Fuelled by a record-breaking US$55.8 million (S$70 million) October opening weekend at the American box-office, Alfonso Cuaron’s eye-popping sci-fi thriller Gravity is rocketing right to the top of the film heap, creating some real Oscar buzz in its wake.

Some might argue that it’s success was to be expected, seeing how this critically acclaimed heart-pounder is helmed by the esteemed director who gave us Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children Of Men.

Others would consider its box-office haul a surprise, because “Sandra Bullock in space” doesn’t sound like cinematic gold.

The actress plays a medical engineer on her first mission with a veteran astronaut real-life pal, George Clooney, trying to survive the vulnerabilities of working in space after disaster strikes.

The film is visually breath taking, but everyone knows that great chemistry between cast and crew is the catalyst for true movie magic. Bullock and Cuaron sat down to share extensively about the processes behind creating this spectacular space odyssey and why it’s okay to call your director a wimp.

Sandra, after working in darkness for months, what was it like to see the completed film?

Sandra Bullock (SB): The first time I saw it all put together was in Venice. I always say, as an actor, watching yourself for the first time, you spend all the time just hating yourself and picking your performance apart and saying, “I look horrible”. There was no time to pick apart one’s performance, because you were inundated with the extreme beauty and emotion that Alfonso created visually, and I hate using the word “technologically” because it sounds like it’s an inanimate object.

Technology is something that’s heady. It was turned into such an emotion and such a visceral physical experience in this movie. All of a sudden you found yourself affected in ways that you were not planning on being affected. I think George (Clooney) and I both did. We went, “Wow”. I mean, you can’t really speak after the film is over.

Were there things you learned about yourself from what must have been a real emotionally gruelling role?

SB: Well, I’m sure. I mean, you never quite know what the change is until one day you wake up and go, “Wow, I’m reacting to things differently. I feel differently.” I’ve always said the experience of meeting an artist that you are in awe of and you hope to create with one day is usually disappointing because you’ve put them up on a pedestal and then you’re like, “Wow, that’s not a nice person”. (Laughs)

But the exact opposite was true in the meeting with Alfonso (Cuaron) in that I got to meet a human being whose evolution as a human being was just so bright. I knew that we were on sort of similar paths in life in how we looked at things and events and the unknown. All of our priorities were the same in that we were all stepping into a completely unknown world. We can go through the technical aspects of working and how you change, but there was just a level of kindness and collaboration, and, I think, the general sense of the unknown bonded everyone on such a human level.

What is it like to perform on screen for a great deal of the movie by yourself?

SB: I never thought about that. You had the story, the elements that Jonas (Cuaron, the director’s son and co-writer) and Alfonso wrote. The technology was a constant character around you. I never once thought, “I’m the only person”. Because there’s George, who’s a vital part of this film and represents life and this outlook on living, and if you don’t have that, this film could not exist.

So I never thought of it until I started doing press and everyone’s freaking me out, going, “How do you feel that the whole film rests on your shoulders?” (Laughs) And I’m like, “How is it now my problem? I didn’t write this or produce it or come up with the cockamamie idea to make a space movie”. But I still don’t think about it, because I feel like I’m third or fourth on the list of characters before the story, the emotional visuals, the sound, the experience of what they’ve created.

Seeing you in a role so different from your others is a great surprise.

SB: Yeah, I’m always longing to do emotionally and physically what my male counterparts always got to do. I just felt envious every time I saw a movie that I was in awe of, and it was usually a male lead. And those kinds of roles were not available. They weren’t being written. So, whether it was by us searching for something and turning it to a female character or developing it yourself, you weren’t seeing it.

But in the last couple years, things have shifted. And the fact is that Jonas and Alfonso wrote this (character) specifically as a woman — it wasn’t an afterthought. And the fact that a studio on blind faith would fund something as unknown as this is revolutionary. So, to be able to be the person to do it is beyond humbling and it made me realize I had to step up and be the best version of myself, so whatever is asked of me I can produce.

So, yeah, every day I’m so grateful.

Alfonso, can you share your experiences with the NASA astronauts you researched for the film.

Alfonso Cuaron (AC): Well, it was very humbling talking with people who have done that in real life. In our early draft, we have scenes, and I started talking with one astronaut, and we realised that we were absolutely moronic. There was stuff that could never happen. And even if this film is not a documentary — it’s fiction — we wanted in the frame of that fiction to make everything as plausible and accurate as we could. Definitely with the physics of space, we tried to be super accurate. But we had to take our leaps in terms of fiction.

The truth of the matter is that for a big chunk of time, you’re talking with those people. You don’t care about your movie any more. You want to hear what they have gone through. You want all the details, and it’s amazing.

This film is not a documentary because in real life, they have hundreds of alternative procedures for each thing that happened. And it’s because these people are so well trained and remarkable.

And that’s something that I admire in the space program. It’s a bunch of people that are so qualified. You feel stupid — you feel like a movie director. (Laughs)

Sound is so important in the film, but Sandra’s voice really carries people through this journey in such a specific way.

AC: Sandra was driving the boat of mapping the breaths. We had this agreement. Sometimes I said, “Yes, but I think here there should be more panic”. And she’d say, “I’m not a damsel in distress”. I’d say, “No, but it’s not about being damsel in distress. If I’m up there in that situation I will be screaming”. She says, “Yes, but you’re a wimp”. (Laughs)

So, end of conversation. I’m a wimp.

There are some common themes between Gravity and your film Children Of Men. Do you think you could have done this without having done Children of Men?

AC: It’s hard to tell because life just happened like that. Both are road movies. One is in space and the other is on Earth. I don’t know. One film happened first, and that’s life. Your actions and your experience start to shape your decisions.

So, yeah, the process of Children Of Men also took me on a journey of personal adversities. The point of departure, when we started working with this screenplay, it was in the midst of one of those periods in your life in which everything is an adversity. And when I started working with Jonas and we decided to do this film about space and stuff, we’d talk about the theme as adversities and the possibility of a rebirth.

In other words, maybe I was clinging to the film with the hope that there was going to be an end to those adversities, and a rebirth, meaning new knowledge. So, in that sense, I think it would have been impossible just because of the experience.

Gravity opens in cinemas tomorrow.