Sandra Bullock has been making the promotional rounds for the recently released movie ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’. The post 9/11 drama, that also stars Tom Hanks and young actor Thomas Horn, had Bullock fighting her maternal instincts while playing the role of playing the main character’s mother Linda Schell. “When you have maternal instincts towards a child the first thing you want to do is go to that child and just protect – and that was exactly what I was not gonna do,” Bullock says. Adding that “it was hard.”

The Blind Side actress also says that the majority of her screen time shared with actor Thomas Horn, who plays nine year old Oskar Schell, an amateur inventor who goes on the hunt for a lock that matches the key he finds in his late father’s things, was far more difficult than scenes that Tom Hanks shared with Horn. “We had the tough scenes, you needed a partner,” Bullock said of her role, where she appears for a total of 24 minutes according to THR. While Hanks’ screen performance opposite Horn was less difficult, according to the actress. “I mean he [Horn] and Tom got to play, and really connect and bond and show that similarity.”

“What a great way to get back on the horse, “Bullock also shared when it came to Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, a movie she may not have appeared in if she had stopped acting, something she almost gave up on after her divorce. “I was perfectly content to be permanently broken. I honestly didn’t think I was in a place where I wanted to work or wanted to step out of where I was. I wasn’t prepared. But the opportunity was louder than my head.”

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close from director Stephen Daldry has been playing in limited theaters since December 25th 2011.