Sandra Bullock has revealed she deliberately walked away from romantic comedies in the mid-2000s after growing tired of the criticism the genre attracted, telling Jennifer Aniston in an Interview magazine conversation that she was "getting so much shit for them." The actress, who built her early career on hits such as "While You Were Sleeping" and "Two Weeks Notice," said the decision marked one of only two moments she consciously shaped her career path, the other being her refusal early on to audition for casting figures who asked her to undress.

After "Two Weeks Notice" became a hit in 2002, Bullock stepped away from rom-coms for two years before returning with a dramatic turn in "Crash," a gamble that paid off when the film won the Oscar for best picture and earned her a Screen Actors Guild ensemble award. She later returned to the genre with 2009's "The Proposal" and, more recently, 2022's "The Lost City," which grossed $192 million worldwide, while Aniston noted that comedies are often unfairly dismissed by the industry despite being difficult to get right.