Swimsuit. Talent. Pratfalls. Sandra Bullock nailed every category in the Dec. 14, 2000, comedy Miss Congeniality, about a scrappy fed who infiltrates a beauty pageant. The inspiration? An Ellen DeGeneres interview, cowriter Marc Lawrence recalls to Us. “They asked her what the most difficult part [of hosting the Emmys] was going to be, and she said, ‘Wearing a dress.’ Synapses started firing: What kind of woman would have a hard time wearing a dress? A tough female FBI agent at the Miss America pageant.” He continues: “I have spent very little time in my life thinking about beauty pageants. Had the TV not been on at that moment, it’s likely this movie would not exist.”
WHO WAS INVOLVED
In addition to Bullock as Gracie Hart, the film featured Benjamin Bratt as agent/love interest Eric Matthews, Candice Bergen as pageant boss Kathy Morningside, William Shatner as cheesy emcee Stan Fields and the legendary Michael Caine as Gracie’s cuttingly observant coach, Victor Melling. (Sample line: “Eyebrows — there should be two.”) That character was originally supposed to be a woman, says Lawrence, whose cowriters were Katie Ford and Caryn Lucas. “Sandy read the script and said to me, ‘There are a lot of women in this, and they’re great, but I think it would be interesting to balance it out a bit more.’”
WHY WE REMEMBER IT
The goofy premise of an agent going under- cover at the Miss United States competition to foil a bomber perfectly showcased Bullock’s comedy chops. Gracie’s inability to walk in heels even earned the actress a Teen Choice Award for Wipeout Scene of the Summer! Plus, “There’s that bit where Sandy’s taunting Ben Bratt with ‘You want to kiss me; you want to hug me,’” Lawrence says. “I wrote some version of that into the script, and she said, ‘I should sing this’… She had tons of [ideas] that just made the character weirder and funnier and better.”
KEY DETAILS
The hilariously overblown pageant theme (“She’s beauty and she’s grace…”) was partly written by Lawrence’s then-5-year-old son, Clyde. “I played him the actual Miss America song and said, ‘I want something like that.’” The boy wrote the melody, and he and Dad collaborated on lyrics. Today, Clyde and sister Gracie head up the Grammy-nominated band Lawrence!
‘Miss Congeniality’ Cast: Where Are They Now?
THE AFTERMATH
The Donald Petrie–directed title raked in more than $212 million worldwide and nabbed Bullock a Golden Globe nod. Alas, the 2005 sequel, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous, with Regina King, didn’t reach the same heights. Still, iconic jokes from the original — like Miss Rhode Island (Heather Burns), asked for her perfect date, answering, “April 25th” — are memorialized in memes. “That [line] will be on my tombstone,” Lawrence says, laughing.
A NEW PERSPECTIVE
There’s a whole lot of ogling of women that would not fly today, and Bullock, who was also a producer, wasn’t wild about the pageant bathing suit scene. “That was a huge bone of contention for me,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “I was trying to get it written out so many times.”
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Lawrence went on to write another Bullock project, 2002’s Two Weeks Notice, along with 2007’s Music and Lyrics, which he’s currently adapting for Broadway with his kids. Bullock — who’s now at work on Practical Magic 2 with Nicole Kidman — went on to win an Oscar (for the 2009 drama The Blind Side) and star in more funny classics like The Proposal. “Her sense of physical comedy [remains] off-the- charts genius,” Lawrence notes. No arguments here.
