Bullock, no stranger to the romantic movie genre, views The Lake House as an epic love story. In Bullock's words, The Lake House is about "possibilities and impossibilities and the decisions we make on our way to finding the right person."
Sandra Bullock’s Approach to Her Character: “If something is written well, I think the inherit tone is right there for you. Like I can read something and go, ‘I can understand this. I can understand this level.’ And then I’ll argue with myself while I’m there - or the director or Keanu.
I think I naturally find it. I think every human being, every biological creature has a level of melancholy in life and in general. Levels are different. It was pretty much written to a certain degree, and once we started working together and figuring out the environment and why would she allow herself to be drawn into something like this without giving the exposition of, ‘You’re a doctor. You’re logical. Why are you allowing this to happen when it makes no sense?’ It was fun to sort of figure out the levels and the balances.
Bullock continued. “I could sort of push it a little and it was completely wrong - and it felt like wrong. Then we would do it again and talk it out and, you know, pace and find another way to do it and then it would feel absolutely right. Sometimes it’s natural and other times you just have to fight to figure out.”
Nailing the Film’s Tone: Bullock used the original film, Il Mare, as reference material. “I saw it, just because when I signed on I didn’t know what the tone was. I wanted it to be a tone like what we have. I didn’t want it to become a goofy set-up and commercial. It was presented to me not like that. I wasn’t looking to see what they were doing. I was looking at it to see what the tone was. When I saw the tone it made me say, ‘ I want to dive into this.’ I think the same with Keanu. It’s something that’s so different. This isn’t your commercialized packaged project. The fact that the studio said let’s try something unique and everyone got on board out of passion for the project… It’s not like one of these big money blockbuster things. You don’t take the money. Everyone sacrifices and gets into the project. It’s so worth it.”
Working with Director Alejandro Agresti: “He’s a painter. In a day when our visual medium has become a talky, edited, slice it down to an hour and thirty minutes because of the attention span of whoever’s watching’, that doesn’t exist in his world nor should it. You don’t do a film like this and think, ‘This falls into this category,’ which it doesn’t really fall into. I say hats off to a studio for allowing someone like him who is not the mold that studios like to have, go on that journey, letting us just battle it out.”
Bullock’s co-star Reeves said Agresti would get what he needed and move on, without picking up the shot from different angles. The studio might not have appreciated the technique in case they need to cut the film differently, but it’s the way Agresti works. “It’s a double-edged sword, but again, it’s not a big budget film,” said Bullock. “I think a studio took that on going, ‘It’s different. We’re going to let the artists do what they do.’ They weren’t circling like they usually do. At some point they came in with, ‘Where’s the coverage?’ But in the end, it’s hard when there is a leader who has it cut in his head and on the floor, to parlay that and go back to the studio and say, ‘Oh, I’ve got this. It’s going to be fine.’
He’s busy creating the template. Each scene is a painting. We would not shoot the entire day and we’re going to shoot it at 3:30 until 6 o’clock because the light is right at this point, which expresses this emotion, which gives you this visual palate. That’s right. That’s the way it should be. It’s a visual medium. It’s a painting. The environment was just as important as the characters in it."
Reuniting with Keanu Reeves for The Lake House: Bullock said they were just waiting for the right film to come along. “Often people will say, ‘You and Keanu should do something. It would be great to have you guys…’ It came out of nowhere. It came at us from two different directions. It was at a strange time and I was like, ‘I’m not ready to do this.’ I read it and I went, ‘Wow!’ Actually, I found out about it through another director friend of mine, Paul Haggis, who said, ‘You should read this. It’s brilliant.’
They don’t make movies like this any more. It’s too risky and it doesn’t have the formula that you can hang something on. But, I think that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to make something moving. If it works, money will come later. But everyone does things for love. Eventually, you’re going to get something out of it. It might not be Batman but it’ll be what it’s supposed to be.”
Page 2: Destiny, Love, and Keanu Reeves
