She had long refused to join social media, preferring to eschew the machinery of celebrity. So if Sandra Bullock’s arrival on Instagram last week says anything, it’s that the Oscar-winning actor – once routinely dubbed “America’s sweetheart” – is ready to embrace the spotlight again.

After years of near-total retreat from public life, Bullock is suddenly everywhere: making her first major convention appearance in years at CinemaCon, teasing Practical Magic 2 alongside Nicole Kidman, and using her first Instagram post to revive one of the most beloved moments of her career – the “midnight margaritas” scene from the original 1998 film. Kidman quickly welcomed her to the platform in the comments, turning Bullock’s debut into a miniature Practical Magic reunion before the sequel’s press campaign had properly begun.

At CinemaCon, the pair slipped easily back into the chemistry that made the film an enduring cult favourite. “The witches are back,” Kidman declared, with Bullock jokingly replying: “Step on my line, that’s OK.” It was a familiar reminder of Bullock’s appeal – equally glamorous, warm, and wry.

“Decades before fans turned to Instagram to see frank, funny, vulnerable sides of their favourite actors, Sandra Bullock was bringing that quality to her characters on the big screen,” Anna Smith, film critic and host of the Girls on Film podcast, told the Guardian. “As well as drama, she has always excelled in comedy roles, managing to be accessible, relatable and a little goofy, while radiating Hollywood beauty.”

For Smith, it was a “sign of the times” that Bullock is now turning to social media. “It’s presumably to reach a younger generation – but an online presence won’t hurt her with middle-aged fans who grew up watching her either. There’s something quite reassuring, and revealing, about seeing updates from the familiar stars of your youth – though I’m delighted she’s still making films,” she said.

Bullock, 61, largely withdrew from public life after the death of her partner, photographer Bryan Randall, in August 2023 after a private battle with ALS. She stepped back from acting and appearances, navigating grief away from the cameras.

Her return has generated huge excitement because there are few superstars like her left. For two decades, Bullock was a bankable constant for studios and film-makers, an actor who could open a mainstream comedy, carry a romantic drama, anchor an action thriller and seem broadly relatable through it all. She belongs to a time when a single actor’s name could carry a film to success.

Born in Arlington, Virginia, in 1964 to an American voice coach father and a German opera singer mother, Bullock spent much of her childhood moving between the US and Germany. She later studied drama at East Carolina University before leaving for New York, where she worked as a bartender and waitress while taking acting classes and auditioning for stage and screen roles.

Her ascent was gradual. After small parts in late-1980s films and television, she began attracting attention in the early 90s with a supporting role in Demolition Man opposite Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes.

Her breakthrough came with 1994’s Speed, the smash-hit blockbuster that made her a star. As Annie, the civilian trapped on Keanu Reeves’s runaway bus, Bullock brought humour, warmth and courage to a role that might otherwise have been decorative. Roger Ebert praised her chemistry with Reeves, while the Washington Post’s Hal Hinson called her the film’s standout performer.

What followed was one of the most durable mainstream careers of her generation. Bullock moved easily between genres, including romantic comedies such as While You Were Sleeping, Two Weeks Notice and The Proposal, star vehicles such as Miss Congeniality, dramas including A Time to Kill and Crash, and prestige features such as Gravity.

In 2010, she won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for her performance as American football player Michael Oher’s adoptive mother in The Blind Side. The film became the first in history to pass the $200m mark with only one top-billed female star.

Bullock was the world’s highest-paid female actor in 2010 and 2014, and Entertainment Weekly once described her as being “courted for virtually every major female starring role” in Hollywood. Ben Affleck, her co-star in the romantic comedy Forces of Nature, said: “Every movie you hear about and every script I see, they say, ‘We’re going after Sandra Bullock for the woman.’”

Yet she also grew increasingly selective, turning her focus to family life and working less frequently. Perhaps unsurprising for an actor who once said “the only power you have in Hollywood is the power to say no”.

In the past decade, her screen appearances have been sparse but notable, including Ocean’s 8, Bird Box, The Unforgivable, The Lost City and Bullet Train. Beyond acting, she also founded the production company Fortis Films, producing several of her own projects.

Bullock’s private life, however, was often more turbulent than her genial screen persona suggested. Her marriage to television personality Jesse James ended in 2010 amid revelations of his infidelity, just weeks after her Oscar win. In the years that followed, she adopted two children, and later found stability with Randall, whom she described as the love of her life.

Appearing at the CNBC Changemakers summit last week, Bullock said she made Practical Magic 2 now because her children were out of school. “I’m not going to sacrifice my time with my kids,” she said. Of Instagram, she jokingly added: “If I need to be able to make myself look like an idiot and have fun, I will not be doing selfies or makeup tutorials.”

For years, fans of Practical Magic, in which Bullock and Kidman played witch sisters cursed in love, have hoped for a sequel. The new film, due in September, follows Sally (Bullock) and her daughters (Joey King and Maisie Williams), as they reunite with Gillian (Kidman), only for a mysterious arrival to disrupt their quiet lives. For Bullock, it’s a fitting return: a film about second acts, and the strange, enduring magic of reappearing.