The Real Housewives Star That Was Once In A Movie With Sandra Bullock

Sandra Bullock's "Miss Congeniality" chronicles an FBI agent going undercover at the Miss United States pageant — and the "Miss Congeniality" cast features a familiar face from "The Real Housewives" franchise. Before she was a part of the now-defunct "The Real Housewives of Dallas," LeeAnne Locken was an actor and she played Miss Nebraska in the film. Before then, she was a pageant queen herself, making it to the Top 10 of Miss USA in 1989.

While speaking with Bravo's The Daily Dish in 2016, Locken opened up about her experience filming "Miss Congeniality" and how much she enjoyed it. She said that she saw many women she'd competed against in pageants at the film's audition. Locken added, "I loved every second of auditioning for it. I loved being a part of it. I loved the fact that the choreographer from the Miss USA pageant was our choreographer on set. I had a blast."

Locken also mentioned rapping alongside fellow actor William Shatner and expressed how great of an experience it was doing the movie. However, there were some difficulties involved with making the film. For instance, Miss Nebraska's talent for the pageant was one that Locken never quite mastered.

For "RHOD" star and "Miss Congeniality" actor LeeAnne Locken, one of the more difficult parts of "Miss Congeniality" was attempting to learn how to make balloon animals. That was Miss Nebraska's talent for the Miss United States pageant, and Locken worked alongside a real-life clown to try and learn how to do it herself. She told Bravo's The Daily Dish how on the bus to set, she and the clown would work on making animals. Locken got made fun of for her attempts, recalling, "I couldn't pop the poodle's tail, so all the girls were like, 'Your poor boyfriend.'"

The talent show montage scene was uploaded to Locken's Vimeo profile. She also recalled to The Daily Dish a conversation she and Donald Petrie (the film's director) had as she tried to make a balloon animal during the scene: "[Petrie] walked over to me and was like, 'Is this all you know how to do?' And I'm like, 'Dude, it's hard! I'm not a clown! I'm not a balloon artist!' And so he literally had the guy make a balloon thing for me to play with."

When outlining behind-the-scenes secrets of "Miss Congeniality" in 2020, Petrie admitted to E! News, "I didn't know that!" regarding Locken's tenure on "RHOD."

LeeAnne Locken's character in "Miss Congeniality," Miss Nebraska, ends up in the Miss United States pageant's Top 5, and she can be seen on the far right in the question-and-answer scene from the movie (via YouTube). Another iconic scene that she can be spotted in briefly is when Cheryl gets crowned. While discussing "Miss Congeniality” on Yahoo! Entertainment's The Morning Breath, Locken divulged how wonderful Sandra Bullock is.

"Sandy is the nicest human being on the planet," Locken said. "So real, so authentic, brought her dog to set. Just super nice, just kind. I loved working with her!" Locken also said she and fellow cast member Wendy Raquel Robinson were great friends during the "Miss Congeniality" filming, and that they even sang "Proud Mary" — one of Bullock's personal favorites — for her on her birthday. One of the downsides of being involved in the film was the costumes — going to the bathroom between takes in a poofy pageant dress with a crown on was a bit difficult. 

Thankfully, "Miss Congeniality" is not the movie Bullock regrets starring in — that would be "Speed 2." However, during the press tour for her film "The Lost City," Bullock admitted to Hits Radio that she gets a little irritated when her daughter quotes one of her most popular lines from the film: the "You think I'm gorgeous!" scene.