Sandra Bullock is looking back on her divorce from ex-husband Jesse James.
“The one film that was the most meaningful to me, because it was paralleling where I was, was Gravity. It was during a really dark time in my life,” Bullock, 62, told Jennifer Aniston for an Interview magazine profile published Tuesday, September 8. “I was raising and protecting a little smurf while I was trying to grieve, trying to get out of it.”
She continued, “Being locked in a box by myself with no one to talk to for nine hours a day, you do a lot of thinking.”
Bullock starred as medical engineer Ryan Stone on her first intergalactic mission with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) in 2013’s Gravity. The story takes a turn when Ryan and Matt’s space walk leaves them stranded in space without any hope of a rescue.
In her real life, Bullock was married to James, now 57, from 2005 to 2010. That year, multiple women came forward and claimed that James had affairs with them. James, who publicly admitted to his infidelity at the time, finalized his divorce from Bullock in 2012. She adopted son Louis, now 16, alone later that year. (The Practical Magic 2 star later adopted daughter Laila, now 12, in 2015.)
“I was just cleaning out the closet, and I found these hockey bags for stuffing clothes in for travel. Child Protective Services, do not come after me, but when the poop hit the fan for me … I realized I had to get out of the house because the paparazzi were going to descend,” she recalled to Interview of finding out about James’ cheating scandal. “No one knew I had a newborn, so I put him in his car carrier, put it in the hockey bag and zipped the hockey bag around him. Then, I carried the hockey bag to the car, as though I was just carrying any random hockey bag.”
For Bullock, it was especially important to maintain Louis’ privacy amid the scandal.
“You have to operate like the CIA. If you’re surrounded by good people, you’ll be fine,” she stated. “But if people near you mean you harm, no matter how covert you are and how much pre-planning you do, your privacy is information that brings them cash. I had it happen recently and it broke my heart.”
After her divorce, Bullock moved on with photographer Bryan Randall in 2015. They were together until his death in 2023 at the age of 57 following a private, three-year battle with ALS.
