the producer; Sandra Bullock swears she doesn't reveal anything in interviews.(Interview)

Byline: Jonathan Van Meter

Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank is one of those places in California that are so deeply, quintessentially, preposterously "Hollywood" that I can't help thinking, while I am there, about how weird it must be to work here every day. Protected by Pentagon-like security, the 100-plus-acre complex is home to more than 30 huge soundstages arranged in blocks that make up the oddest little town in America, complete with its own firehouse and hospital. As I am walking through the lot one late afternoon in early December on my way to meet Sandra Bullock-golf carts whizzing by carrying dwarves in costumes-I have to linger for a minute, peering inside one of the giant doors of the soundstages where a bunch of "trees" gather dust and a "living room" that I vaguely recognize from one TV show or another sits strangely empty and dark.

The fact that I am meeting Bullock at Central Perk-which has the same name as the coffee shop from Friends but is actually a Starbucks-only serves to heighten the real/unreal aspect of the experience. As I am standing on the steps out front, I see Bullock charging down the street with her arms folded across her chest. She is wearing jeans and heels, a tan velvet blazer, a lime-green T-shirt, and a pink scarf around her neck. Her poker-straight auburn hair is pulled back in a ponytail. Before she even says hello, Bullock begins to chatter away, barely taking a breath between thoughts. She is all hyperactivity, like a cartoon drawing of a character whose arms and head are just blurs of motion.

Bullock is one of the executive producers of the George Lopez show, which begins taping an episode in about a half hour, but she is also in the final days of a shoot for Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, a movie being filmed on another soundstage that she is both producing and starring in. In other words, she is a regular at Central Perk, and the employees treat her like the "local" that she is: the girl next door in this crazy little town. We head inside and get in line as her stream-of-consciousness tumble of words and topics-L.A. versus New York (she doesn't feel at home in either city), the weather (freakishly cold), traffic (god-awful)-continues unabated. And this is before she drinks her double latte.

We head off down the street toward the Lopez taping, and I struggle to keep up with Bullock. Suddenly she catches herself. "Why are we walking so fast?" she says in a funny, exaggerated whisper. She takes a deep breath. "I have to slow down. We're not in any hurry." We stop just outside the door to the studio to talk and drink our coffee in the twilight. She points out her neighbors: Clint Eastwood's office is across the street and Steven Soderbergh's production company is next door. Then she goes up to a plaque on the wall of the soundstage that lists everything that has ever been filmed there. (The combination of Casablanca and Pee-wee's Big Adventure thrills her.) Bullock keeps an office here because she has a deal with Warner Bros., but the headquarters of her own production company, Fortis Films, are off the lot in Hollywood. "I'm too paranoid," she says. "I'm afraid if I'm around everyone all the time. . . ." She doesn't finish the thought. A few minutes later, however, she describes the writers and directors and producers who populate her neighborhood like this: "It's a little incestuous. It can become tricky sometimes. We fight because everyone's crazy to get something really good on-screen. It's not personal."

It is no secret that Bullock does not love Los Angeles. She moved to Austin, Texas, several years ago and keeps only a small condo a couple blocks from her Hollywood office. "It's like the best hotel room in the world with everything I need," she says, "but I can just turn the key and leave." More recently, Bullock's younger sister, Gesine-with whom she often works-got married and left L.A. for Vermont. "She was one of the main reasons I was living here," she says. "When she moved, it's almost like it freed me."

More than one person has told me that a few years ago Bullock went through a period of deep ...