63 Minutes with Richard Gere

Q: Do you ever see yourself as the kind of guy who might have thrived during the old days of Hollywood?

A: In a way, there was a very positive part of being a contract player, which was submergence of ego. The attitude [then was], This is a gig, you know? The studio tells you, "You're going to play a priest this month," "Now you're a stevedore," and "You're a fisherman." It wasn't like you had to agonize over each one of these decisions.

Q: How do you feel when people compare your looks and style to an old-time movie star?

A: Hey, I grew up next door to somebody. I'm still like this guy who, like, washed his dad's car. I don't feel like I'm some rarefied species of creature.

Q: Did you climb walls during the three or so years you spent out of Hollywood's A-list loop?

A: Not at all. I've always led an interesting life and the time I've spent not making movies was infinitely more fascinating than [if I'd been making] movies. I just kind of looked around and said, "Well, I'm an actor and it's time for me to work," then went, "Whooaa, what did I do?" when I found I couldn't work that easy now. I'd messed things up--hadn't been keeping my house in good order.

Q: Still, like I said, you worked it back and have stayed back.

A: Oh, I think there's a certain level you get to and it has to do with my age. I'm 44 and there's a handful of people who've lasted it out that long. It's happened almost, like, by default.

Q: It's interesting to compare you with John Travolta, in that you both were in Grease onstage, then, Paramount played you both up as bad boys in the '80s. You won the leads over him in Days of Heaven, American Gigolo and, I think, An Officer and a Gentleman, and you were both mentioned to play one of Anne Rice's sexy vampires in the movie versions of her Lestat books. You're in very different places today.

A: I don't know John well, but he is very personable, genuinely nice--which is rare. He's got a good heart. His instincts are very different than mine and our careers are, too. The intersections in our careers are peculiar, you're right, but those projects would have been very different had John done them.

Q: Speaking of intersections, you've just finished a movie with Sharon Stone called Intersection. You two strike me as among the most gossiped-about people Hollywood's seen in the last 10 years. What do you make of gossip? Why are we all so obsessed with it?

A: People gossip. Whatever emptiness they feel in their own lives, I guess it makes them feel better if they can feel badly of someone else. Cindy always talks about something she saw on "Roseanne" when Roseanne said she watches "Geraldo" and all those afternoon shows because, "I wanna see freaks! I wanna see people worse off than me!" Gossip has been around since the beginning of time. It's like the 12th Commandment, "Thou shalt gossip about everyone."

Q: Don't you bear some responsibility for the misperceptions?

A: I honestly don't know. I'm sure it was part of me that, in certain situations, I was not forthcoming with who I was. I also think that possibly there was a great need on the part of interviewers and editors to present this creature in a certain way. There was a "bad boy" slot to be filled, whoever it was.

Q: So when you strip away all the bullshit, who are you?

A: It's all bullshit. You take away the bullshit and there ain't nothing there.

Q: Lately, every famous couple in Hollywood seems to be having kids. Is being a parent important to you?

A: It's not the most important thing. The most important thing is to find a way to be happy. I mean, really, in the big sense, happy. If you can be happy in the big sense, you can have breadth of vision and really be of service to others. You can be a father to everybody then. That's ultimately where the species goes: my kid, my family, my wife. But it's bigger. You feel that connection with the rocks, plants, the sky. And, yes, I love kids.

Q: What do you know now about being in a long-term, together-all-the-time relationship?

A: I didn't realize how patient you had to be. You know, there are great joys, trusting someone that much and that bond. But, boy, lots of patience required, no question about it.

Q: Do you and Cindy Crawford, being as recognizable as you two are, miss doing certain everyday things? I mean, in a way, you're both supermodels.

A: [Laughter] Don't think Cindy and the other women don't laugh at that stuff, too. These guys work hard, harder than anyone I know. I mean, the whole idea of glamour? It's more like, people poking at you, saying, "Do it this way, do it that way ..." and "No, hold the product here ..." Come on!

Anyway, it used to be fun to walk around New York and just go into a shop. On a rare occasion now, I can get away with that. When my wife and I are together, it's almost impossible to just kind of wander around, go into a bookstore. It's not a particularly pleasant experience to go through the fan thing, because it's hyper, too jacked-up, unreal, and there's an uncontrollable energy to it. We have to avoid places where that kind of hysteria is fostered. Openings. Places where there are hundreds of paparazzi.

If I'm in a space where it's fearful and oppressive to have someone come up to me in the middle of a meal, pressing me for an autograph or conversation, then it's a horrible experience. I try to see it in a different light, not as a fearful experience but as an opportunity to engage another creature, even on a level that they don't understand, even as it's happening. All I can do is control my own experience of what happens.

Q: What about when the fan stuff flips into the uncontrollable?

A: You want to know about the real problem stuff? Everyone goes through that stuff and there's always some deranged people. Some unhealthy people. [Smiling] Mischievous people. That's my new word for "evil" these days: mischievous.

Q: So, getting back to Intersection and Sharon Stone, got any gossip?

A: [Laughing] She was very professional. Usually, I'm a partner in the process of making a movie, that is, I'm involved soon enough in the beginning that I'm involved with the decisions. When I became involved on Intersection, [director] Mark Rydell and I started thinking about how we needed real, real deep kinds of people playing these parts.

Q: Is it much like the French movie, Les Choses de la Vie, on which it's based, about a guy who reviews the complexities of his life after being in a near-fatal car accident?

A: The structure is the same, but [Intersection] is a very different movie and approach. Every time they reach for a cigarette in the French movie, we instead actually have a scene. The wife's character is very fleshed out and so is the other woman's role--they're not icons. We felt that Sharon would be great to play the woman I'm living with. She didn't want to do it. She wanted to play the wife. Mark and I just couldn't see it. It just didn't fit.

So, she came in and talked to us and read for the wife role. We saw the best actresses around and got some really wonderful readings, and hers was among the very best, no question about it. And so, we kept going with her, just pulled out a few scenes from the script, some of the more difficult things. She improvised one right on the spot that was kind of astonishing. Mark and I were pretty amazed. From that moment on, which is my first professional experience with her, she's been totally professional, totally prepared. I have nothing but praise for her.

Q: Why do so many actors have nothing but praise for Mark Rydell?

A: I've been really lucky to have worked with some really good directors, but a lot of actors are not that lucky and deal with less-equipped directors who really don't know how to talk to actors. Those actors feel with Mark, "This is the first time I'm being taken care of. I don't have to be a killer." That is obviously a very elevating experience.

Q: There's been talk that you, Stone and Rydell will team up again to do Manhattan Ghost Story, that Ronald Bass script which is kind of an Altered States meets The Ghost and Mrs. Muir meets Ghost.

A: I'll read a script when they're ready. It's an intriguing idea, but it's not far enough along yet to where I'd take it seriously. I take seriously what it's actually about--the death experience as it illuminates the life experience. It can be a very smart, very intelligent piece about the continuity of energy and consciousness that remains after death. You either buy into that or you don't. If you do, it changes everything.

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