Sandra Bullock & Ryan Reynolds' Nude Scene In The Proposal Caused A Few Problems

Filming a nude scene sounds like a pretty tricky endeavor — and according to a 2009 interview with Sandra Bullock, she and her co-star Ryan Reynolds had some very wild experiences while they worked on "The Proposal" together.

Bullock spoke to Parade about the romantic comedy shortly before its release in June of that year and said that while she and Reynolds filmed a scene where their characters Margaret Tate and Andrew Paxton accidentally see each other naked (they're in a fake relationship, but we'll circle back to that whole thing), a long day of shooting meant that nobody really cared about strategic coverings falling down for most of the day. 

"You have things covering up your essential parts but they get unstuck," Bullock told the outlet about that particular day on set, where she says that basically everybody was so exhausted that they forgot to feel embarrassed about nudity. "And, oddly enough, we didn't care because we were so tired. Ann [Fletcher, the movie's director] was like, 'Sandra, your vagina is hanging out. Cover it up.' I'm like, 'Oh, sorry, sorry.' And the crew would be like, 'Jeez, her nipple is showing.' They weren't titillated, they were unhappy because they knew we had to retake the shot. They're like, 'We want to go to lunch. Cover the nip.' So that's pretty much how the day went."

Some actors don't particularly want to show everything for a nude scene, but as Sandra Bullock said in the interview, she knew that the scene — where Margaret and Andrew run smack into each other while they're both completely naked and are subsequently horrified by their literal run-in — would only be funny if she really went for it. As a result, she felt comfortable — actually, she felt comfortable enough to comment on her nudity and Ryan Reynolds' all at the same time.

"The nudity was appropriate for the film," Bullock said. "I had to be buck-naked. The big thing was that it was funny. And the only way it could be funny was if you saw my whole body. Ann Fletcher, the director, was amazing in how she choreographed it because we knew we couldn't show anything too explicit. I had a little bit more area to cover than Ryan did, so it was a little trickier for me."

Bullock then went in a completely different direction and assured the outlet that she was prepared to discuss Reynolds' ... manhood as much as she'd like. "But I can talk about Ryan's penis if you want," she quipped before complimenting her co-star. "I mean if I looked like him, I'd be naked all the time." (For what it's worth, Bullock also joked about the scene where the late Betty White groped her: "Let me just say, Betty White feeling me up was the best second base I've ever had. She was tender yet firm, found them instantly, which is not easy. She was gentle and loving. And I felt satisfied afterwards.")

Just as a refresher, what happens in "The Proposal" — and why are Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds' characters Margaret and Andrew so horrified to be naked near one another? At the beginning of the movie, Andrew is merely Margaret's assistant — she's the editor-in-chief at a major New York publishing house and constantly tortures Andrew and all of her other colleages at work — but when Margaret realizes she might get deported back to Canada, she demands that Andrew marry her for a green card. In return, she'll make sure he gets an editor job after they pull off the ruse.

The entire situation is further complicated by the fact that Andrew ends up bringing Margaret to Alaska to meet his family, and his father Joe Paxton (Craig T. Nelson), a rich businessman in their small town of Sitka, is incredibly suspicious of Margaret's real motives. As Margaret spends more time in Sitka with Andrew's family — including his mother Grace (Mary Steenburgen) and grandmother Gammy (Betty White), she starts unexpectedly falling for Andrew, and he feels the same way ... which means that when Joe works with the equally suspicious immigration agent Mr. Gilbertson (Denis O'Hare) to reveal the sham engagement, Andrew and Margaret are heartbroken as she prepares to return to Canada. Andrew ends up proposing so that she can stay in New York, keep her job, and date him; Margaret accepts and joins the Paxton family.

It's probably not a surprise that two huge stars like Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds have stayed extremely busy since they worked on "The Proposal" together. Bullock won both an Oscar and a Razzie the same year that "The Proposal" was released — the former was for "The Blind Side" and the latter was for her bizarre rom-com "All About Steve" — and showed up in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" two years later in 2011. In 2013, the actress had an excellent year — she starred in Paul Feig's buddy-cop comedy "The Heat" as well as Alfonso Cuarón's Oscar-winning drama "Gravity" — and in 2018, she had another great year thanks to the one-two punch of "Bird Box" and "Ocean's 8." In 2022, Bullock led both "The Lost City" and "Bullet Train," though she admittedly has been laying a bit low since then.

As for Reynolds, most people know that he ended up making a huge Hollywood comeback after a string of cinematic misfires. In 2011, Reynolds headlined "The Green Lantern," which was a critical and commercial flop — though it did introduce him to his now-wife Blake Lively — and largely struggled to find a great starring vehicle. That all changed in 2016 when he starred in the standalone "Deadpool" movie, giving Reynolds a franchise; since then, he's worked on a ton of big-budget projects including "Free Guy," "Detective Pikachu," "Hobbs & Shaw," and "Red Notice" alongside "Deadpool 2" and the recent hit "Deadpool & Wolverine."

You can stream "The Proposal" on Hulu now.