you feel a difference between shooting a movie today versus 30 years ago?

BULLOCK: For this one specifically, there was so much—I hate the word shame, but it really did feel that way. One of the old press junket interviews popped up recently, and I looked at my body language: hunched over, trying to give a funny little answer, and I thought, “Oh my god, she’s so sad.” But coming back to this, knowing we were invited back to the table—how often does a studio say, “We need you to make this film?” That need came from people who love the film, so you have a responsibility. I make movies because I want to
make people laugh, make them cry, make them feel.

ANISTON: And you do.

BULLOCK: But in this one, I really wanted to say something, because this is my love letter to Laila [Bullock’s daughter]. My daughter is very much like Kylie, the character Joey King plays, and you know Laila, she is the fire.

ANISTON: Wild child.

BULLOCK: I wanted to give her a love letter of my sorrys. If I failed, if I don’t know how to say the right thing, I apologize. I just want to do right by her, to help her be as brave as she already is, and that scares the shit out of me. I’m a fearful person. She is not. She thinks nothing can happen to her because she’s already survived.

ANISTON: She’s a survivor, and that went into her neural pathways at a very early age. I see all you beautiful mamas with the same fear, but we forget that about our own parents. They didn’t know what they were doing.

BULLOCK: You and I have talked about our moms a lot, but now that I have a daughter and I’m able to really sit in who my mom was, I look up and go, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you felt lost. I didn’t know you were yearning for something you knew you would never get. I didn’t know you didn’t have the blessings we have as modern women.” I’m a very fearful person, and I’m trying not to let my fear clip the wings of the kids I know are just flying.

ANISTON: And how do you not let them learn their lessons? You want to keep them safe without hurting themselves, but the experiences that happened to us allowed us to learn.

BULLOCK: It’s a more dangerous time. I told them, “I’m just going to be following you everywhere. You guys are it for me. I have nothing else. I have to find my purpose outside of stupid kids.”

ANISTON: We will find your purpose.

BULLOCK: I will find it. You just have to direct me.

ANISTON: Looking at these questions, it feels like you dropped out of making movies 30 years ago.

BULLOCK: I did, but I’m back.

ANISTON: You’re like that meme of the bear coming out of hibernation.

BULLOCK: Oh my god, that is me. Hopefully with a slightly more cinched waist.

ANISTON: Was there a moment when you made a deliberate choice about the kind of career you wanted, or did it just evolve?

BULLOCK: You’ll get this. 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. Every working actor thinks you will never work again so you just take what you can get and make the most of it. 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 shit for them. And I took a role in this film called Crash.

ANISTON: A little film called Crash.

BULLOCK: It was a genius film. I wanted to start flexing other muscles.

ANISTON: It’s a very risky feeling to say, “I’m going to drop what feels like my comfort zone, which is comedies, and let’s see if they’ll take me seriously in the dramatic world.” The industry tends to pooh-pooh comedies, but they’re not as easy as they look.

BULLOCK: Now more than ever, I miss that. I want to do nothing but that now.

ANISTON: We crave those ’90s romcoms. I was having a scroll moment on that wonderful device we have.

BULLOCK: On the TikToks?

ANISTON: On the Tok and the Tiks, when I was just a little overwhelmed with my workday and I needed to take a brain-dump breather. I stumbled upon one of your bloopers from the movie you did with Hugh Grant.

BULLOCK: Oh my god, Two Weeks Notice.

ANISTON: I was reminded how much joy these movies brought to people, yet we somehow shunned them and labeled them “not quality.” And now we all want to go back.

BULLOCK: I know. Some people want to bring sexy back. We’re going to bring the funny back.

ANISTON: Let’s bring funny back.

BULLOCK: Who needs sexy? It’s too much work.

ANISTON: The upkeep is impossible. There’s a version of Sandra Bullock that belongs to the public and a version that belongs to you. How do you protect the one that belongs to you?

BULLOCK: You know, because you’re one of my protectors. I’ve been insanely private since I was a little kid. I drove my mother crazy. That’s just inherently who I am. I love being in a safe group. Nothing makes me happier than coming to your house and hanging with everybody, but then you have situations where people take your privacy and sell it. But I love telling stories and it’s our job to go out there and represent. And once I get out there, I have a blast.

ANISTON: The hard part is going on carpets and doing interviews.

BULLOCK: I’m actually fine with the interviews. It’s the posing.

ANISTON: I know.

BULLOCK: I want to be Zendaya, but I will never be Zendaya. I’m like Zendaya’s shoe polisher. She’s glorious.

ANISTON: Just thank god you and I haven’t been on one together. Is there a performance you gave that you don’t think got its due?

BULLOCK: I did a little film called Infamous that I wish had gotten more attention and praise, but two Truman Capote films came out at the same time. Toby Jones did ours and it was so divine. It was about the Swans, and I played Harper Lee.

ANISTON: I hate this question so why would I ask it? Do you have a favorite experience on a film?

BULLOCK: Two Weeks Notice with Hugh, because all I did was laugh until the makeup artist got so angry because I cry when I laugh. Hugh unravels me very quickly.

ANISTON: He says winky a lot.

BULLOCK: He says what?

ANISTON: Winky.

BULLOCK: He has a string of curse words. But the one film that was the most meaningful to me, because it was paralleling where I was, was Gravity. It was during a really dark time in my life. I was raising and protecting a little smurf while I was trying to grieve, trying to get out of it.

ANISTON: Yes.

BULLOCK: Being locked in a box by myself with no one to talk to for nine hours a day, you do a lot of thinking.

ANISTON: And you did Gravity with your little munchkin. When Louis came into the picture, what year was that?

BULLOCK: He came at the very end of 2009.

ANISTON: Boy, honey.

BULLOCK: I was just cleaning out the closet, and I found these hockey bags for stuffing clothes in for travel. Child Protective Services, do not come after me, but when the poop hit the fan for me, when, we know what that is [in March 2010, Bullock discovered her husband cheated on her; they were soon divorced], I realized I had to get out of the house because the paparazzi were going to descend, and no one knew I had a newborn.

ANISTON: Mm-hmm.

BULLOCK: So I put him in his car carrier, put it in the hockey bag, and zipped the hockey bag around him. Then I carried the hockey bag to the car, as though I was just carrying any random hockey bag.

ANISTON: So your ability to be a private person—

BULLOCK: You have to operate like the CIA. If you’re surrounded by good people, you’ll be fine. But if people near you mean you harm, no matter how covert you are and how much pre-planning you do, your privacy is information that brings them cash. I had it happen recently and it broke my heart.

ANISTON: Yeah.

BULLOCK: I wish I could be a little looser. I would like to not be so worried.

ANISTON: I think you’re doing it. I’ve experienced that worry diminish a bit.

BULLOCK: Yeah.

ANISTON: There’s a reason we have these walls. I have to struggle with it constantly. I call it being bubblewrapped. I find myself bubblewrapping to the point of, like, wait, am I still living?

BULLOCK: I say this to you a lot, but we all sort of follow your lead. You are the manifestor. You investigate. You’re like, “I’m going to figure this out for us and then I’m going to come back and get you guys.” It’s a luxury to have you as a guide because you blaze the trail. We’re going to walk on the road you paved for us. You have a bravery and a resilience, and I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s astounding.

ANISTON: Well, you must see it, because I don’t always feel it.

BULLOCK: We all see it.

ANISTON: It’s a curiosity, probably. Also, when you raise yourself when your parents weren’t at their best through no fault of theirs because they didn’t know what they were doing, you have to learn how to figure shit out.

BULLOCK: And we do.

ANISTON: We really do. So Louis comes into your life and you’re at the peak of your career. How did you decide to go to work with this little bambino?

BULLOCK: If the kids can’t be with me, I’m not going. The older they get, the bigger their schedules. And their schedules are more important than me telling a story, period. I don’t have that same drive to be in front of the camera. I get my fulfillment from the prep, the building of it, rather than the “Hey, I’m an actor and look at what I’ve done.” That scares me
actually, because then the judgment comes.

ANISTON: Right.

BULLOCK: But unless the kids are with me, I’m lost, and I have to figure that out because kids always have to leave. Louis is going to leave the house soon.

ANISTON: We have to prepare.

BULLOCK: He’s 16 and a half, Jen.

ANISTON: That gives us about a year and a half to prepare you. How will you decide what to do next, film-wise? Do you want to do another one right away?

BULLOCK: No, I’m so burnt. Also, by the time we’re done with press, the kids are in school. The rule is, everything I do has to be here in L.A. If something requires travel, it’ll happen during the summer.

ANISTON: Right.

BULLOCK: Maybe I need to just stop a little and have a social life. I was told I need to have more fun outside of a work environment.

ANISTON: I understand that.

BULLOCK: Because as you said, I have to prepare for the fact that I’ll no longer have a job as a mother.

ANISTON: The beautiful thing today is kids don’t really leave.

BULLOCK: I’m praying that’s going to happen. I keep saying, “We’ll keep this house. I’ll do the laundry. You can stay here.”

ANISTON: They all come back.

BULLOCK: Not Laila. If she could be emancipated right now, she’d be gone. She just needs a small apartment downtown.

ANISTON: In New York City?

BULLOCK: Yeah.

ANISTON: What does she want to be?

BULLOCK: You know what I think she should be? A horror film director.

ANISTON: Whoa.

BULLOCK: She loves the Scream movies. She directed a small film four years ago that she wrote in the backyard. It was so good. And then she’s also going to be a Formula 1 driver.

ANISTON: What’s your relationship with the press now?

BULLOCK: I don’t feel like we’ve ever had a relationship. They don’t invite me for dinner. We have an understanding: They have to do what they have to do. But there’s press and then there’s darker press. I go out there, do the job,
and then I go home, but you know what happens. You start to regret half the things you said and go, “That’s going to be taken out of context. I’m going to look like such an asshole.” Because we say things in jest.

ANISTON: Yeah.

BULLOCK: And sarcasm does not translate. That’s hard for me because when I get nervous I make a joke, and then it’s taken out of context and then you’re apologizing and swimming in it for a while.

ANISTON: And overexplaining.

BULLOCK: I also don’t want to be fake. I want to be honest, but there’s a price to pay for that.

ANISTON: There’s nerves around it, always. Because once you get bit, you know what it feels like.

BULLOCK: Honey, you’ve been bit more than once.

ANISTON: We obviously love the bites because we keep going back.

BULLOCK: Give me more. [Laughs]

ANISTON: Do you think longevity in this business is about talent, timing, or knowing when to say no?

BULLOCK: It’s about working your ass off. It’s about being a team player and taking care of others.

ANISTON: I have to throw in and answer it for you. It’s talent, because there’s no Sandy Bullocks. Sandy Bullock is covered in fairy dust and there’s a reason you have been here since—

BULLOCK: 1947.

ANISTON: So talent, timing, knowing when to say no.

BULLOCK: And being grateful. I know how lucky I am, and it’s fleeting.

ANISTON: And now the world is changing at lightning speed, so who knows what it’s going to look like in a year or two? You are the architect of your own life. You can manifest, in your mind, what is the dream job scenario, plant that
seed, and bring it to life.

BULLOCK: And ladies and gentlemen, this is why Jennifer Aniston is Jennifer Aniston. Still, manifesting is elusive to me, because it’s overridden by fear.

ANISTON: We’re going to transfer that. We’ll start gathering some girl groups.

BULLOCK: I would love that. I really do need it. I feel like I need to take a big sojourn, some sort of dropping of luggage that no longer serves me.

ANISTON: Cleansing circle for you.

BULLOCK: Would love it.

ANISTON: Does it mean a bunch of girls in a circle just pouring water on you? Kinda.

BULLOCK: Not water. Margaritas. But anyway.

ANISTON: Margaritas and also just clearing you of all of it. Clearing all of us. Is there anything you miss about our industry?

BULLOCK: When I think back, I wasn’t allowed to produce, or go out there and say, “No, we need the best of the best.” It was scarier back then. Now we’ve seen behind the curtain and we see it’s all smoke and mirrors. We get to have more agency over our narrative now and speak the truth, when back then we really couldn’t. There was a machine doing it for you. In an odd way, I like it better now. That’s why Practical Magic 2 needs to be made now, because it gets to tell the story of what we’re allowed to do and talk about now, that no one wanted to talk about before.

ANISTON: That’s right. The original film was about women and power and being feared for it.

BULLOCK: Yep. No different.

ANISTON: No different.

BULLOCK: Laila asked me a really powerful question: “Why are women called witches and men are called warlocks?” My answer was, “Because witch has a negative connotation. The coven had a negative connotation.” And as we were doing research for the script, I was like, there must be a reason why women go to the bathroom in packs. I looked it up and yes, hundreds of years ago establishments had no bathrooms for women. The outhouses were only for men. When a woman had to use the restroom, the women gathered and walked to a field in the dark to protect each other.

ANISTON: Mm-hmm.

BULLOCK: Women were burned at the stake for teaching each other to read. They were making and sharing holistic serums to cure a rash. Women helping each other was called evil, because they were becoming educated. I knew it, but
I didn’t know it the way I know now, because my mother paved the way for me not to have to think about it.

ANISTON: Yeah.

BULLOCK: I hope this article doesn’t sound too depressing. Are we too depressing right now? I love you.

ANISTON: I love you so much.

ANISTON: The amount I feel for this woman is hard to put into words because we’ve been in each other’s orbit for so many years.

BULLOCK: Didn’t it start at Gwyneth [Paltrow]’s house?

ANISTON: It was at Gwyneth’s. You and I sat next to each other and we didn’t pipe down. I don’t think we spoke to anybody else.

BULLOCK: We got very lucky in life.

ANISTON: We’ve shared a boyfriend [Tate Donovan]. That’s how much we love each other.

BULLOCK: We do.

ANISTON: I’m excited for this next chapter for you, honestly.

BULLOCK: Me too. I’m a little tired, a little burnt out, but I’ve never been so happy.

ANISTON: Someone who looks like you do and has the hair you have, I don’t understand. That’s what tired looks like?

BULLOCK: LolaVie, baby.

ANISTON: Have you tried the Speed Dry yet?

BULLOCK: No.

ANISTON: Because I would imagine drying your hair must be—

BULLOCK: It’s about an hour and a half, yeah.

ANISTON: Okay.

BULLOCK: Will you do me? How about we do this? We’ll go out and have a fun night on the town. We’ll go to dinner.

ANISTON: I’m going to blow you and then we’re going to go out and have a real great time.

BULLOCK: That’s right. Blow me and then we go out. Usually it goes the other way around, but this is the way the girls do it. We blow first and then we go out.

ANISTON: [Laughs] But really, you’re one of my greatest supporters.

BULLOCK: Because it works. My whole life is about my hair because it’s out of control, but you gave me new life. I love you so much. So grateful for you.

ANISTON: Love you.

Via: Interview Magazine