Sandra Bullock’s Hairdresser Helped Cast Brad Pitt in ‘The Lost City’
Sandra Bullock and Brad Pitt’s hairdresser Janine Thompson is to thank for getting the duo onscreen together in Bullock’s upcoming adventure comedy The Lost City.
After the Paramount movie’s world premiere at SXSW, Bullock explained how Pitt came to be cast as Jack Trainer, the dashing ex-military who is enlisted to save Bullock’s romance writer, Lorretta, after she is kidnaped to a remote island by a deranged billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) on a treasure hunt.
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“He and I have the same hairdresser and she told him to do my movie and she told me to do his movie,” Bullock explained onstage at the Austin film festival. “That is — honest to god — the truth.” (Bullock will next be seen in Pitt’s upcoming action feature Bullet Train.)
The actress joked of casting Pitt: “We went through a whole litany of people. He was like the eighth choice.”
In reality, the Ocean’s actor was always the top choice for the role. But, as co-director Adam Nee explains, “We didn’t go out to him because it felt ridiculous.” And then Pitt and Bullock’s hairdresser acted as casting director.
Outside of Pitt, Bullock, who also produced the movie, shares the screen with Channing Tatum, playing a well-intentioned book cover model that is determined to find Loretta, willing to traipse through the jungle and go toe-to-toe with henchmen and leeches in order to do so. Inspired by Romancing the Stone and Raiders of the Lost Ark, the THR review of the film called it “an enjoyable throwback.”
Patti Harrison, Bowen Yang, Oscar Nunez, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph also star in The Lost City. As for how that cast came together, Bullock offers, “We were also willing to pay. We paid really good money. We were saying, come make a movie during a pandemic, put your life in our hands, and we will pay you and they showed up. It was amazing.” Looking at Radcliffe, she added: “I mean, he’s still alive.”
Looking forward, Bullock, who was also recently seen in the Netflix movie The Unforgivable, said she will be taking a break from acting: “I am just going to take some time to be a mom.”
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