Sandra Bullock is the miss without a man in her new film, Miss Congeniality 2, just as in her own life. But, as she tells Steve Pratt, that's the way she likes it.

Sandra Bullock defies Hollywood convention and doesn't get her man in her new movie, Miss Congeniality 2. As undercover FBI agent Gracie Hart, she's great at catching criminals but the chap she snared as her boyfriend in the first movie is conspicuous by his absence in the sequel.

Gracie ends the film without a romantic leading man of her own. This is almost unheard of in mainstream US movies. But, as Bullock says, she's the producer and she can do what she wants.

She remains one of the big screen's most bankable leading ladies thanks to movies including Speed, While You Were Sleeping, A Time To Kill and The Net. But she questions the Hollywood way of seeing life. "Every film has love in it but my question is, why does a female-driven film have to have the girl get the guy?," she asks.

"Does that make her less of a lead character or less of a woman if she doesn't have the guy? The guy doesn't have to get the girl either to be complete.

"The first film, Miss Congeniality, was everything that I wanted to say, but comedy is only funny when you're kicked in the gut a little bit. If everything was blissfully happy and hunky-dory, there's nothing to hang the comedy on.

"And, very much like life, every time things go well, the next day something goes into the crapper."

At 40 and single, the perception that you're not complete without another half is a subject that concerns her and she's not averse to pushing out a message.

"If we say to people that it's not so much that without a guy you're nothing, it's don't conform, be who you are, love yourself and be true to who you are as a unique individual rather than what the magazines tell you you should be and life will make a lot more sense. But it's hard to ignore all of those aspects in society.

"We all question ourselves looking at a magazine. I know I do. 'God, I wish I was blonde and looked like this'. I'm never gonna be a blonde no matter how hard I try. It's just not who I am.

"So the message, as a man or a woman, is that it's hard to stay true to who you are and be unique. If you can do it, it's gonna be a better path for you, it's gonna feel better."

Five years ago, Miss Congeniality, in which Gracie Hart disarmed a threat against the Miss United States Pageant while working undercover as a contestant, was a big hit. It was different as a comedy with a female leading character, something that's rare in Hollywood films today.

A sequel was only developed after writer Marc Lawrence and Bullock came up with the idea of exploring how Gracie deals with being a media personality in the wake of her exploits. "I've done one other sequel and learned that unless it's on the page there's no point in doing it," she explains.

"We said if this film could stand on its own without the first one having been made, then that's something exciting to do. I'd enough distance, done a few other things, so I didn't get tired of her. I got to rejoin her and appreciate how great a character it was."

Gracie has to cope with being thrust into the spotlight just as Bullock did after hitting the big time in the wake of Speed. "You suddenly realise that things are not as they used to be. There's a lot of people around you suggesting things, who seem to know better than you," she says.

"Nine times out of ten those people are making suggestions that benefit them rather than you in the long run. You don't realise that's what's happening because you're lucky to be working.

"I was excited to have jobs. I'd just take them as they came and was happy to be part of the game. You don't realise that you've really gone off the track that you were supposed to go on.

"But I would do that again because had I not gone into left-field, I never would have figured out what it was that I wasn't and figured out what I was supposed to be doing."

You learn by your mistakes, she feels, and that no matter who you are, you're affected by success in both a positive and negative way. "It's something that creeps up on you and you don't realise it's happening. There's a perception that's changed about you. Fame, success and all that stuff is not something you can control.

"It's your gift, but it's going to go away as quickly as it arrived so you can't really hang much on it. When you do and it goes away, that's when people see their lives bottom out. I know it's fleeting, it's come and go."

She knew she was famous when her neighbours alerted the media that she was getting married in her backyard. A tabloid and paparazzi scrum ensued, only to find it was a wedding between two men.

"You can see that they were disappointed but there were some great wedding pictures for the people who got married," she says. "But I was just shocked by the level to which people would sell you down the river."

* Miss Congeniality (12A) opens in cinemas tomorrow.

Published: 24/03/2005