Sandra Bullock is among the highest-paid actresses in the world and an Oscar winner, but the “Ocean’s 8” star reveals that she nearly left the industry in a new interview with USA Today. The reason she considered calling it quits? Sexism.
The “Gravity” actress explains that she was “the last person the studio wanted” for “Speed,” her breakout 1994 role. The action pic’s director, Jan de Bont, insisted she get cast. “My career has been a domino effect of people who said, ‘I would like this person to fill this role,'” Bullock observes. “And not just in the industry, but people in my life. My mother raised me like, ‘You don’t need to get married, you forge your own path. You make your own money, and be your own person.’ And I literally went out into the world thinking there was no disparity, that everyone was equal, and I can do whatever a man can do.”
But Bullock later had what she describes as a “wake-up moment.” She recalls, “I was like, ‘What is this feeling? Why do I feel so [expletive]?’ ‘Oh my God, I’m being treated this way because I have a vagina.'” She doesn’t go into any more detail about what prompted the epiphany, but she does explain the toll sexist treatment had on her. “It was hard for me, because I walked with blinders on through life and got to where I [felt] like I was less than because I was a woman,” she shares. “And that was a hard pill to swallow. I had a lot of sadness from that. I was like, ‘Wow, maybe I need to step out of here. Maybe I need to do something else for a living.’ And that was in the middle of when I was getting work — I didn’t want to be a part of that world where there was that experience.”
Fellow Oscar winner and “Ocean’s 8” co-star Cate Blanchett also weighed in about Hollywood’s double standards. “I don’t think about my gender until those opportunities are not available to me or denied to me because of my gender,” she says. The “Carol” star adds, “We do live in a capitalist society, so it’s like your worth is valued in monetary terms. You know what the poster’s going to look like, and you’re not being paid the same as the person you’ve got equal billing and screen time with, and you think, ‘Actually, that’s not right.'”
Blanchett served as Jury President at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. She participated in a protest drawing attention to how underrepresented women directors are at the prestigious fest.
“Ocean’s 8” hits theaters Friday, June 8. The star-studded cast of the heist pic also includes Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna, and Helena Bonham Carter. Olivia Milch (“Dude”) co-wrote the script.
