Wow, that went fast — literally! Last night (October 8), Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves reunited at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles for a special 30th anniversary screening of their iconic 1994 action movie Speed — but they had barely aged a day.
Aside from the telltale flecks of (still hot!) gray in Reeves’s beard, you would never believe that these two both recently turned 60. But it’s true — they have both doubled in age since the movie was released in 1994 and became a huge hit, grossing over $350 million globally despite its modest (by Hollywood standards) $30 million budget.
The pair chatted about the movie, which turned relative newcomer Bullock into a big name and cemented Reeves’s status as an action hero, with director Jan de Bont at American Cinematheque’s Beyond Fest — and de Bont had a lot of praise for the two stars. “I’ve never been so proud of those two actors,” he said. “The relationship that these two created together is absolutely amazing. All the emotions were right, all the laughing was right, all the smiling, the little smooching. It was really, really cool.”
If it’s been a while since you watched the movie — or you’ve never seen it at all — here’s a recap: Reeves stars as a Los Angeles police detective, Jack Traven, who is trying to get a seriously scary situation under control: a madman, played by the late Dennis Hopper (the actor sadly died in 2010), has rigged a public bus with explosives and, if it drops below 50 miles per hour, it will blow up. Bullock plays Annie Porter, one of the passengers who ends up jumping into the driver’s seat after he is accidentally shot.
It’s seriously action-packed stuff — but nearly could have looked very different, since Bullock wasn’t even the director’s first choice to play Annie. “I was the new kid on the block and it was nerve wracking,” she says. “I was excited. I didn’t think I’d be getting the job but the only reason I got this job was because I was fought for — that’s the only thing. Other people turned it down and there were other people ahead of me.”
Reeves, on the other hand, was the number one choice for his role — but he wasn’t so sure. As one of Hollywood’s hottest heartthrobs of the era, he had his pick of movie scripts at the time. “I read the second draft, and the next draft and I was like, oh yeah, OK… it could be fun,” he recalls.
Hilariously, since the movie was shot on real roads, Bullock actually got her bus driver’s license for the role — but didn’t end up needing it. “The fun part was that I was at the helm of the bus but in the back there was someone driving along the roof,” she reveals. “I did get my Santa Monica bus driver’s license. It’s not an easy vehicle to maneuver.”
Everything Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves Have Said About Their Relationship
She and Reeves have remained good friends since they teamed up for Speed — and it might be because he was a total gentleman on set. “I had this dress that was very light, and I had a bodysuit underneath,” she says. “When we started rehearsing, I noticed that the velocity of air would shoot the skirt over my head, the bottom part. He had to keep my integrity intact by keeping things that didn’t need to be seen on a 17-foot screen hidden. That’s what I remember of that day.”
Bullock reprised her role in Speed 2: Cruise Control in 1997, but Reeves declined. And sadly, for the many fans of the franchise, it sounds like a third installment is pretty unlikely. “The geriatric version!” laughed Bullock. “It won’t be fast!”
