Sandra Bullock Making Gravity was the best life decision I ever made

For most women, taking the opportunity to be tethered to George Clooney would be a no-brainer.

But Sandra Bullock, who is attached to George for much of the first half of new film Gravity, admits she had to be coaxed into making what she now regards as: “The best life decision I think I ever made”.

The actress had been on sabbatical following her 2010 Oscar win for The Blind Side. The high point of her professional career was quickly followed by a low in her personal life, as it was revealed husband Jesse James was a serial love cheat.

Their subsequent divorce, and Sandra’s adoption of baby son Louis, now aged three, has meant she’s been more than happy to stay out of the limelight for the last couple of years.

But when Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuaron approached her with a sci-fi script he’d written with his son Jonas, Sandra found Gravity’s pull hard to resist.

“I was always longing to do, emotionally and physically, what my male counterparts always got to do,” said Sandra, who was in the UK last month to showcase the film at the London Film Festival.

“I just felt envious because every time I saw a movie that I was in awe of, it was usually a male lead. In the last couple of years, whether it was by us searching for something and turning it into a female character, or actresses developing something themselves, things have shifted. And Jonas and Alfonso wrote this specifically for a woman.

“I think it was the integral part of the story. I don’t want to say that’s revolutionary, but it is revolutionary, and the fact that a studio, on blind faith, would fund something as unknown as this is also revolutionary.

“So, to be able to be the person to do it is beyond humbling.”

Sandra plays Dr Ryan Stone, a medical engineer and rookie astronaut on a shuttle mission being led by veteran Matt Kowalski (Clooney). When a routine repair task turns into a full-scale disaster, the pair find themselves cut off from communicating with Earth and spiralling in their space suits into the terrifying blackness of space.

But beyond the story premise is the 3-D film’s technological achievement, which gives audiences a thrill ride that’s the closest most of us will come to experiencing what life is like for astronauts in space.

Even Sandra admits she was awestruck by the finished film.

“When you’re an actor, seeing yourself for the first time, you spend all your time just watching yourself and hating yourself and picking your performance apart. You say, ‘I look horrible. I should quit’,” the 49-year-old joked.

“But, there was no time to pick apart one’s performance here because you were inundated with the extreme beauty and emotion that Alfonso created, visually.

“Technology is something that’s heady, but it was turned into something so emotional, such a visceral, physical experience, in this movie. All of a sudden you find yourself affected in ways you weren’t planning on being affected. George and I had the same reaction to seeing it for the first time. We both went ‘wow!’

“I felt lucky to finally be able to view a movie I was in as it was supposed to be viewed, as a newcomer.”

Much of the film was shot inside a 9-foot-by-9-foot box with the actors suspended by cables to create the illusion of weightlessness. Sandra’s performance has led to talk of a second Oscar but the self-effacing actress says winning the first still hasn’t sunk in.

“I think most people have that out-of-body experience when they win the Oscar.

“I had a little newborn at home, so my body was already out of itself, so I still haven’t gotten around to having my moment with it yet.

“Maybe one day it will come,” she said. “I didn’t feel worthy of it when I got it. So I thought, OK, I’m going to spend the rest of my life hopefully earning it but having a really good time in the process.”

Gravity is one small step for woman heading in the right direction.