Sandra Bullock is the daughter of a German opera singer (mother Helga) and a voice coach (father John). Her formative years continent-hopping between her home base of Arlington, Virginia, and Vienna, Austria, where she learned German the theatre life at an impressionable age, often appearing on-stage with her mother.

Bullock found a number of parts in Hollywood, but they were limited to such box-office bombs as When the Party’s Over, The Vanishing, and The Thing Called Love.

She earned her first breakthrough role in Sylvester Stallone’s Demolition Man, replacing Lori Petty (Tank Girl), who was fired several days into shooting. Though the movie itself misfired, producer Joel Silver, favorably impressed with Bullock’s work, recommended her to Speed director Jan De Bont, and her price has been skyrocketing ever since.

After the subsequent success of While You Were Sleeping, Bullock indulged her avid interest in the online world by starring as a computer debugger in the thriller, The Net, and she then charmed audiences in the romantic comedy Two If by Sea. Bullock then performed in Joel Schumacher’s production of John Grisham’s A Time To Kill. She also starred in her newly formed production company's first property, a short she wrote and directed called Making Sandwiches. The project teamed her once again with her A Time To Kill co-star and then-rumored companion, Matthew McConaughey. Bullock played nurse Agnes von Kurowsky to Chris O'Donnell's Ernest Hemingway in Richard Attenborough's W.W.I. epic love story, In Love and War, and reprised her popular character from Speed in the film's listless, cruise ship-themed sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control. Next up for the actress is a role in director Forest Whitaker's Hope Floats.