Sandra Bullock as Dr Ryan Stone in Gravity

How do you see your character Ryan Stone and her journey in Gravity? For someone who loses a child, you don’t ever recover. You manage the rest of your life. This woman, I felt, was very mathematical; she’s very mechanical; she’s brilliant. What she did in order to cut off anymore pain is to remove anything that she thought was a remembrance of what made her a mother, which is everything feminine, everything maternal. When I was working from the outside, I thought, ‘What would that look like for someone who just wants to be a machine carrying out her task, which is whatever is in her head?’

She almost becomes androgynous, removes anything soft, anything that is a womanly trait. So, physically, that’s how I saw her. Emotionally, there was no emotion; everything was perfunctory, everything was just: execute. That’s how she was on earth — a place she was not a part of. Earth was no longer a place for her. It was basically like ending your life while still being on the planet.

Director Alfonso Cuaron talked about the debris flying through space as a metaphor for all the things that hit you in life…

Alfonso’s metaphors are always so profound. You never quite know what you’re getting when you’re watching one of his movies until you are personally affected at the end. And I love how he makes it a blank slate, so he’s not telling the audience what to think or feel about the debris. I mean, the debris is there; it exists in space; it’s only going to get worse, and that’s a fact. But with our debris and how we manoeuvre around it, do we let it become part of our body and carry us for the rest of our life? Or do you get out of its way, let it have its moment and let it pass? And appreciate and honour it as something that was part of your life, but once it’s gone, let it be gone. Every person’s journey and how to make peace with that is different.

What does the character Walt Kowalsky represent?

Kowalsky, whom George (Clooney) plays, is someone whose life is what he’s doing. I know rock climbers and they lived and died for the rock, and if they’re going to die, they want to die doing just that. And that’s what his character is. His life is up there. He enjoys it, he savours it, he loves it. His communication is always with a voice in Houston and he appreciates absolutely everything about earth, but from a very removed perspective. He likes looking down on it. So, he too is a character who is very removed and isolated, even though he’s very gregarious and joyous. And he knows when his time is, and when it comes, the gift that he gives her is so unexpected and profound. It’s the gift of the reason for life and understanding of that.

Alfonso talked about the fact that so much of your performance is technical, yet you were able to bring so much emotional truthfulness to that.

You had to get to that place where your emotions were secondary to your body. I didn’t want to think about my body’s reaction and action anymore. I wanted it to become second nature. And once that happened, I was able to be completely free to experiment with different emotions. Plus, I had to always count in my head subconsciously because I knew that I had ‘X’ amount of seconds to have a truthful emotion, not thinking about anything. Hit the moment, and then peel it out the way they wanted it peeled out at the end in terms of physicality. So, it literally was using absolutely everything at my disposal in my body from my upbringing, what I’d learnt from dance to musical timing to rhythm to allowing sound to bring emotion to me, to watch a camera out of the corner of my eye, but not watch it anymore and know that it’s coming so I don’t falsify an emotion.

There’s a fascinating parallel between your own journey as an actor in this film and the journey of the character....

It’s very parallel in so many ways. Alfonso and I would look at each other, and we really didn’t have to say a lot, because we just got it. He knew what he was doing. He knew when I needed relief. He knew when I needed a moment. When you’re synchronised with people you’re working with and there’s that kind of harmony, you leave and you go, ‘I would love everywhere in life to be harmonious like that.’ You just want to go on a set again, because that was so divine.

What was working with George Clooney like?

It was very easy. We were apart for so much of this, just listening to each other’s voices. And any time there were days on set where we were physically together, it was just a relief. He is one of the most fun people to be around. I mean, if you want a party, you just go where George is, because he savours and appreciates every single aspect of life. He gets to know a person, will know every crew member’s background, what it is they like to do, what films they’ve worked on, what their loves are, what foods. He’s a great energy to be around. So, to have him around was like someone giving a life-jumper cables. You got excited about life and having fun and having joy. And the minute he left again, it was like sound went away (laughs)... George is gone.

Also, because you are going to such a vulnerable place in the film, to have a friend like that on screen with you must have been ideal.

Yeah, and he’s someone that I trust so explicitly. And he values people’s time and energy in their work. Everything was about, ‘What is it that you need? Let me figure out.’

He’s very generous, but you feel very safe in his presence because he’s there for a very specific reason and he gives you everything you need and you want to give him the same. You’re there late at night, off-camera, whatever you need to do, he is there. He stays on set and waits until every aspect of this filmmaking process is done. And then he goes home. He goes, ‘I’m here to do my work.’

What do you think it will be like to experience the whole film in the theatre?

I don’t know. And I want to experience it with all the elements. I’m not a person who can view something unfinished, because I will constantly criticise it: ‘I should have done this. This needs to be there. We need to tweak the sound.’ I can’t watch it as a viewer until it’s completely done. And I wanted to honour his process. I mean, I would rather wait and have that experience with a room full of people, which is what movies are made for.

Many people are going in believing that the space element will be the most powerful, but what is really drawing them in is how emotional the experience is....

When I talked to the astronauts, that’s what they feel all the time. They look at earth and see that we are wasting life. You thought it would be technical, but it’s about life. That’s what’s so interesting, because I thought it would be, you know, ‘I’m an astronaut and here are these buttons and we go out and we fix things.’ No, it’s about maintaining this vehicle that allows them to float and view the world and their appreciation of the world in such a beautiful way. Their passion for it was really overwhelming.

Does Bullock overshadow Clooney in Gravity? Tell t2@abp.in