1994 gave us one of the greatest action movies ever made in Speed. It had a cool good guy in Keanu Reeves’ Jack Traven, a great sidekick in Jeff Daniels’ Harry Temple, an insanely scary villain in Dennis Hopper’s Howard Payne, and some of the most intense scenes you’ll ever see, as a bus loaded with a bomb must stay above 50 miles per hour at all costs, because if it doesn’t, it will blow up. Yeah, yeah, enough with all of that. Speed is more than just an action flick, it’s also a romance. The chemistry between Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock is off the charts, and it’s not just between the characters of Traven and Annie Porter. The two actors clicked so well that Reeves and Bullock later admitted to developing crushes on each other during filming. That intensity makes the moment they finally kiss in Speed way more explosive than any bomb.

Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock Weren’t the First Choices for ‘Speed’
It’s hard to imagine it now, but Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock weren’t supposed to be the stars of Speed. On the 50 MPH podcast, Bullock said, “I also wasn’t the first choice. I wasn’t the second choice. I don’t think I was the third choice.” That’s something that has been confirmed before, as the writer of Speed, Graham Yost, talked about with Entertainment Weekly in 2014 for the movie’s twentieth anniversary. The first script had Annie as an African American paramedic, another as a driver’s ed teacher, as a way to later explain why she was so good at driving a speeding bus. They first went to Halle Berry, who wasn’t interested, and then they turned to… Ellen DeGeneres. Yes, Speed thought of Ellen as its Annie. Yost wanted someone funny, but he didn’t need Ellen for that, because they found humor and more in Sandra Bullock.

Keanu Reeves wasn’t the first choice for Jack Traven either. Speed first went after the biggest names in Hollywood, Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, then turned to Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. When those didn’t work out, a studio exec’s kid suggested Keanu Reeves because “he’s hot.” They were at first put off by the Bill & Ted stereotype but remembered his performance in Point Break. When he pulled up to Disney with a cool haircut and riding a motorcycle, the deal was sealed. Just imagine how Speed with Tom Hanks and Ellen DeGeneres would have gone. No offense to either, who are great actors, but that choice doesn’t hint at hot chemistry. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock made the movie more than just an action flick.

The Chemistry Between Jack and Annie in ‘Speed’ Is off the Charts

Now, Speed is not a romantic comedy by any means. There are hints of a romance beginning and some laughs to be had, but it’s a high-stakes action movie and thriller first. For any of that action to matter, though, you need characters to care about. We want Jack Traven and Annie Porter to live, not just because they’re people like everyone else on the bus, but because of how well they get along. Watching them together, we are seeing the beginning of a relationship. We know they’re going to end up together, but first, they have to live through the day.

Speed couldn’t just be non-stop action scenes. There had to be some moments that slowed down just a tad so the audience could catch our breath. That’s where the interplay between Jack and Annie comes in, though there would still be no catching our breath. Speed is both an intimate movie between Jack and Annie and a challenge. They are on a bus full of people and could die at any moment (that’s not exactly romantic), but they are alone at the front of the bus, almost in their own little world. Much of their time, however, is focused on looking out a windshield and not at each other, so how do you get around that?

They can’t get to know each other on a deeper level, which makes us beg for it. Small intimate moments occur between Jack and Annie with very little happening at all. Annie makes cute jokes to calm the situation and Jack (“But I’m not available to drive tomorrow”), but Jack also calms Annie when she begins to panic. They are there for each other, so when their shoulders touch as they lean close, it’s incredibly hot. When Annie asks Jack to take the wheel for a moment, and he looks at her and smiles, we can see he likes her and it’s unbearable. Those little moments lead to bigger ones. When the bus has to speed up even faster to jump a gap in the highway, Jack holds on to Annie, protecting her. When they finally escape the bus, their bodies wrapped around each other as the music swells, we can’t take it any longer. Just kiss already!

Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves Admit They Had Feelings for Each Other in Real Life

Jack and Annie have so much chemistry together just through their reactions to each other. As Sandra Bullock told the 50 MPH podcast:

“We didn’t really look at each other in this movie except for maybe three or four times, because we were constantly battling the elements. And I think that’s what made it so electric, too, is that, watching it, I guess you want them to connect. That was a really clever setup, to sort of keep people apart. Foreplay, I guess.”

Eye contact has never been hotter in a movie, but when they’re finally alone and embracing, this should be their moment. Annie smiles and tells Jack relationships that start under intense experiences never last. We want Jack to kiss her but he can’t because the bad guy is still out there. Howard Payne ends up abducting Annie and cuffing her to a pole inside a runaway subway train. Jack manages to kill Payne, but Annie is still in trouble, unable to be freed as the track is coming to an end. Jack could save himself, but instead, with death looming, he wraps his body around Annie and sits with her in the quiet, ready to die with her. My God, we can’t take it! Whether they’re joking, smiling, or about to die, their chemistry is palpable. They live, of course, and finally get their intense kiss, along with a perfect line. When Jack repeats Annie’s relationship concerns to her, she says, “We’ll have to base it on the sex then.” Perfect.

There’s a reason beyond good writing and acting that made Jack and Annie so hot together. That’s because Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock had feelings for each other in real life, although they never acted on them. It’s something they both ironically confessed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in separate interviews, with Bullock telling the host how sweet and cute Reeves was, and how she’d get the giggles whenever he looked at her. Reeves confessed that he had a crush on Bullock as well. Although they never acted on that chemistry in reality, at least we’ll always have their hot chemistry playing Jack Traven and Annie Porter in Speed. Sorry, Ellen.