Sandra Bullock: 'The Unforgivable' is 'my love letter' to daughter Laila
"The Unforgivable" marks Sandra Bullock's first film in three years, since 2018's Netflix sci-fi thriller "Bird Box," and she opened up on the newest episode of Red Table Talk about why she felt compelled to take on the dramatic role.
"All my rage needed a place to go," Bullock joked when asked by Adrienne Banfield-Norris what drew her in, before explaining her true inspiration: "My daughter. I had an extraordinary experience through the foster care system. It was incredibly hard, but I have the most glorious to show for what exists within that system. Sort of my love letter to her."
Bullock first adopted her now-11-year-old son, Louis, in early 2010, before adopting her now-eight-year-old daughter, Laila, in late 2015. At the time of Laila's adoption, she was three and had been in the foster care system in Louisina.
"She was in three different systems before I found her, and she was only two-and-a-half," Bullock said on Red Table Talk.
The Oscar winner continued, touching on her journey toward motherhood as a whole:
"I don't know why [adoption] was the only route, but I'm so glad the universe had me wait. Had me wait even though I was anxious, and I was eager, and it went, 'Nope, we're not gonna do it the way you think you're gonna do it.' The sweetest part of it is that I found out about both babies when I was in the exact same place. I was in the place where my mother was buried. Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It makes me really emotional, but I feel beyond a shadow of a doubt that my mother brought me these children. I knew I would be a mother. I knew I wouldn't be a mother at a young age."
The 57-year-old expounded on the "deep" and "dark" intricacies of the foster care system. Because of Laila's trauma as a toddler in the system, it took her a while to trust Bullock.
"I had my kids in my closet with their little beds because I was so afraid to not have them super close to me, and I would walk in, and I wouldn't be able to find [Laila]," Bullock recalled. "She'd be in the closet with all her clothes on. She'd be on a bookshelf. She'd be hiding. She'd always be ready to leave. She's always telling me she's leaving."
Bullock shared that Laila also used to hide food for a while — "it's survival" — but has since "pushed forward beyond the triggers and the fears [that will] come up for the rest of her life."
In "The Unforgivable," Bullock plays Ruth Slater as she is released from prison after serving time for a violent crime and "re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past. Facing severe judgment from the place she once called home, her only hope for redemption is finding the estranged younger sister she was forced to leave behind."
The movie is currently playing in select theaters and will hit Netflix on Dec. 10. Watch the trailer below.
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