Our intrepid reporter spends an hour with the movies' silver fox and manages to get him to talk about everything from working with Sharon Stone and marriage to Cindy Crawford to why people gossip and, yes, a word or two on behalf of Buddhism.
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On the whole, Richard Gere would rather be in India. Or maybe anywhere else than in this elegantly spare photography studio in Culver City, perhaps Southern California's unloveliest patch of real estate. Gere, fresh from And the Band Played On, HBO's well-received journal of the early AIDS years, and Mr. Jones, in which he plays a charismatic nutcase, is about to be seen in Intersection, in which he's married to Sharon Stone but living with Lolita Davidovich. Today he has allotted one-and-a-half hours, tops, to be interviewed, during and/or after his go-round with a photographer for the cover shoot. Which is to underscore what everyone knows: after jumping from the sizzle of American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman into the permafrost of The Cotton Club, King David and Power, Gere has pulled off a rather impressive career resurrection that began with Internal Affairs and Pretty Woman.
But just over an hour with Gere for an interview? I've been at this interview stuff long enough to have a couple of reactions when luminaries impose such tight time restrictions. Namely: What is this person trying to conceal? Is it, perhaps, a power play? Or is he just bone weary of talking about himself? Not that Gere ever says much about his private self, but he has been granting interviews ever since the days when he used to meet the press at the New York storefront where he lived while still a struggling actor.
Gere has, after all, been with us for longer than you may recall. After causing a sensation as a psycho pickup in underwear in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, he was the guy Paramount promoted, neck and neck with John Travolta, as a working-class sex god. He was the "bad boy." the street-smart heart-melter playing pool in denim who, over the course of a decade, worked himself up to acting in sought-after roles for such directors as Bruce Beresford. Sidney Lumet and John Schlesinger. As time wore on, and Gere tried more and more to stretch his repertoire, he not only stumbled but found himself dogged by some of the nastier press and gossip any career has ever survived. Through it all, he has always outspokenly advocated Buddhism, ecological concerns and, in the past few years, human rights--in America as well as around the globe. Then, during a career upswing that began with Internal Affairs and continued through Sommersby with Jodie Foster, he dated and later married model Cindy Crawford and, today, if his appearance and demeanor are any indication, the actor appears to have struck a successful balance in his private life.
For all my attitude toward his interview demands, a funny thing happens once the cameras stop clicking. Gere and I are alone in a quiet room only for 63 minutes, but there isn't anything he isn't willing to discuss--to a point. I find that he is perfectly centered, focused, and, probably, as honest as he can possibly be.
STEPHEN REBELLO: Pretty Woman brought you back strongly, almost out of nowhere, and you've stayed back. Few people have been able to pull that off.
RICHARD GERE: Since Pretty Woman was a monster success [laughing], way beyond what anyone had the right to expect, that put me on the list of the 10 obvious people who get asked to do things. Every actor kind of has their niche, you know? Some people are more in the drama mode, the relationship mode, the comedy mode. Sometimes, those modes kind of swirl around.
Q: But you don't seem to get swirled into the Lethal Weapon, Die Hard mode.
A: I've been asked to do that stuff and it never particularly appeals to me. Not that I think less of anyone else that does that, but I just never thought I could learn anything from doing it. That's the "pure entertainment" mode, which is great, but it never really was my idea of doing the work. I came from the theater, where there was a whole thing about spiritual communication, psychological communication, exploration. If you can get in touch with it, then you can give it out as a gift. Usually, the kinds of scripts you mentioned are not based on a very deep exploration.
Q: How would you classify Pretty Woman, if not "pure entertainment"?
A: Pretty Woman is something I never would have done. Neither is An Officer and a Gentleman. I had no interest in these scripts whatsoever. It was the same person knocking my door down on both of them, Jeffrey Katzenberg, first at Paramount, then at Disney, who was one of my first friends out here and still is. At the point of Pretty Woman, I had been kind of out of things for a while. I consciously [had] just said, "Going off to do other things" and I fucked up my career to the point where [people weren't saying], "Well, let's get Gere to do that." I had to crawl a little bit to get scripts. Doing Internal Affairs, for instance, was a very difficult decision for me to make because, potentially, that could have been such a piece of shit.
Q: It's one of the things I've thought you were really strong in: unapologetically amoral, vicious.
A: It turns out to be one of my favorite movies and best experiences, too. [Director] Mike Figgis and I are very close. When you read that script, you had to make many leaps of faith because it could have been a major piece of shit. I didn't know if it was really going to do for me, career-wise, what had to be done to get myself back in the business. My agent was having problems getting quality things for me, the big things that I had been used to doing. As I said, I didn't like the Internal Affairs script at all, but my agent was telling me, "Oh, they want you desperately for this." I went along with the idea of having dinner with Mike Figgis and [producer] Frank Mancuso Jr. at the Imperial Gardens, and got there to find that they weren't sold on me either. None of us wanted to be there! [Laughing] So, let's say it was a very peculiar, open kind of meeting because of that. I just told 'em what I thought the possibilities were for the script and Mike and I were totally on the same wavelength. The movie turned out okay, I was feeling pretty good about it, but it was a small picture.
Q: And along came Pretty Woman ...
A: It came up and it was very frivolous and silly. There was no part for the guy. It had nothing going for it. It was very easy for me to say to Jeffrey Katzenberg, "You're crazy." And he kept on me and on me. Finally, I met Garry Marshall and loved him. In the kitchen of my house, we didn't talk about the script, we talked about Dostoevsky. One thing lead to another and I started to see something I could bring to this. But it was a fairly mercantile decision, not a soul decision. Made the movie, had a great time making the movie and, probably because of the lack of pressure to do something important, I was able to explore other things in myself and as a man, too. I think I found a much freer way of working in that film, which I've used ever since.
Q: One nice thing I can say about that one is how effortlessly you hold the screen, you're really present, yet you let Julia Roberts shine. Not as easy as it looks.
A: I told Garry I couldn't have done that 10 years before. There was just too much intensity. [Laughing] I couldn't have been that still. It takes age and a little maturity to be able to play like that and still have weight. You don't disappear because you're not doing anything. Any actor knows that the easiest thing in the world is a part where you're climbing the walls and the scenery. An actor is built to do that, to be a maniac. They have the emotional and the psychic stuff to do that. We're not equipped to be normal. Normal people don't become actors.
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.
Q: You earlier mentioned Mike Figgis, who directed you in Internal Affairs. But didn't you and he finish your recent film together, Mr. Jones, over a year ago?
A: There was always a problem with the script. There was a great, very unusual, original central character [but] through many writers and many directions ... the problem was finding a way of telling a story of a bipolar manic depressive--to do it in an honest, not highly romanticized, non-bullshit way.
Q: But how do you not romanticize bipolar depression and not have people speeding for the theater exits?
A: [Laughs] The truth of it is, this movie [was] romanticized a bit. But the physical reality, the drug reality of it, is sound. The two possibilities for bipolars at this point is psychotherapy and drugs. Basta. And the primary one is drugs. You can be manic and depressed at the same time. No one can cope with a full-blown manic.
Q: Did you do research?
A: I spent a couple of weeks at the Veteran's Hospital here. Mike [Figgis] and I share a kind of madness. We have a lot of things in common. We're both musicians. We play the same instrument. In work, we have a very similar sensibility. With this, and Internal Affairs, we went pretty far out a lot of the time. We were actually talking about it last night. Every day, it was a challenge to really burrow in, to do something interesting. We had almost no contact with the outside, all that kind of stuff with phone calls from the studio, we were kind of on the periphery doing our work. Like I said, where we faltered was when the script wasn't solid. We just had this problem with the third act and had to go back and rework that. We had the top writers in Hollywood, but they just weren't connecting to this kind of weird Rubik that we had created. They brought wonderful stuff to it, it just wasn't in that style in which Mike and I had been making this movie.
In the end, the best writing came from a man named Charlie Mitchell, who did the rewrites for us on Sommersby, as well. He came in and connected the most with the material. We wrote one scene, he'd write three or four. He's brilliant. You see, I've had less time this year than I thought I would have, mostly because Mr. Jones has been so problematic. I would have wanted, actually, to go to India right now and just fuck off. But I haven't been able to.
Q: You're a Hollywood star who's deeply involved in Buddhism, but you seem real about it, as if it's not just some hip attitude you're trying on.
A: Well, I've really been with it a long time. My first teacher was 20 years ago. When I first focused on Buddhism, it was on the Japanese forms that I was most knowledgeable because my teachers were Japanese. My practice has matured and become more complex. Just putting in that amount of time, it starts to get deeper inside you.
Q: Many other celebrities, like Tina Turner, practice Buddhism. Do you think the special pressures of being a celebrity particularly attract them to Buddhism?
A: My interest predated being famous. I was, like, 24. I don't think there are any forces more peculiar for famous people to deal with than non-famous people. They're exactly the same. Everyone I meet is going through exactly the same crisis as the President of the United States, as the guy sweeping the streets. They're looking for happiness and don't know why they can't grasp it. I want to know why. Why is happiness still over there somewhere?
Q: So, you're saying it's an existential concern ...
A: That's right, not job-specific. Absolutely.
Q: What drew you to Buddhism?
A: If you're not aware of the fact that you're suffering, there's nothing you can do. You reach a point where you're feeling: I don't see any way out of this. Like, I'll never have the energy to go through this. And, I'm living like I'm supposed to be living, but I'm not happy. Then you're at the point where you are actually open to other possibilities. There are many different paths, paths that neither reject nor neglect anything. There is absolutely no guilt involved. You meet it at the level you are capable of moving in.
Q: If your spirituality could give you the power to change the world, what might you tackle first?
A: I have no power. I never will. Buddha couldn't change anything. Jesus Christ couldn't change anything. The only thing I can control is my experience of events.
Q: It strikes me that your belief system informs the projects you choose to become involved in.
A: Twenty years ago, I didn't have the possibilities that I have right now. But I think my direction of exploration has always been the same. The choices are basic: Can I learn something from this? Will this be new territory? Will I benefit from going through this? I take this very seriously, so, if work is not gonna enrich me, then it's a waste not only of time, but an enormous waste of energy: physical, psychic, spiritual. So, it's always been hard for me to make a decision, to say "yes."
Q: Didn't And the Band Played On, for instance, get off the dime once you said "yes"?
A: I didn't have more time to put into the project, so we found something that I could do in a few days. It's not a big deal for me to put in two days on an important piece that explains how we ended up in an AIDS crisis. That to me is the joy of being where I'm at. I can do it.
Q: Why do you think that, in 1993, some folks are still so hysterical, so misinformed about gay people and AIDS?
A: Why did we have an administration that, for 12 years, wouldn't say the word AIDS? It's coming from people not in touch with basic fears, fears that rumble around inside them and they don't know what to do with them. And, right now, in this culture, there are places where you can put those fears. It's still okay to hate gays, blacks, Arabs, the Japanese. The list will change every century, but there's always going to be a list, you know? Fear isn't about gays, it's not about Jews, it's not about blacks. It's a much deeper thing, but fear of gays, Jews, whatever, is the only thing that objectifies that fear for such people. I think it's metaphysical fear, frankly. Fear of death. Fear of being alive. We're taught A, B, C, D and one, two, three, four without being taught the voyages of the heart. These are, by and large, Bible people who do these [intolerant] things. Maybe I misread the Bible, but it seemed to me the whole message there was love: embracing, helping, serving, forgiving.
Q: You mentioned the previous administration's silence toward AIDS, what do you think of the Clinton-Gore "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays and lesbians in the military?
A: There's no way they can deliver on everything they promised. I think they showed good faith in trying to do it. I also think that, with most of those things, we can't go half way. You either get in or you get nothing. In the end, it's the little compromises that are more painful.
Q: Any reactions to Tom Cruise being cast as Lestat in the movie of Interview With the Vampire, a project your name was once associated with?
A: No, The Vampire Lestat was the one I was interested in. I found that whole book more interesting than the first. It's the best. I read a script on Interview With the Vampire, but the other one just strikes me as better.
Q: Say, in a decade or so, you come across an encyclopedia-type book of contemporary stars and you find an entry under your name. What do you hope it says?
A: [Laughs] I don't care. I don't even care if I'm in there, to tell you the truth. I don't need to be characterized by anything.
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Stephen Rebello interviewed Antonio Banderas for the November Movieline.