20 Things You Didn't Know About Speed
12. Gum Somehow Played A Major Theme Throughout
When Bullock first gets on the bus, she finds herself next to the most irritating kind of tourist - the L.A. first-timer played by Alan Ruck with the same sort of mid-western boyish charm he brought to Ferris Bueller's Day Off - only cranked up to maximum levels of annoyance.
She quickly removes some gum from her mouth and claims someone had left it on her seat, giving her an easy out of a terrible bus ride that, unbeknownst to her, was about to get much worse.
Bulock improvised this.
While discussing the character, both Reeves and De Bont agreed that the character would mime chewing gum to give the audience some sort of physical cue into when and how his mind is at work, making snap judgments like popping a bubble. The two came to this agreement after Reeves improved the "gut reaction" during shooting.