Although Bullock had pretty much sworn off films of the romantic comedy ilk, both she and Reynolds believed with The Proposal they'd at last found the right project to do together. And at a press conference in LA in support of the Touchstone Pictures release, Bullock and Reynolds - both married - demonstrated they have good chemistry both on and off the screen.
Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds Press Conference
That nude scene was very bold and you looked fantastic.Sandra Bullock: "Thank you for that."
Can you talk about...
Sandra Bullock: "Ryan's penis? I can. At length."
Ryan Reynolds: "In great detail."
Sandra Bullock: "Sadly, my first and last nude scene got laughs. I had to be very secure with that. It was all about choreography. I mean, literally when you read it on the page you saw it and then you realized, 'Okay, there's no way to shoot this unless you're buck naked.' Then I went, 'Go to the gym. Cut out the carbs.' When it's funny though, if it turned out funny it was worth it. But while we were shooting it, it was supposed to be Betty [White] and I naked. She has in her contract that she only does nude scenes with like Ryan. I'm glad that it made people laugh, but shooting it was odd. There are things stuck to it and generally you don't have things stuck to it. I mean, there are things covered, but not stuck to it. Then you got unstuck and oddly we didn't care because we were so tired. Anne [Fletcher] was like, 'Your vagina is hanging out. Cover it up.' I go, 'Sorry, sorry.' I said the word."
Ryan Reynolds: "I will not say vagina, no matter what. The weird part is calling your mom nude, like, 'Hey, just checking in.'"
Sandra Bullock: "Oscar [Nunez] had to show his man vagina in a little banana hammock."
You've done a few of these romantic comedies before. What was it about this one, Sandra, that you wanted to say yes to?
Sandra Bullock: "Well, I had stopped doing them however many years ago, six or seven years ago. I just stopped. They're terrible. They're bad. They're not funny and so they shouldn't be a romantic comedy because most of the time they're not romantic. They shouldn't be called 'romantic comedy.' They should be called that other kind of film. I don't call this a romantic comedy. It reminds me of the films from the '30s and '40s where there was a landscape and a story and drama was allowed to be in there. You can't have good comedy without drama in it, and they don't generally write well for women in romantic comedies. I love my comedy too much to bastardize it with bad romantic comedy. So I was like, 'Okay. That's done.' I'm going to find another way to work and do it in a way that I love. So I'm not calling this a romantic comedy. That's how I got by it."
What are you calling it?
Sandra Bullock: "A motion picture."
Ryan Reynolds: "Let's just call it a talkie."
What was the most challenging: the nude scene, being felt up by Betty White, or watching Oscar Nunez shaking his goodies?
Sandra Bullock: "Let me just say...you put it that way and I think, 'God, we shot a soft porn.' Let me just say that Betty White feeling me up was the best second base I've ever had. She was tender, but firm. She found them instantly, which is not easy. She was cupping, gentle and loving. I felt satisfied afterwards. The hardest part really was watching this amazing comedian, this actor. I would stop him in the middle of the scenes and go, 'How did you make that character do that?' When he would do his scenes I just had to sit there and take it. However close he wanted to give it I took it."
Oscar Nunez said that was the first day you met.
Sandra Bullock: "It was. But to his credit, when he was on the floor and had to do that part, I was looking in his eyes on the chair and I had to sit there. I saw his eyes go from, 'Oh, my God, I'm so exposed -' to 'I'm going to give you my gift. I'm going to give you my gift.' It was hard for me not to laugh and to not feel pain because I couldn't contribute in any way shape or form. I couldn't help him. It was all him."
Ryan Reynolds: "Oscar has this great ability to express unbelievable amounts of vulnerability in a single look that's hysterical."
Sandra Bullock: "Or a single gyration. It was so hard. Then of course doing it with Ryan, it could've been really weird. Had we dated in the past I'd have been like, 'I've been there. Done that.' But we didn't and it was like he comes in and you go, 'Now I'm going to see you.' I just didn't want him to laugh when he saw me like that."
Ryan Reynolds: "You know you've made a bad move, because you don't normally combine nudity with stunts. This isn't like Cirque de Soliel porn. It's a movie. You have these scenes where you slam into each other. You fall onto the ground and I would always know that something popped out wrong because the cameraman would go, 'Oh!' By hour four I had abandoned the fig leaf or whatever the hell they gave me and I was just throwing caution - and other things - into the wind."
Sandra Bullock: [Laughing] "Okay. God. That sounds so crazy."
