Lawrence.com

Beverly Hills, Calif. — Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Sandra Bullock and Regina King?

There's been no shortage of buddy-cop flicks that find a partnership developed between a pair of black and white individuals. Usually one is uptight, the other a loose cannon. Everyone knows the drill.

But rarely has this trusty Hollywood recipe strayed from using men as its main ingredients.

"Because I'm a female, the buddy concept is a whole new thing," actress Sandra Bullock says. "They never ask guys about a buddy movie because they've been doing them for so long."

Bullock got her chance to be in a buddy-cop comedy almost by accident with "Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous." Her box-office hit from 2000 insured there was a market for continuing the character of Gracie Hart, a frumpy FBI agent who is dolled-up to infiltrate a beauty pageant as a contestant. Yet the thought of trying to force-feed her into a similar undercover scenario didn't make sense.

"We finally said, 'What would have happened to Gracie if the media would have caught wind of what she did?,'" says Bullock, interviewed at a press roundtable in Beverly Hills before the film's release. "She can't do what she does for a living anymore because she's now famous."

So Bullock and the filmmakers concocted the character of Sam Fuller ("Ray" star Regina King), a street-tough fellow agent whose job it is to help guard Gracie on her new assignment as a spokeswoman for the bureau.

Soon the duo is tracking down kidnappers in true buddy-cop fashion.

"It was just so much fun to be with a girl who can burp and then talk about Halliburton at the same time," King says of working with Bullock. "If every movie with a female partner could be this way, then I want to do plenty movies with just women."

Sequel woes

A veteran of 32 feature films, Bullock wasn't necessarily drooling at the thought of appearing in a sequel.

"Yeah, there ARE the disastrous sequels," the chatty actress says. "I have been in one."

Prior to "Armed and Fabulous," Bullock reprised her role in "Speed 2: Cruise Control" -- often cited alongside "Batman and Robin" as the worst sequel of the 1990s.

"You can take away the title and not put a '2' on it and it would be great," she says of her latest venture. "But there's something to be said for continuing a story, like Harrison Ford could keep telling a story or Michael Douglas could keep telling a story."

While Bullock, 40, has logged plenty of time in front of the camera, the project also marks her 11th as a producer.

"It changes with every film, just when you think you've got it figured out," she says. "You go to television and it becomes a whole different animal. But I think the one thing that I've learned is to do your job well you need to delegate well. You hire the best and you allow them to do their job."

Bullock admits she's extremely proud of the fact all of her pictures have been on budget or under budget.

"If the studio says, 'You have $2 million to make this film,' then you can make THAT film. Or, 'You have $40 million to make THIS film.' It's all the same to me," she says. "It's all about juggling creatively. The most important thing is developing the script. You have more time to fight to develop the script being the actor AND the producer."

Balancing budgets

For a person who is so cost conscious, Bullock chose to set "Armed and Fabulous" in a city known for playing havoc on one's budget: Las Vegas.

"We took over massive parts of the Venetian," she says. "Treasure Island shut themselves down. Vegas shut down their streets. But no one cared because (people) just want to go gamble. They were like, 'I don't care. Get out of my way. I need to get to casino number four.'"

Bullock admits to becoming caught up in the gambling fever, especially when the Wheel of Fortune slot machine was involved.

"I would play $50 and lose $50, but I never went above," she says. "I'm not a big spender."

Well, that's not exactly accurate.

In January, Bullock donated $1 million to the Red Cross to help victims of the Asian tsunami. (She gave a similar amount following the 9-11 attacks.)

"I was able," she says with no further elaboration.

Perhaps that's really why Bullock deserves the title of Miss Congeniality.