Movie star Sandra Bullock has her eight-year-old godson to thank for helping her take the leap into marriage. The 'Speed' star always feared she was spinster material - fearing marriage was a death sentence - but that all changed one Christmas! Her godson's gift - a set visit to his favourite TV show, 'Monster Garage' - led to a meeting with the programme's tough-guy host Jesse James, who was to become `the one'. It didn't take long for her to realise that the tattooed motorbike maniac was the guy she was supposed to surrender her singlehood for.

Romantic destiny is the theme that runs through Bullock's new film 'The Lake House', in which she reunites with old pal Keanu Reeves, and she admits her ideal relationship is one that combines communication and imagination. In the new romance, Reeves and Bullock play a couple who communicate in the old-fashioned way: through letter writing.

Do you believe in romantic destiny?
I think there are different levels of romance. I can have an incredible romance with Keanu when we work together. I do believe in the freedom of choice and carving out your own happiness. All I can work with is what I know, whatever choices are being made through astrology and destiny and fate I have no control over. I have the control over saying yes or no to the experience. I hope there's something amazing and bigger. There's a lot of coincidences and things that have happened in my lifetime where I go, 'Did that just happen?'. I believe there are bigger things at work than just me. I know that there are big things that are happening and you just have to be open enough to see them.

Do you remember your first big crush?
Oh yes, it was in Germany in first grade: Stefan. I moved back to the States and then came back and my cousin started dating him, I think in the second or third grade because she was dating his brother at the time that I was dating him.

Why do you think you waited so long to get married?
I never waited but I think I stayed open to all possibilities and had the greatest of love. I wouldn't change anything that I did, any step of the way. The mistakes led me to right here, this day, and they were the best things that ever happened to me. I seized the opportunities and love. I had love, so much love, a few incredible relationships. I never waited for anything. I was blessed enough to be loved the way that I was loved in my lifetime.

I never wanted to get married. It was a death sentence to me. How many marriages do you see that you really admire? How many people who are in a marriage go, 'Oh my God, I have the greatest relationship. I'm so happy'? I want to enjoy everything that I do and be the best of myself, so being married wasn't the thing. I wasn't raised with the idea of a white dress and a wedding. I was raised with, 'Have a good life and push yourself and achieve what you want to achieve in happiness.' I hope that when I'm 60 I can still look at myself and say, 'I'm lucky to be loved, and healthy and happy.'

What gave you that leap of faith to try marriage?
Life gives you what you need to learn. It was bigger than I was in all the right ways. I'm a control freak who can take care of everything myself, who can carry my own luggage, takes care of the car, run my own business; I can do anything you tell me. I can do it; I don't need a man. I can take care of everything. It had everything and nothing to do with that. It took my eight-year-old godson, who led me to this place, the TV set, for Christmas, where I met Jesse, and that's what happened.

How did knowing Keanu help on the set of 'The Lake House'?
It's an ease for me to look at him directly in places where I'm not comfortable with myself. I can look him in the eye and I feel I have a place there. There are other people you can look at and not feel like you're supposed to be there, so that was a nice luxury for me. I know what it's like to remember him. We have a nice history and there's a great level of comfort that I have with Keanu. When we had to be together we had to be in the most intimate of ways and I think I got to see his history and what he's experienced in these past 10 years and who he is now as a man - just as good as when I first met him but that much more open.

We had about 60 people watching us, filming, talking, whispering as they're moving things and then the neighbourhood is out and people are hanging outside their houses. It's odd. You just have to zone out and not think, 'Am I doing something that looks odd?' I'm just gonna do what feels right. The director (Alejandro Agresti) would bark out, 'OK, take her face, kiss her like this all over her face!' 'What does he mean?' By the end, we just do what we do on our own and he filmed it and it just worked. You get lucky with some of your partners in life and sometimes it clicks.

If you could receive a letter from someone tomorrow who would it be from?
My mother [Helga Bullock, who died in April 2000] and I'd want to see how she is because I'm sure she's having a whole adventure of her own. I just want to know what it's like and how she is. Just to see her handwriting. She had very dramatic handwriting and it was so distinctive. I just want to see that handwriting on the outside of a letter. It's just the handwriting; I don't really need the contents.