Steve Pratt gets a few tips from Sandra Bullock on time travel love and why it's worth waiting for the right man to come along.

EXPECT a big tip if you ever wait table for actress Sandra Bullockp. "Anyone who doesn't treat people in the service industry with respect, I have a real issue with," she says.

Her attitude comes from having worked as a waitress in New York before becoming one of Hollywood's top female talents capable of demanding $15 million a movie.

"I'm one of the world's greatest tippers. Anyone who waited tables nine times out of ten is a great tipper," says the star of While You Were Sleeping, Speed, and Miss Congeniality.

She wouldn't change how she did things in those days. "I literally went into things with blinders, not fearful of failure or rejection, and I thrived on it," she recalls.

"I was so happy being a waitress in New York and doing off-Broadway and making student films. To me, I had reached the pinnacle. I never imagined I would be doing what I'm doing now. I was very content at that time in my life."

Not that 41-year-old Bullock isn't happy now, coming up for a year after marrying Jesse James, famous for his celebrity motorbike business. She was content to wait until now for marriage, although others were less patient.

It's a subject that clearly rankles, after years of being asked why she hadn't married and settled down. The lovers in her new time travel romance movie The Lake House are living in the same place two years ago and proceed cautiously with their relationship.

"It's promoted to rush, to hurry up and achieve something," she says of today's society. "You reach a certain age and everyone goes, 'why aren't you married? and why haven't you done this?'. What if you haven't found anyone you want to be married to, or don't want to be married or have that sort of goal. We lose a lot of what life has to offer by following someone else's time line.

"So whether it's waiting or going with your own rhythm, it's a question of pursuing your own path rather than someone else's time schedule. Sometimes that means you've waited longer than others.

"But I do believe in trusting whatever it is that's telling you - your instinct - that this isn't the right time for me to do this, I have other things to."

All three of her recent screen appearances - in The Lake House, Infamous and this year's best picture Oscar winner Crash - have marked a departure from the romantic comedies in which she made her name.

"I made a conscious decision several years ago to stop doing one style of film," she says.

"There was one direction I was going in and I chose another. I was lucky enough the industry would have me, because it didn't necessarily mean I would be hired. I did four films, all very different, but all with very dark, different, absurd undertones. Now I need a comedy."

But her taste in comedy has changed. The last she did, Two Weeks Notice, was the one she'd always dreamt of doing comedically and she had the "ultimate partner" in Hugh Grant. "I couldn't imagine getting any better with that style of film," she says.

"There's a lot more comedy to be done, but scenarios of romantic comedies at the moment are really limited. Unless it's something different and a unique style of comedy, I can't imagine doing one any time soon. Comedy, yes, but romantic comedy, who knows? One might come out of left-field that I feel like I have something to add to."

On a project like The Lake House, she and other actors took a pay cut to enable the low-budget film to be made. If successful, she hopes it will assist other movies like this.

The Lake House demands that audiences suspend their disbelief to accept a romance happening across time and space. Bullock points out that people have no problem letting go of rationale when it comes to horror films or accepting that a man can fly in Superman or, like Spiderman, they can shoot spiders' webs out of their wrist.

"But when it comes to the subject of love and connection, people are having big conversations about it because of the film. It's one side or the other. I'm shocked at the people who have trouble with it and, nine times out of ten, they're people like myself who want everything explained in scientific fact," she says.

Being reunited with her Speed co-star of 12 years ago, Keanu Reeves, was a bonus of the film. People had kept saying they should do another movie together but they hadn't been actively pursuing the idea. Another director Paul Haggis - who made Crash - told her she should read the script of The Lake House and one of the attractions was that she'd always wanted to do a love story.

"As soon as I read it, it was like the novel you read when you were younger and were absolutely lost in the scenario. You suspend disbelieve. I met with the director and he said, 'what about Keanu?'. He was speaking to Keanu and saying the same thing," she says.

* The Lake House (PG) opens in cinemas tomorrow.