Close Menu
    Subscribe
    Entertainment

    Floor It and Catch the Speed Cast Then and Now

    soreceryBy No Comments11 Mins Read

    Watch: Sandra Bullock Makes Rare Appearance With Keanu Reeves for ‘Speed’ Reunion

    Pop quiz, hotshots: How many years has it been since Speed was blowing up at the box office?

    Well, let’s see, its lead stars haven’t aged a day, so…

    Wait, 32 years? Indeed, the action blockbuster starring Keanu Reeves and a then-almost-famous Sandra Bullock rolled into theaters in June 1994, and didn’t slow down until it had made $350 million.

    Barely pausing to allow for Reeves’ LAPD SWAT officer Jack Traven to get a coffee (which he doesn’t even get a chance to drink), the fast-paced film directed by Jan de Bont had a bonkers premise: A freeway-bound bus is rigged with a bomb that will explode if the vehicle’s speed drops below 50 miles per hour.

    Seriously, what do you do?

    Well, you can catch Speed for free on Fandango at Home and immerse yourself in the intensity only Reeves can provide.

    But don’t miss future Oscar winner Bullock, a Succession star and more memorable character actors among the morning commuters.

    photos

    Keanu Reeves’s Best Roles

    “I just remember a vehicle full of really kind and fun people and a concept that I remember people scoffing at,” Bullock, who plays University of Arizona alum and accidental bus driver Annie, said on a May 2024 episode of the 50 MPH podcast, dedicated to the making of Speed. “Look, I was just happy to be there.”

    20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock

    Added Reeves, “All of the artists who worked on it and the craftspeople who worked on it, there was a warmth to everyone and a sincerity.”

    So while audiences were on the edges of their seats, there was just a big ol’ lovefest playing out onscreen as the ensemble dug into the “highbrow-lowbrow” of it all, as Reeves put it, and made summer movie magic.

    With Speed now hurtling by on Fandango, read on to see the cast then and now:

    Moviestore/Shutterstock; Alberto Rodriguez/Shutterstock

    Keanu ReevesNot that it was in question, but Reeves triple-secured his heartthrob status playing LAPD S.W.A.T. officer Jack Traven, who ends up in a 50-mph-and-faster game of cops-and-bomber in the 1994 blockbuster Speed.The Canadian-born actor has been a very busy movie star ever since, doing action (The Matrix trilogy, the John Wick tetralogy), romance (Sweet November, The Lake House), comedy (Something’s Gotta Give), sci-fi horror (Constantine, The Devil’s Own) and everything in between. And while he passed on Speed 2: Cruise Control, he said on a May 2024 episode of the 50 MPH podcast that, were he and Sandra Bullock to reunite for a third installment, “I mean, you know—we’d freakin’ knock it out of the park.”On a personal note, the very private Reeves has been in a relationship with Alexandra Grant—his partner in X Artists’ Books—for probably much longer than anyone knew before they went public in 2019.

    Richard Foreman/20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock; Karwai Tang/WireImage

    Sandra BullockWhile the Virginia native had been in an bunch of stuff, even landing the Melanie Griffith role in a short-lived TV adaptation of Working Girl, playing bus passenger turned emergency driver Annie in Speed was Bullock’s true breakthrough.From there, it was just a short jump over a gap in the freeway to While You Were Sleeping, The Net, A Time to Kill, Hope Floats, Practical Magic, Miss Congeniality, Two Weeks Notice and so much more.Not even starring in Speed 2: Cruise Control slowed her momentum as the next great America’s Sweetheart.She reunited with Reeves for 2006’s The Lake House on her way to The Proposal and winning a Best Actress Oscar for 2010’s The Blind Side.The mom to Louis and Laila (adopted in 2010 and 2015 respectively) slowed down a bit during the ’10s to focus on her kids, but scored another Oscar nomination for her haunting turn as an astronaut in 2013’s Gravity, and toplined the likes of Ocean’s 8, Birdbox and The Lost City.Most recently seen in a pivotal small part in 2022’s Bullet Train, Bullock has been taking a break from acting since the death of her partner Bryan Randall from complications of ALS in August 2023.

    Richard Foreman/20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock; Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images

    Jeff DanielsSo 1994 was a bit of a year for Daniels.After playing Jack’s ill-fated S.W.A.T. partner Harry in Speed, he turned up as Jim Carrey‘s partner in criminally funny nonsense in Dumb and Dumber, which came out six months later.The Michigan native, who stayed in the Great Lakes State to raise kids Ben, Lucas and Nellie with wife Kathleen, has never been far from a big screen. But it was his Emmy-winning turn as ANN anchor Will McAvoy on the Aaron Sorkin series The Newsroom that vaulted him to prestige-everything status. (And, at last there was the 20-years-in-the-making sequel Dumb and Dumber To).Meawhile, Daniels is a three-time Tony nominee, including for his sold-out run as Atticus Finch in Sorkin’s stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, and he picked up another Emmy in 2018 for the Western series Godless. He played real-life FBI agents in The Looming Tower and The Comey Rule and characters from best-selling books in American Rust and A Man in Full.He also performs with his son in the aptly named Jeff Daniels & Ben Daniels Band and penned the 2023 memoir Alive and Well Enough.And he almost passed on Speed because, when he first read it, Harry didn’t make it out of the elevator shaft during the opening rescue sequence. As Daniels recalled on The Rich Eisen Show, his agent told him, “‘Hey, there’s another draft coming, you die later,’ so I thought, OK.”

    20th Century Fox; Bruce Glikas/Getty Images

    Joe MortonYou know him from everything, including Terminator 2: Judgment Day (playing the doomed inventor of the chip that might just destroy mankind), and in Speed Morton played Jack’s solid boss Capt. Herb “Mac” McMahon.A sampling of Morton’s screen titles since: Lone Star, What Lies Beneath, The X-Files, Ali, Smallville, American Gangster, The Good Wife, Grace and Frankie, Law & Order, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League.And, last but the opposite of least, he played Olivia Pope’s father Rowan on Scandal for six seasons, winning an Emmy for Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2014.Morton is also a veteran of the theater, taking on King Lear in 2022. “I do mostly television these days, and television has a hiatus. That’s what this is,” he told American Theatre during rehearsals. “But for most of my career, if I do something like Speed or one of those bigger films, they have paid for my ability to do a low-budget film, and maybe I do a low-budget film that pays for me to be able to do theater. It all sort of works out.”He shares three kids with ex-wife Nora Chavooshian.

    20th Century Fox; Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

    Simone GadShe may have only been called Bus Passenger No. 1 and her few words are delivered in nervous squeals, but the cat-eye glasses (much like ones she wore in real life) and pearl-button cardigan made what could have been an unremarkable role into a noticeable part of the movie. “I had a lot of crying scenes,” Gad told the Los Angeles Times in 1995, “and was one of the last people off the bus.”Acting was a sporadic side project for the Belgian-born painter, who used a snapshot of herself with Speed‘s leading man to inform her piece “Gad/Reeves,” memorializing the two-month film shoot.Her last exhibition before her death at 73 in 2021 was the virtual “Siren Shores.”In an obituary, the Track 16 gallery called her a “force of perseverance and independence in the Los Angeles art community.”

    20th Century Fox; Amy Sussman/WireImage

    Alan RuckThe actual last person off the bus (through the door, that is) was the future Connor Roy. Though when the Cleveland native showed up in Speed as a tourist trying to get away from the airport he was Cameron-from-Ferris Bueller.After the 1994 hit, Ruck was among the tornado chasers in director Jan de Bont‘s post-Speed action hit Twister and then was part of the Spin City ensemble from 1996 until 2002. Then it was onto a slew of guest roles on everything from Medium, CSI and NCIS to Bunheads, Burn Notice and Masters of Sex before his 2018 resurgence as the actual eldest, but perennially overlooked, Roy boy in Succession, for which Ruck earned an Emmy nomination in 2023.He shares daughter Emma and son Sam with ex-wife Claudia Stefany and daughter Vesper and son Larkin with his actress spouse since 2008, Mireille Enos.

    20th Century Fox; Amy Graves/Getty Images for eZWay Network

    Hawthorne JamesAt least getting non-fatally shot early on allowed driver Sam to be safely transported off the bus before the day got really out of control.And just as James—who got his theater degree from Notre Dame and a master’s from University of Michigan and studied at the London Shakespeare Academy—was a busy working actor before Speed, appeaing in The Color Purple, Hill Street Blues, The Doors and more, so he’s been ever since.The Chicago native’s credits include Se7en, Amistad, Charmed, ER, Workaholics and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. His latest is the 2023 miniseries Incandescent Love and he’s playing the title character’s real estate mogul father in the drama Mr. Gates.”I always look at it and say, ‘I haven’t done anything yet,'” he told Good Morning Texas ahead of the film’s June 2024 premiere. “And then I have to step back and look at the resume and realize there are people who’d give their right arm” for his kind of career.

    20th Century Fox; Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

    Glenn PlummerThe prolific character actor gave Jack an essential ride in his Jaguar, door-to-door-smashing service right up to the speeding bus before he’s left to veer into a bunch of waste bins and shake off his surreal morning.He was so entertaining, he was elevated from “Jaguar Owner” to Maurice in Speed 2: Cruise Control.Otherwise, you’ve seen Plummer in Strange Days, Showgirls, ER, Dexter, Sons of Anarchy, Southland, Major Crimes, Suits, Shameless, 9-1-1, A House Divided and a hundred other things.On the home front, he shares two children with ex-wife DeMonica Santiago.

    20th Century Fox; Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

    Carlos CarrascoConstruction worker Ortiz was actually pretty essential to saving the day as well, or else Jack might still be hanging onto the bottom of the bus for dear life.Carrasco, who goes back and forth from stage to screen, has appeared on (to name a few of his dozens of credits) ER, Star Trek: Voyager (as well as Deep Space Nine and Progeny), Angel, CSI, Parks and Recreation, Looking, Insecure and Hunters. The Panama City native is also a longtime supporter of Latino and Afro-Latino actors and filmmakers and ran the L.A.-based Panamanian International Film Festival for eight seasons.

    20th Century Fox; Rob Latour/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images

    Beth GrantAlong with Joe Morton, you have also seen Grant in everything. Probably even more of everything.While she got her start in 1979, her TV work since playing the fatally impatient Helen in Speed includes Friends, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Angel, The X-Files, CSI, Malcolm in the Middle, Everwood, Six Feet Under, Bones, Jericho, Pushing Daisies, Criminal Minds, King of the Hill, Modern Family, Dexter, Justified, Grey’s Anatomy, American Gods, The Mindy Project, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Goliath, Dollface, and Grace and Frankie.At the same time she’s been moving seamlessly between notable indie films and massive movies: Todd Haynes‘ Safe, A Time to Kill, Dr. Dolittle, Donnie Darko, Pearl Harbor, Matchstick Men, Little Miss Sunshine, Flags of Our Fathers, No Country for Old Men, Crazy Heart, The Artist, Jackie and Amsterdam.”Turn on your TV at night, one of the movie channels,” The Mindy Project‘s Ike Barinholtz told the Wilmington Star-News in 2013, “and count how many minutes until Beth Grant appears in one of those movies.”Grant is also mom to actress Mary Chieffo with her actor husband since 1985, Michael Chieffo (whom you also have seen in many things!).

    20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock; Noel Vasquez/Getty Images

    Dennis HopperWith credits dating back to Rebel Without a Cause, Hopper was known for masterfully kooky turns in Easy Rider (which he also directed), Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet and True Romance before he played Howard Payne, the ex-Atlanta PD bomb squad officer with fingers numbering nine who plants enough C4 on a bus to blow a hole in the world.He’ll either collect his money or blow Jack and that Wildcat behind the wheel to smithereens, whichever comes first.Looking back, Hopper “really loved” Speed, he told AV Club in 2008. “I thought it was a terrific movie. Jan de Bont’s first directorial job, coming from being a cinematographer. He did a terrific job. That was fun.”He followed it up with Kevin Costner‘s much-maligned Waterworld (“I enjoyed it”), and continued to act for the rest of his life, starring in a TV adaptation of the Oscar-winning movie Crash a year before he died of prostate cancer in 2010 at the age of 74.Hopper, who was married five times and had four children, was also a prolific photographer and painter. 

    (Originally published June 10, 2024, at 12 a.m. PT)

     ​ 

    Share.
    Unknown's avatar

    Related Posts

    Add A Comment

    Leave a Reply

    Discover more from TheBullPost

    Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

    Continue reading