Sandra Bullock Hated Filming The Bikini Scene In One Of Her Most Famous Movies

Sandra Bullock has starred in some iconic movies over the course of her celebrated career, with "Miss Congeniality" considered a total classic of the rom-com genre by many. The hit 2000 flick sees Bullock starring as tomboyish FBI agent Gracie Hart, who's tasked with going undercover at a beauty pageant. Along the way, she's forced to collaborate with her arrogant partner Eric Matthews, a role that Hugh Jackman embarrassingly auditioned for but that ultimately went to the dreamy Benjamin Bratt. There are some things that only adults notice in "Miss Congeniality," but even long-time fans might not know that Bullock took issue with the swimsuit competition sequence in the movie.

"That was a huge bone of contention for me," the actor, who also worked as a producer on "Miss Congeniality," confessed to Entertainment Tonight. "I was trying to get it written out so many times." While the swimsuit portion of beauty pageants has long been decried as sexist and objectifying to the contestants, at the time it was still a thing and the stunningly gorgeous Bullock nonetheless expressed concern with how her character's body was going to be presented.

"She's an FBI agent. She's very, you know, she's not elegant, she's not your typical beauty queen, so her body is not gonna be perfect," the Virginia native explained. "I didn't want [it] to be that her body all of a sudden became this hourglass figure." If you've seen the movie, you'll know that Bullock lost the bikini battle, with the swimsuit round of the pageant making it into "Miss Congeniality," but the actor still had plenty of positive things to say about the flick.

"Miss Congeniality" might not be a perfect movie, but Sandra Bullock still connected to the sweet romantic-comedy/action movie in some pretty significant ways. For one, the "Hope Floats" star related to protagonist Gracie Hart's pull between what is seen as traditionally masculine and feminine. "I can relate to being a tomboy and playing with the boys," Bullock told Female. "And I can also relate to being a girly girl, just wanting to be around girls and talk incessantly." Subverting different gender stereotypes and expectations actually played into the type of comedy that Bullock was able to employ with her performance — something that the actor was particularly excited about. 

"Through the years, I'd always looked for something that had a lot of physical comedy and sort of the great fish-out-of-water story," she detailed to ET. "I didn't read a lot of script[s] for women that had that sort of humor. It's always like we're supposed to keep it together and look relatively attractive." While the ugly duckling trope has been heavily criticized in the years since, and rightly so, Bullock highlighted it as a part of "Miss Congeniality" that really appealed to her. 

"It gives hope to anyone," she asserted during a chat with legendary film critic Roger Ebert (via YouTube). "If I can get from point A to point Z, it means that anyone is capable of doing it." Though Gracie does undergo a makeover, the Oscar winner was quick to emphasize that her character grows without changing her personality, a message with which Bullock resonated deeply.