 |
In Long Beach – and Austin, Texas, which Bullock has also called home for years – the movie star who pulled down $17.5 million for Miss Congeniality 2 prides herself on being the Anti-Diva. Although she is executive producer of her pal Lopez's ABC sitcom, she's been known to go on Starbucks runs for the show's staff when she's on the set. And when she drops by Cisco Burger, the organic fast-food joint James owns in his hometown, Bullock happily shoots the breeze with the folks who work there. "She's the real deal," says Arthur Hardy of the Warren Easton Charter Foundation, with whom Bullock is working to rebuild a New Orleans school devastated by Katrina. "She is so ordinary."
For Bullock – who loves nothing more than tearing up the trail on her Honda off-road dirtbike and swearing a blue streak with the boys – there's no higher compliment. "I want to be a broad," she says during her interview in a Beverly Hills hotel suite, where she flops down on the floor, poaches a bite of her guest's lunch from across the coffee table and pours green tea for two. But despite a warm and fun-loving exterior, she has never been shy about expressing a pessimistic streak. She says she prefers the herbal sweetener stevia to the chemical-based options, but quickly adds, "Everything in large doses is gonna kill you. Even happiness." Keeping her expectations low is an old habit. "I think everything is going to be devastatingly sad – when the phone rings I know somebody in my family's been hurt, somebody's going to die. I'm sure a therapist would go, 'That's not a good way to live,' but every time it's not that bad thing, I'm so thankful and appreciative."
