Minus Michael Caine and Sandra Bullock's "Miss Congeniality" love interest, Benjamin Bratt, "Miss Congeniality 2" picks up not long after Gracie Hart saved the Miss United States Pageant from becoming a bloodbath. The now famous Ms. Hart is too well-recognized to go back to undercover work and instead has to take on the role of FBI poster girl, complete with her own personal stylist and a new partner (Regina King) who is not happy about being teamed up with the FBI's biggest celebrity.
INTERVIEW WITH SANDRA BULLOCK:
Is it true you fought to not have a love interest in this sequel?
Not so much fought as that the continuation of the story is that it
was never a romantic comedy in the first place. It just happened to have
that story. But my goal for it was that I wanted women to be able to do the
same thing that men get to do in comedies and say, “That's a comedy.” Why does it always have to be a romantic comedy? Why do woman always have to
have that? There's a lot of love in this. There's a lot about what one does
when everything you relied on is taken away. And if your heart gets broken
how do you rally back? It happens to everyone in life.
But my love interest was Regina [King]. There’s a great love story there. It's about having to face who I was and what I'm not anymore. And she has to learn where to soften up some of her edges and she's got her journey. I wanted an equal partner in this film to carry this film with me, and tell the story that this is what I wanted to say. And in order to say this, x, y, and z needed to be in place.
Can you talk about your fight scenes with Regina?
It was very well choreographed by our stunt coordinator, Jack Gill, who was on the first one. I wanted them all to be about the story. It wasn't just like a great action sequence. We had to say lines in between. What would be the next move? Like the airport scene, we couldn't be too big in our fighting because we're in an airport and security will come. And I said, “We want great fight sequences, but we also want them to be character driven.” And he's great with that. He's one of the top guys.
The first fight with Benjamin Bratt in the first film was about the characters. It was about them. That was the only way that they could converse, through fighting. And he has a great eye for that, and so much skill with the people that he works with. The stunt doubles he has for me are just fantastic.
Regina King said she could probably take you in a fight. What do you think?
She could give me a good fight. I have height on her, but she could
pack a serious punch. I think that we would be equally matched. I'd take
her down though. But when we would fight, we would push it and you could
feel the other person bending a little harder and then I'd bend a little
harder. She probably could, but I'm taller and I can run faster.
Gracie’s breakup is mentioned several times in this sequel. Was there a specific message you wanted to convey?
No. We've all been through it. We've all done it to people. We've all
been through it. If there’s someone in this room who’s never been broken up with, you need to get broken up with. It’s bad. No. It helps explain that when someone is at their lowest and then something else happens to even cut them down lower, and we're not
feeling great about ourselves, what choices do we make for ourselves when we
don't have the confidence and we don't have the drive and we don't have the
support within ourselves to say, “This is who I am.”
If everything that you know and love is taken away, and not just in the breakup, but in her life and her career, that's all she had - she can't do what she loves anymore, and so what do you when someone goes, “This is the only option that you've got.” She goes, “Fine. I'll take it if I can just be a part of this.” And he says, “But you are now the face of the FBI and you need to uphold yourself in a different way. You can't fight. You can't be spewing violence. You can't do things that way because you're representing the FBI.” So to watch someone's wings be clipped like that, to see how they adjust… Also with [the] media. You know how [they are] and you'd rather get a woman with her cellulite showing than to show her doing a good deed. That's what sells. Unfortunately, that's what sells. That's sort of what Gracie is realizing is that if she was herself, they'd have a field day with her. It's a lot of fun comments, but it's also in the end saying, “You know what? If you're unique and you're original, it's harder to sort of step out because you're going to have people going, ‘Why do you dress like that? Why do you look like that? Why don't you look like me?’” You want people to feel good about going, “Because this is who I am.”
PAGE 2: On Buddying Up With Regina King and Working With Diedrich Bader
