Hollywood's most devoted follower of Tibetan Buddhism talks about his two new movies, Red Corner and The Jackal, explains why he can't possibly take interviews seriously, tells how he evaded the Vietnam draft, slams President Clinton, and reveals why he gave up cocaine.
______________________________________
Forty-eight-year-old Richard Gere is a guy from upstate New York who came from a normal, middle-class family, won a gymnastic scholarship to the University of Massachusetts, dropped out of college after two years to become an actor, performed onstage for a few years, then moved into films and became a star. He dazzled us in Looking for Mr. Goodbar in 1977, and followed that with Days of Heaven (1978), Yanks (1979) and American Gigolo (1980). He won the Theatre World-Award for his role as a homosexual prisoner at the Dachau concentration camp in the Broadway play Bent, then made the blockbuster hit An Officer and a Gentleman. After that came a series of unsuccessful efforts--_Breathless_ (1983), The Cotton Club (1984) and King David (1985) among them--which left one wondering if he had lost his appeal. Then Gere played a corrupt police officer to critical acclaim in Mike Figgis's canny thriller Internal Affairs and the tide seemed to change. Everything changed with Pretty Woman; that huge hit put Gere back on top. In the last few years, Gere was praised for his performance in Primal Fear and was also instrumental in getting HBO to do And the Band Played On, dealing with the AIDS crisis.
Gere has been noted for dating beautiful women, on the one hand, and for being a follower of the Dalai Lama on the other. Back in the early '80s, he was introduced to the Dalai Lama and began to study Tibetan Buddhism. At the Academy Awards in '93, he made a plea to the world on behalf of the Tibetans in their struggle against Chinese oppression. He founded the Tibet House in New York and established the Gere Foundation to fund causes and charities he believes in.
Gere apparently has a great deal of energy, since he's able to work all day and talk with me late at night, without taking the time to eat, sip coffee, or even drink a bottle of Evian water. What he does not have energy for is probing into his private life. He's willing to spend the time to promote his films--_Red Corner_ and The Jackal are both out this fall at the same time--and to speak out about the issues that concern him. But when you've got world health, peace and happiness on your mind, you apparently don't want to devote time to gossip about why your marriage with Cindy Crawford didn't work out.
LAWRENCE GROBEL: Will Red Corner annoy the Chinese government?
RICHARD GERE: [Laughs] Oh yeah, of course.
Q: Was it the condemnation of the Chinese judicial system that interested you about the story?
A: It was the first thing that captured my imagination. There's a line in the movie, "I will not be silent anymore." It takes a long time to teach a society to not feel they have to be silent. I'll tell you how effective that closed Chinese system is: we're eight years away from Tienanmen Square. This was a major popular movement, and the situation now is that there are no dissidents left. They were either killed, or they're in jail, or they split.
Q: At 1993's Academy Awards ceremony you called for the end of Chinese oppression of Tibet. What were the ramifications?
A: I'm banned [from the Oscars]. Banished.
Q: If the Academy invited you back to present an award, would you speak out again?
A: Oh yeah. Absolutely. It was a totally positive thing. It made the Tibetans feel so good, that someone would speak about them to the world.
Q: Didn't the Chinese invite you to their Academy Awards?
A: That's true. It's a very bizarre irony. A few months after I was banished I got a call from the Film Institute in China to come and be a part of their Academy Awards, called the Golden Rooster Awards. I thought it was a joke or a lame attempt to intimidate me. I checked it out with the State Department and found out it was real. I said I'd go if I could go to Tibet also. There was a drama back and forth about that, but finally they allowed it. In the end I just showed up, did some press conferences. I said the stuff I've been saying for years about Tibet and China. I saw quite a bit of China and a lot of Tibet, and have not been invited back again. I don't know why they allowed me in that time. Very peculiar.
Q: Have you ever discussed your concerns with President Clinton?
A: I met with the president before he was elected. He was really interested in Tibet and in AIDS, all my issues. China was top priority with him. Based on that I spoke for him at rallies. As soon as he was elected those weren't issues that he cared about. He told the American people that he would make AIDS an A-1 priority, that he would create a Manhattan Project. He didn't do anything.
Q: Who do you have a respect for in politics today?
A: Patrick Moynihan comes to mind. I think he's genuine, and he's always been fighting difficult fights. He's also been very helpful in the Tibetan situation. The presidents? Jimmy Carter was a genuine guy, probably not a great president, but incredibly courageous, much more than Clinton. Carter actually had principles and wasn't afraid to talk about them and try to bring out the best in America.
Q: Have you ever been approached by anyone to run for office?
A: No. [Laughs]
Q: Do you think a practicing Buddhist could ever become president of the U.S.?
A: The way the country is now, practically the only ones who are fit to become president are ex-junkies, actors, musicians--people who have done it all and don't care about it any more and are no longer subject to all this temptation. We have pretty low-level people who end up ruling us.
Q: How skeptical a person are you?
A: I'm a realist, but I think I give people a break much more than I did when I was younger.
Q: You've opposed U.S. involvement in E1 Salvador and the Chinese occupation of Tibet; you've supported the cultural preservation of Tibet, gay-rights causes, and AIDS research. Can you talk about how your consciousness was raised in each of these areas?
A: I had basic skepticism about U.S. governmental policies in the Third World. We have funded extremely right-wing fascist governments--my tax dollars, your tax dollars. When I narrated a documentary on El Salvador called Witness to War, which ended up winning an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject), I saw firsthand how totally corrupt our embassy system is. I went to an Air Force base in Honduras and they recognized me; I was signing autographs. Next day we go to the embassy in the capital and I said to our ambassador, "The military presence here is very oppressive." And he said, "What military presence?" I mentioned the air base and he said, "We have no air base." I told him I was there, that I had signed autographs, that they took photos of me. He was silent for a while, then said, "We maintain the fiction." I found that at every embassy in that area.
Q: Let's talk about movies. Do you think that film is the art form of our times?
A: Film is generally soporific now. When I was younger there were movies that had to be seen--it was unthinkable to miss certain directors' new films. You felt part of a movement, a brotherhood. I don't even feel compelled to go to the movies anymore. I'd rather have dinner with my girlfriend than go watch a movie.
Q: What films have you liked over the last couple years?
A: The English Patient. And a film called Before the Rain.
Q: What movies did you like as a kid?
A: I liked war movies and muscle movies like Hercules. Greek myths were interesting to me.
Q: Speaking of war, how did you deal with the draft?
A: That's a long story. I was a conscientious objector, genuinely so. I wrote my essay, went to my minister and my school principal. It was all rejected and they asked me to come in for my physical. I decided there was no way I was going to go to war. I went through the whole scam thing. The big thing then was to have a tattoo--FUCK YOU--along the side of your hand from the wrist to the pinky. And there was the gay stuff, "I'm gay, I can't possibly do da, da, da ..." Anything to get out at that point. I was eligible the first year of the lottery and I had a high-probability number. I got my notice and they still wouldn't give me a deferment, so I split. I just went off to be an actor. Then they started bothering my parents and their neighbors, looking for me. So I came back and ... I don't know if I should tell the rest.
Q: Why not now? They're not going to get you anymore.
A: I just worry about my parents. At that point I had had some psychological problems that were documented. It's unclear in my mind whether they were really psychological problems or something I had trumped up to get out. I showed up for a final physical and showed all this stuff, and the letters essentially said this kid should not go. So they gave me a 1-Y and sent me home.
Q: OK, back to the movies. Do you like your new film The Jackal?
A: I'm not sure what it is yet, because I haven't seen it. It was an oddball script with a lot of possibilities. At worst it's probably one of those yeomanly movies like Air Force One. It could be a little more.
Q: Does your costar Bruce Willis owe you for turning down Die Hard years ago?
A: I just wasn't interested in the whole thing--I haven't made many decisions to do mass-market movies. I don't maintain a graph of where I am in terms of box office.
Q: Didn't you also turn down Michael Douglas's role in Wall Street?
A: How do you know that stuff? I never talk about it.
Q: You've been subject to harsh gossip over the years. What have you learned about how the media reports things?
A: I think it's really healthy to know that none of it is real. None of it is true. The whole thing is illusive. Reality is all illusive, even on a mundane level. Newspapers do not tell the truth. They may tell a little bit of it, but not the truth.
Q: Do you think all is illusion?
A: All. All of it. That doesn't mean it's not there. We believe illusions. And illusions are projections of our minds. It just means that it's not real from its own side. It's only real according to cause and conditions. Interdependently, but not independent. From that sense, it doesn't exist.
Q: If we don't exist, I don't know where to go with this interview.
A: [Laughs]
Q: You put that advertisement in The Times of London denying the speculation about your marriage and sexuality. You obviously felt frustrated by what the press was reporting.
A: That's all a complicated situation--some of it legal, some not. I'm not going to get into that. Any kind of response one makes is probably for the worse. Essentially I don't care. I never really cared. There's a wonderful Zen story: a young student comes to see a Zen master for instruction. The student has a girlfriend in the village, but he leaves her to go up the mountain to sit with the master. The police go up the mountain to see the master and say, "Roshi, there's this girl in the village who said you attacked her." He says, "She did?" So he's convicted of this crime and sentenced to exile. Twenty years later the police come and say, "Roshi, we're terribly sorry, the girl came to us and said she had been jealous of her boyfriend spending so much time with you and that she lied." And he looks up and says, "She did?"
Q: So patience is the key?
A: As you get older you can't take it very seriously. It's hard for me to do these interviews over and over because it's all bullshit. You know you're asking essentially bullshit questions, I'm giving you bullshit answers, but I'm doing it because there's a movie opening and the studio expects me to do it. It's part of the game and da, da, da.
Q: A writer in Esquire noted that you seem to have modeled your career on Greta Garbo--like her, you prefer silence; like her, you have an image largely defined by sexual ambiguity.
A: This was basically a moron.
Q: Why are actors abnormal?
A: Because the job in many ways conspires to keep them emotionally retarded.
Q: How do actors keep from being bitter and cynical?
A: How does anyone?
Q: The Brazilian painter Sylvia Martins once said you were the most ambitious person she'd ever met. That you were Sean Penn before Sean Penn was.
A: She's an old friend of mine. She said that [quote] was a total bullshit statement. Total bullshit. Totally made-up.
Q: Do you consider yourself ambitious?
A: Yeah, I don't think anyone becomes successful without being ambitious. But I think I'm a pretty tempered person.
Q: How would you assess your career?
A: [Long pause] There's so many different roads, so many paths taken. I didn't know at first what I was going to do. I was going to be a musician or I was going to teach philosophy. I was extremely shy, and life was a torture because I was shy. Acting was a good outlet for that, because it got me involved with life, with other people.
Q: Are you shy still?
A: Yeah.
Q: Is acting your chosen way towards enlightenment?
A: It was a beginning, an opening. My reasons for being an actor are quite different now than they were then. It was more of a need then. I don't take it less seriously now, but I'm more interested in the environment of doing the work. There are 150 people on a movie, and that's a lot of energy and an incredible shifting dynamic, and everything that I do affects this dynamic. And I want everyone to be happy. So it's a wonderful opportunity--because we all visualize the movie, and build it, make it happen together. That dynamic is what I enjoy now more than anything else.
Q: Are you happy on the films you've been doing?
A: Yeah. There have only been a couple of films that I've had to grit my teeth to do. Final Analysis I didn't like at all. It pretended to be about codependency between the authoritative figure and the subservient figure, doctor/patient, and an almost Bergman-esque shifting of faces. But the director couldn't do it. We didn't play it. It didn't happen.
Q: You got fired off The Lords of Flatbush early on. What happened?
A: I don't know. It was really devastating. It wasn't very nicely done. An actor's rejection is not like anything else. When an actor gets rejected, it's the whole package--they don't like the way you look, the way you talk, the way you smell. You get it on all levels. It's really hard.
Q: Did it make you cry?
A: Yeah, sure.
Q: Do you cry often?
A: I cry every chance I get.
Q: When you first went to Hollywood, you've said that everyone was doing coke and that it was an aggressive career drug.
A: The quote's a little bit off, but yeah, I used it.
Q: Did it ever become a problem?
A: I wouldn't say a problem. You couldn't do high-level work, like working in the theater, and be doing coke. No way. You just don't have the energy. [But] addiction's never been a problem for me. I liked the high in coke, but I recognized that it was something that ultimately could kill you.
Q: What about other drugs--psychedelics, marijuana?
A: Marijuana was never my thing. I liked mushrooms. But I've been really boring for about 17 years. When I turned 30 I noticed the energy drain. I would do mushrooms now--in a good omelette in Bali.
Q: Did Terrence Malick, your director on Days of Heaven, impress you?
A: I didn't care then about movies. I had an attitude about films that they were for jack-offs who only wanted to make money. But after seeing Badlands I thought, I'd like to work with this guy.
Q: And were you satisfied with Days of Heaven?
A: It was a difficult shoot. We were all very young, green. It was extremely cold weather--Alberta, Canada. I can't say it was the happiest experience I ever had. We did feel that we were doing something special, that it was original and maybe important.
Q: How significant was Looking for Mr. Goodbar for you?
A: It was just another acting role. I was doing theater. I'd done Days of Heaven and there were rumors around that this kid could act and I was offered this job. It was a great job. I was nobody then and Diane Keaton was very generous in calling me after seeing a screening and saying, "You were terrific in the film. You're going to be happy with it."
Q: American Gigolo was threatening to many men who saw it, wasn't it?
A: It was peculiar that it could strike a nerve like that. The best sense that I could make of it was that I was playing the female role--normally that character is played by a woman. What was threatening was that here was a guy who could fuck your wife and your girlfriend.
Q: Did a pissed-off truck driver try to run you off the road after seeing you in that movie?
A: I can't remember the details now, but I don't even think he recognized me. He just saw a guy in a convertible and was pissed. I doubt he knew I was the guy in the movie.
Q: Was Internal Affairs, like American Gigolo, also threatening to men?
A: I do remember driving cross-country in some rednecky part of the country, and I went into a hardware store and a guy came up to me incensed. And I said, "Man, I'm an actor. It was the character, not me."
Q: You were surprised that reviewers didn't pick up on the fact that this was a very homoerotic movie. Why did you think it was?
A: It was really obvious when I saw the film, the dynamic of men. Women were there, but they seemed to be very peripheral. The real animus was between guys. In many ways it was sensual, tactile, the way locker rooms are tactile. But because this was about life and death it took on an erotic tone. We didn't intend to make that, but when you look at the film, that's what the images are telling us.
Q: What's the strangest role you've ever been asked to play?
A: One I did on Broadway, an Alan Bennett play called Habeas Corpus. I played a cockney tit-fitter. I fit these falsies that had been sent away for by Jean March. She was flat, and her sister was Rachel Roberts who had this wonderful set of breasts. So I come to the door, and Rachel Roberts answers it, and I assume these magnificent breasts are the ones she sent away for and I started adjusting them. We had this crazy slapstick couple of scenes. It was great fun.
Q: How much fun was An Officer and a Gentleman?
A: The first thing I think of is that [Akira] Kurosawa said it was one of his 10 favorite films. [Laughs] Bernardo Bertolucci said to me, "You know, Richard, I like the movie very much. But it's very fascist." "What do you mean?" I asked. He said, "The ending, when the army comes in the factory and the workers applaud."
Q: And you were the "army."
A: Right. [Laughs]
Q: Did you reject that role four times?
A: Probably.
Q: Did Jeffrey Katzenberg really get down on his knees, begging you to say yes?
A: No. Jeffrey doesn't beg, Jeffrey is just persistent. He knows what's right. Look, the last film in the world that I thought would be successful was Pretty Woman. But Jeffrey knew. I said to him, "There's no part here, it's ridiculous." "No," he said, "You've got to do this movie."
Q: You threatened to walk off the picture if anyone asked you to dye your hair. Why?
A: That's true. I think I said if anyone mentioned that again I'd walk off. I don't mind doing it if it's right for the piece, but in that one it made no sense.
Q: Will you be working with Julia Roberts again in Manhattan Ghost Story and in an update of To Catch a Thief?
A: The last one I don't even know about. Thanks, I'll call my agent. There's one that we almost did together and then both said no, which wasn't either of the ones you've mentioned. I'm sure she and I will find something else, because we like each other and play well together.
Q: What was your take on the intrigue surrounding The Cotton Club?
A: It was the most insane carnival sideshow I've ever been a part of. And ever wish to be a part of. There's a few of us who were there from the very beginning to the end who know the whole story. I'm not even talking about the murders and all that stuff--just making the movie. It was so bizarre that no one would believe it. On some level it would be dangerous for me to even talk about it. [Nervous laugh] There's three of us--[producer Robert] Evans, me, and [director Francis] Coppola--who can look at each other and go .... [Shrug]
Q: Didn't you get caught pissing on a New York sidewalk during the making of that movie?
A: Yeah, I had reason to be pissing! [Laughs] I was peeing in an alley late at night and a cop came up to me and said, "I'm going to have to give you a summons, Mr. Gere. And by the way, if you need any security, here's my card."
Q: If you had a chance to remake The Cotton Club, would you?
A: No.
Q: What about King David?
A: That I would do again, better.
Q: Did King David make you aware that you're better served in a contemporary background?
A: Not at all. We were clear in our heads about the kind of movie we were making, but we hadn't figured out how to do it yet. And it ended up being conventional, which was a waste of time.
Q: Some say that your best characters, like the media consultant you played in Power, the cop in Internal Affairs and the lawyer in Primal Fear, are narcissistic and venal. Ever give that any thought?
A: No. I don't want to. I probably play good villains because I'm not really villainous, so I try to find some original way of doing it. It's much harder to play a good person. Playing normal and being interesting is the hardest thing in the world. Henry Fonda did it all the time. You've got to be transparent. You can't tart it up. You can't hide behind it. You've got to be totally open. It's much easier playing a retarded guy with a limp.
Q: What went wrong with Mr. Jones?
A: You're assuming there's something wrong with it.
Q: You yourself said: "When you fail at this level, with everyone watching, it can hurt real bad."
A: I've made failures, but I don't consider that a failure. I didn't think I was talking about that film when I said that. Maybe I'm losing my memory. I think that film would have been better served if it was a straight character piece. [But] it had larger ambitions. [The character I played] was representing America. The '60s were the manic time, and the '80s were the depressed time. The manic-depression of America was the subtextual gestalt, but we couldn't make that work.
Q: When you work, do you separate from the character at the end of the day?
A: More than I used to. When I was younger, I'd get off being able to stay in character. But you also have to, to feel confident that you know what you're doing, that you've got that character by the tail. As you continue acting, you realize you don't have to do that. In fact, it's better if you don't. I've always had fun exploring my characters, and if I liked something about them I'd embrace it and bring it into my own personality. That's one of the cliched joys of being an actor--that you get to try a lot of different parts on yourself. Some you like and you say, Yeah, I want to use that, that will be me from now on.
Q: Would you ever want to see your family members become actors?
A: No actor encourages family members to do it. It's not a healthy environment. Few people survive. Few people make a living.
Q: Mark Rydell, who directed you in Intersection, said you seem to be at peace with yourself. Are you?
A: [Laughs]
Q: Rydell also called you the Gable for the '90s.
A: [Facetiously] That's probably true.
Q: What kind of meditation do you do now?
A: It's hard to explain. It's a little esoteric for Movieline.
Q: Have you ever sat zazen?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you do yoga as well?
A: Just started to. Tai chi does the same--I do the tai chi warm-up before I go into meditation.
Q: Does a lot of grief come out through meditation?
A: In the initial stages. People are overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that comes up, which normally you're not conscious of.
Q: Is the goal to clear your mind?
A: The goal would be transcendence. Clearing your mind is essentially making it useful to do the real work.
Q: Did you read Zen books when you were a teenager?
A: I read every Zen book I could find. I grew up a Protestant, and there was something Protestant about Zen. It's very direct. It's a soft-spoken, man-of-few-words kind of religion. And very approachable--the early stages, anyhow. The Tibet stuff is more complicated and foreboding and not easy to jump into.
Q: What has Buddhism done for you that Freudian therapy couldn't do?
A: Essentially Freudian therapy only deals with the first noble truth: the truth of suffering. It doesn't have a sense of transcendence.
Q: Have you been in analysis?
A: Not psychoanalysis. I've done therapy.
Q: Would people involved in the practice you're involved in also benefit from therapy?
A: Sure.
Q: How often do you see the Dalai Lama?
A: Maybe 3 to 10 times a year.
Q: What is it about these men that makes them special?
A: They don't want anything. All they want is for you to be happy. They're like spiritual cows--they have to be milked. Their job is to offer their teachings, to give you a way, a path, a system, an encouragement that you don't have to live in any kind of suffering whatsoever.
Q: The Dalai Lama said you are starting sincere practice of Buddhist dharma. As opposed to insincere practice?
A: I was very moved to hear him say that. It's a great thing that a teacher would say that. Coming from His Holiness you feel very humble.
Q: Do you say to yourself, "I'm not as sincere as I should be?"
A: Oh yeah, of course. I make no pretense about being a highly developed person. I'm a beginner, and for many lifetimes I'll be a beginner. Our culture is too young.
Q: Do you believe in the concept of God as creator?
A: No. That's what I was taught growing up, but it doesn't make any sense. There's no basis for it. It begs the question: who created the Creator?
Q: How close did you come to dying of salmonella poisoning when you were visiting the Dalai Lama in India?
A: Really close. I ate some bad yogurt. The symptoms were like yellow fever. I had a 105 degree temperature for a week. I was dehydrating. But I lucked out because I found a doctor who was able to prescribe the right antibiotic, and four days later I was able to get on a plane to London.
Q: What do you think happens when you die?
A: What happens when you live? [Laughs] Logically there can be no difference. It's consciousness, which doesn't come out of nowhere and it doesn't go nowhere. We experience certain things while we're in this body--we can see things, hear, taste, touch, smell, and think things. There are other kinds of bodies, we're told, which can experience consciousness in a different way. A dream body, for instance. So let's say death is like dream body.
Q: Is that something to fear?
A: What's to fear is to be afraid of it. It, in itself, is nothing to fear.
Q: What do your parents think of your involvement with Tibetan Buddhism?
A: They're kind of amazed at how I evolved. They don't quite know where I came from.
Q: They haven't gotten into it?
A: No, I can't say that they really have.
Q: Your father was an insurance agent--what did you think of that business?
A: He thought of it as a quasi-religious vocation. He thought he was securing the welfare and happiness of his neighbors. And he took it on as a mission, he was there day or night, for people and their problems.
Q: Do you look like either of your parents?
A: I'm starting to look like me. I see my father a lot--as you get older your body starts to look like your father, and you look and you say, "You old fuck."
Q: What do you feel most guilty about from your childhood?
A: When I was 10 I hired a kid next door to cut the grass for me and for some reason I didn't give the kid the nickel.
Q: Let's finish with some lighter questions. What's on the mantel of your fireplace?
A: A lantern that was my grandfather's. He was a farmer in Pennsylvania and he would light this lantern at 4 a.m. to go to the barn and milk the cows.
Q: Is that your most treasured possession?
A: That, and some of my guitars I really like. My horse I like a lot.
Q: Whose clothes do you like?
A: This is my uniform: black jeans and a T-shirt, boots.
Q: What sweet do you most crave?
A: Chocolate ice cream is the only addiction I have.
Q. What makes you laugh?
A: "Seinfeld." Carey Lowell is actually one of the funniest people I've ever met.
Q: Is she your girlfriend?
A: She's a friend of mine. A wonderful person.
Q: Now to the gossip columns for the big ending to this illusionary interview: is it true that you once worked as a busboy and walked up to a table where Robert De Niro was sitting and told him you were going to be as famous as he was?
A: Absolutely no.
_______________________________________
Lawrence Grobel interviewed Harrison Ford for the July '97 issue of Movieline.