hy can't I be Tina Turner?" There aren't many actresses who can deliver a line like that with a straight face. Even fewer who can do it and have the audience laugh with her instead of at her.

  But Sandra Bullock, who delivers exactly that line in her new movie, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, isn't just any actress.

  The popular beauty-a perennial addition to most glossy magazines' "Beautiful People" lists-has done her share of dramatic acting over the years. But it's her comedic performances that have won the hearts of her fans (not to mention the worldwide box office).

 "I'd rather take risks than make something that's cookie cutter," Bullock says of her choices over the years, choices

  "I always like doing what I'm not doing at that time. I'll never stop doing comedy because it's just the greatest form of entertainment. If you can pull it off, it's good. If you fail at it, it's horrendous. There's sort of a nice addictive challenge to that, to see if you can pull off a joke."

  It was the experience of doing the likes of Speed 2 and suffering through the critical crossfire it drew that encouraged Bullock to produce her own films. How better to get good parts in good movies?

  After a few fumbles, like the marginally successful rom-com Hope Floats, Bullock struck pay dirt as an actress-producer when she appeared as Gracie Hart, a tomboyish FBI agent who goes undercover at a beauty pageant.

  Now, she's back. The sequel picks up where the first film left off. Things aren't going very well for the plucky agent: Her romance with her hunky partner Eric (Benjamin Bratt) is on the skids and, what's worse for Gracie, her newfound fame is jeopardizing the undercover work she loves so much. (Seems Gracie's become a bit of a media darling since stopping the first film's bombing plot.)

  But when Gracie's best friend, pageant winner Cheryl Frazier (Heather Burns), and pageant emcee Stan Fields (a returning William Shatner), are kidnapped in Las Vegas, Gracie teams up with a tough, no-nonsense sidekick named Sam Fuller (Ray's Regina King), and heads to Sin City to stop the bad guys once again.

  And it seems Gracie isn't the only person who's learned a thing or two since the first film. "I've learned that success comes in a very prickly package," says Bullock. "Whether you choose to accept it or not is up to you. It's what you choose to do with it, the people you choose to surround yourself with, that matter. Always choose people that are better than you. Always choose people that challenge you and are smarter than you. Always be the student. Once you find yourself being the teacher, you've lost it."

- John Black