Celebrity4 min(s) read
Published 16:59 11 Jan 2022 GMT
Sandra Bullock believes she would be "out in the cow pasture" if Netflix didn't give roles to women of her age.
Bullock's latest on-screen venture - The Unforgiveable - sees her star as an ex-con trying to re-enter society when the world doesn't forgive her for her crimes.
It's Bullock's second movie with the streaming platform after the 2018 hit Bird Box.
At the premiere for The Unforgiveable, the 57-year-old actress gave special praise to Netflix for keeping her employed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
"They're good to artists," she said. "They're good to filmmakers. If it wasn't for Netflix, a lot of people wouldn't be working. Their stories wouldn't be told.
"Who would think that me, as a woman, would still be working at this point? I would have been out in the cow pasture. It's true."
Bullock's next two projects, The Lost City and Bullet Train, are not made by Netflix.
She added that foreign hits such as Squid Game, which became Netflix's most-watched show a month after its release last year, would not be as popular without Netflix.
"That's one of the bigger ones, but I've seen more work from other countries told by other nationalities, and we never would have had that 10 years ago, ever," Bullock continued.
"It brings people together in a way that really, you know, we're getting more and more divided, and yet, we have the streamers that are able to blend our stories together and go, look, same story, just different."
In 2018, Bullock told USA Today that she almost quit acting because of sexism in Hollywood.
"My career has been a domino effect of people who said, 'I would like this person to fill this role,'" the Ocean's 8 star said at the time.
"And not just in the industry, but people in my life. My mother raised me like, 'You don't need to get married, you forge your own path. You make your own money, and be your own person.' And I literally went out into the world thinking there was no disparity, that everyone was equal, and I can do whatever a man can do."
Later in her career, Bullock said she had a "wake-up moment, where I was like, 'What is this feeling? Why do I feel so [expletive]?' 'Oh my God, I'm being treated this way because I have a vagina.' It was hard for me, because I walked with blinders on through life and got to where I [felt] like I was less than because I was a woman.
"And that was a hard pill to swallow. I had a lot of sadness from that. I was like, 'Wow, maybe I need to step out of here. Maybe I need to do something else for a living.' And that was in the middle of when I was getting work — I didn't want to be a part of that world where there was that experience."
