I’venoregretsabout theDalaiLamading dong.Ineverwanted todobig-budget moviesanyway
Pretty Woman hunk’s Oscars attack on China sent his career into a tailspin. But the veteran actor insists he couldn’t be happier with his lot as he wins rave reviews for his new work
WHEN Richard Gere went off script at the 1993 Oscars, Hollywood was quick to react.
While presenting an award, the actor – who is a practising Tibetan Buddhist and long-time friend of the religion’s exiled leader, the Dalai Lama – condemned China’s occupation of Tibet and the country’s “horrendous human rights situation”.
As a result, the then box office heartthrob received a lifetime ban from entering China, who finance much of Hollywood.
He was also banished by the Academy from taking part in the ceremony until 2013.
But the Philadelphia-born star, 67, wouldn’t change a thing.
Having remained relentless in his support for the Tibetan independence movement, he declared: “It’s important for everyone to speak out. Everyone has a platform. Even at the simplest level, you should vote. That’s the best platform you have.”
Looking back, Gere’s forced move to less mainstream work could have been a blessing in disguise.
Last year, he made an impact at the Glasgow Film Festival with the premiere of his release Time Out of Mind, about homelessness. This year, he has landed some of the best reviews of his career for indie movie Norman and Oren Moverman’s sibling drama The Dinner.
Yet Gere’s choices haven’t changed since his 1990s heyday opposite Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, he claims.
“I never did big-budget movies,” he said. “All of those early movies I made at Paramount were all small, interesting films, but the studios don’t make those any more, so these are all independently financed.”
The appeal of Joseph Cedar’s politically charged drama Norman was all in the character. Charting the rise and tragic fall of a New York fixer, the film follows Norman Oppenheimer, a would-be operator who spends his waking hours dreaming up financial schemes that never come to fruition. “Part of [the draw] was I had no idea how I would play him,” Gere said. “He was a character I had never read before, never seen, and Joseph had written a unique and original Norman. It was important just to believe whatever he was doing. “The other interesting thing about him that I was keen to embrace is that he has no darkness in him. “There’s no anger, no resentment. And that to me is completely unique in a human being.” The incessant networking and social climbing, however, Gere has seen before. He added: “You find guys like this circling the edges of every business, saying, ‘What can I do to help you? I can get you a better table at that restaurant. I can get you a discount’.
“It’s how Norman tries to make himself look valuable.
“I’ve lived in New York since I was 21. So there have been versions of Norman swirling around my life for years. But every culture has a Norman. There’s a centre of where the power is, or the money or the influence or whatever it may be, and there are Normans stalking around the periphery trying to get in.” Does he have any regrets? “No,” Gere laughed. “When I go to film festivals, quite often they’ll very kindly give me some kind of career award and put together the 60 films, or whatever I’ve made, in five or seven or 10 minutes, which is basically my whole life.
“I am then flooded with the memory of making the films but also who I was at that point.”
These days, Gere’s focus is on his son Homer. He said: “I just want him to be happy,” he says of the 17-year-old, whom he shares with his second ex-wife, the model and actress Carey Lowell (Gere was also married to Cindy Crawford and has since found love with Spanish activist Alejandra Silva).
“I want the best for him, that’s all I think about.”
And with no plans for his son to follow suit, talk of his work rarely makes it home.
Gere said: “He’s only seen a couple of my films. We kind of laugh about it because it’s just not part of our relationship. It’s just what I do. It’s my job, it’s not my life. He’s my life.
“I don’t have to work, so the movies I do is because I enjoy it and I enjoy the camaraderie of it.
“I like groups of people making something creative, focusing and motivating, so you think you’re trying to do something of value.
“I am amazed that I am still doing this, at this point. And I don’t see any reason to stop.” ●Norman is out on June 9.