Richard Gere & Diane Lane Interview
By: Izumi Hasegawa
Izumi Hasegawa: It’s always great to see you two on screen. Did you know that the other was already signed to this when you got on
board? How does it feel to be reunited once again?
Diane Lane: I remember this phone call that we had. I was in Toronto, and it was January of 2007.
Richard Gere: This is going to be a Rashomon, by the way. Her story is going to be totally different than mine.
DL: You said, “So, you’re really going to do this, huh?” We were both like, “Yeah. We are really going to go for it.” All these
conversations had been had in sections. By the time we finally got on the phone with each other, we were a little pregnant. It was like
that — we knew we were on the track, yet still with a question mark at the end, just a little bit. Then I’ll have to say that I finally got
the chance to see Lackawanna Blues and that sealed the deal for me. Richard was so enamored with George C. Wolfe as a person.
RG: It was vaguely like that, but — is the producer here? So I can say anything I want? The script was not perfect. They had brought
this to me a couple of years before we actually ended up making it. I kept going, “This needs a lot of work. I get where it could go. I
think I understand how it probably functions the best for the story it’s telling, but the script is not happening.”
DL: It read like a play for a little while, like two people without being fleshed out.
RG: In a way, it didn’t give us space to let anything organic happen. It was trying to work it too much in an obvious kind of way.
Anyhow, through the process of that, it still wasn’t coming together. Diane, of course, was perfect for the part. There wasn’t a
director involved. It was all kind of fluffy, out in the air somewhere. Then, I think, for me, it was probably meeting George [Wolfe]
that I said, “Okay, here is a smart guy.” We just talked about movies and storytelling when he came over to my office. Diane was in
Toronto and we were in New York. She didn’t have a chance to meet him, but you obviously spoke on the phone. We spent quite a bit
of time just talking about things in general, to see where we were coming from. I had a comfort level with him. As Diane said, we
spoke about it and I said, “Look, I feel good with this guy. We’ll develop it, we’ll work on it — it won’t be easy, but we’ll find what
there is in this material that resonates with us. We’ll try to bring something to it.” It wasn’t easy, believe me. It wasn’t like, “Here’s the
script. Do you want to do it or not?” “Yes, let’s go.” It really was a slow burn over quite a bit of time.
IH: Because George had done a lot of stage work, did he direct differently than film directors?
RG: I don’t think so. He has a sense of the theatrical. There are a couple of scenes in the movie that maybe a movie director wouldn’t
have thought of. He thinks about music a lot. He designed a couple of scenes around music. He specifically had something in his mind
that would be the music of those scenes. We improvised a lot within that, but I think he’s more of an idea guy, coming from the world
of theatre. What’s the idea of the scene? Then we would construct something that would make that work. I think that a lot of movie
directors tend to go by the feeling of it and find a way to film the feeling, rather than something that is more manifest in the behavior.
DL: He would talk a lot also about the energy of the scene. He talked about the house being a character in the story that goes through
the storm, as we are part of the story going through our storm. There are these parallel lines — it’s very theatrically described.
RG: George is incredibly articulate also. A lot of film directors, especially that don’t come out of the theatre, find it very hard to
articulate what they are trying to do.
DL: That’s true — communicating.
RG: George absolutely can communicate. That is his life in the theatre. You learn how to do that there. If you can’t say it, then you
probably are not going to get it on stage. You need to have that level of communication. Theatre is a verbal medium, and George is
incredibly verbal. In a way, that made it easier for us because we weren’t thinking, “What is he talking about?”
DL: We just nodded a lot.
RG: “What does he want here?” Sometimes you do that in a movie. You try 15 different things and the director is still not giving you
anything. You kind of go, “Okay, look — I’ve done everything I could do. What do you want?” But George isn’t really like that. No,
he has a very clear sense that he can verbalize.
IH: This is the third time you are working together. You have great chemistry. What did you discover, this time, working together?
RG: I discovered that she’s still 18 and I grew older. That’s what I discovered.
DL: I am just enjoying the fact that this was the first time we’ve heard that question, and I know we’re going to be hearing it a few
more times. I’m trying to come up with really funny answers for every single time. First thought that came to mind was that you
could teach an old dog new tricks. Then, see? There was no laugh. It’s true that Richard and I have this thing. It feels like five minutes
ago we were in Germany doing this table, and it was eight years ago.
RG: I don’t remember that at all.
DL: It’s another worm hole where I keep popping up in your past. It’s wonderful to have the comfort level of all our past
conversations and experiences to not have to wear kid gloves. We can get right in there and trust each other’s boundaries, or not be
worried about them, walking on egg shells like you would with somebody you just met, in terms of communication.
RG: Or someone who is crazy.
DL: At least we know that we don’t have to wonder.
RG: We don’t have to worry. We absolutely know for sure. I think what Diane said is true. If you have a built-in level of respect and
trust, and an openness to be yourself, and especially in film acting, then you are way ahead. It allows for a deeper and uncensored
communication.
DL: You can get there by take two instead of take seven, hopefully. George liked that idea.
IH: What do you think this film teaches us about life?
DL: Teaches us? Interesting — I have to go in another room and think about that one.
RG: She is stuck on the teaching. I don’t know that the movie is teaching anything. Aren’t movies that work probably a mirror in
some way, so we can see ourselves? I don’t think this is a story for teenagers. There is not a lot in this for teenagers.
DL: Except they will see themselves with their parents.
RG: When they become parents, then they will see it like we all do. I think this is about people who have been through a lot. They
know themselves enough that they know what’s emotionally and psychologically real and what isn’t. It’s very hard to be a kid and
know that you are just floating on hormones. I think these people have a certain sense of dignity and responsibility about them that they
listen to each other. They can be affected by each other, but they trust their basic instincts that they are going towards the good.
DL: Right, and they have a sense of what that is as well. That’s the joke about the old dog and new tricks. When you meet someone
who challenges you on a level of what you’ve become comfortable with about yourself — you really thought you had it figured out —
then somebody challenges you, that is very affecting. To open that door of being willing to reassess one’s self, one’s ambitions in life,
and say “I can do better” and “What would that look like?” because somebody else has forced you to open your eyes where you didn’t
want to look, that is very endearing. That is what intimacy is — into me you see. So when somebody sees something about you that
you would rather not look at yourself, it can definitely get the adrenaline going.
IH: I could really see that your character was torn about this decision she had to make about her ex-husband. That is really a testament
to your performance — that we are going through that with you. But in real life, would you consider giving a guy like that a second
chance?
RG: The camera should be on this guy — that was brilliant.
IH: It works for the movie.
DL: You mean to string it along? I don’t know, I guess I would have to parlay that into the best answer I can. That’s to say that it’s
not unheard of to manipulate the children into taking sides in a relationship with the parents. I like the fact that the movie touched on
that because all is fair in war and love. When you get the kids to take sides, that’s cheating — that’s below the belt. They are not
supposed to be used as balancing the scales of power within the emotional dynamics of the adults. It’s very unfair. That, to me, was
worth visiting. You say, “Well, when that happens, then we are justified in saying it’s an unfair fight.” I don’t want to play with
somebody who is going to fight not fair.
IH: Of course, everyone is talking about the great chemistry in the films you do together. To me, the most effective part of this film is
that we really felt you guys falling for each other. It really, really took off when you guys were writing each other letters. Maybe you
recorded the voice over at the same time or maybe you didn’t. How was that process different?
RG: It’s interesting because that wasn’t part of the original script. That was an addendum and it was in trying to figure out where the
movie was in the editing process. The movie was strange. In a way, it ended earlier than that, not in terms of the time but in terms of
our story. It actually ended earlier. The letters, I think, are from the book. A lot of it was from the book.
DL: Yes, letting people into the later part of our relationship…
RG: It kept us alive as a couple until almost the end of the movie. That actually wasn’t part of the original structure.
DL: It was conveniently available — hindsight: 20/20.
RG: The novelist knew that, though. I guess, when we were fashioning the script, we didn’t think that was necessary. In terms of
storytelling, the kind of mysterious ways that stories are conveyed, then it was required.
IH: You had never read the novel prior to this?
RG: Not prior to making the movie.
IH: Have you read or are you aware of his other novels?
DL: Oh yeah, very aware.
RG: I wasn’t very aware. I’ve seen a couple of the movies. I thought The Notebook was a terrific film, but I had never read any of
the books.
DL: So many books, so little time. I want to say one thing about the letter-writing. I love the rebelliousness of snail mail. I’m very
sentimental about anything that can arrive with a postage stamp on it, how quickly things become relics. There is something about
paper, the other person’s hands and breath, and pennants were upon that paper. It’s tactile.
RG: It’s time.
DL: You can touch the same object that the other person touched just for you.
RG: Time and effort had to be committed to this thing. Care was taken.
DL: And you couldn’t just edit and leave no trace of your change of thought like you can now.
IH: Do you do much corresponding with anyone by snail mail?
DL: There are always birthdays. I’m exaggerating slightly. Even my daughter, who just turned 15, got some letters in the mail. She
was ecstatic. She had forgotten that existed as an option.
RG: My son is the same way. I have an eight-year-old son. When he gets a letter from an old teacher who writes from vacation
somewhere around the world, he knows the difference when a card comes and someone just signs it. But if someone actually wrote
sentences, it’s huge. It touches your heart in a totally different way.
IH: Can you recall your first impressions of each other?
DL: Yes.
RG: This is new territory. I thought we had done everything. Okay, go ahead.
DL: Ladies first, suddenly? Okay, here we go. I don’t know what to do now. I was very insecure and I think it manifested itself by
coming off age-appropriate for 18. Just a little defensive and a little bitchy maybe?
RG: Yeah.
DL: And I got the part! It was interesting because I was filming Streets of Fire and I had to come out and do the chemistry meeting.
Can you imagine flying out with that in mind? No pressure or anything. You walk in the room and you are already pissed off. So I was
just: “Hi, I’m here. Do you like me?” That’s how I felt.
RG: I just went down the worm hole. It’s Francis Ford Coppola and me. She’s worked with him two or three films, so you had a
comfort level with him for sure.
DL: Earlier that year, basically. I was like, “Now you want me to audition? This is unfair.” I thought I was in like Flynn. I was making
all Cathy Moriarty’s price down, that’s why they had me in there. I was such a bitch.
RG: She really remembers everything. I have no memory of this whatsoever. I remember she was an absolute doll, no question about
it. What had been out at that point — that was the adult you and not kid you?
DL: Six Pack?
RG: It was one of the ones you had done with Francis and it was out already.
DL: Sure, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish were probably out.
RG: Yeah, and absolutely adorable, watch-able, and something mysterious going on. But she was very self-possessed at the same time.
She came in with all those qualities — precociousness, in terms of being able to deal with a situation. At 18, I couldn’t deal with
anything. I couldn’t even speak. I could see immediately how she could play this part and bring a quirky “I don’t care” attitude.
Underneath, you knew that she desperately did. That’s one of the tricks of film acting. Underneath is the opposite of what you are
showing, almost always. The subtlety with which you can communicate, that is probably the degree that you succeed, or not
nonverbally. It has to be done quick and without relying on words. She has always had that quality. And very defensive yes, I do
remember that much. You were leaving the room and like, “Wow, okay.” I woke up the next day and I called Francis and said, “She’s
the one. She is absolutely the one.” But he had made up his mind already.
DL: Well, I’m glad to hear that after all this time. No, seriously.
RG: And Cathy Moriarty was more expensive.
DL: So it’s true.
IH: Can you talk about the love scenes? Is it harder to do it when you are friends, or does that make it easier? Do you laugh more?
DL: Oh yeah, we laugh a lot.
RG: Should we tell them? It was body doubles. We weren’t even there.
DL: They burned it all in later. You know how when they do movies where they save the stunt for the end?That’s in case something
bad happens. That’s what they did with the love scene for us — in case one of us got hurt. “Oh, my back!” Sorry.
RG: I guess it seems to me that they went pretty quickly. We didn’t have to labor them.
DL: George was so funny that day.
RG: George was nervous.
DL: He couldn’t be in the room. He had to be in another room with the monitors and saying, “Go for it, honey. You know how to do
it.”
RG: And she does.
DL: That was the royal “we” he was speaking to, because it takes two.
IH: You shot on location in North Carolina, right?
DL: Yes, and the house was being reclaimed by the sea, as you can see in the trailer.
IH: How was that shooting? Was the storm real? Were any of the sea caps and stuff real?
RG: There is footage in this that was shot during tests before I got there. Did we both get there about the same time? Anyhow, the
storm hit. There was a hurricane. It took much of the set. That house was gone.
DL: The stairs were gone, all kinds of things.
RG: And the beach was gone. The storm took the beach away so we had to rebuild the beach. They were doing camera tests, so a lot
of the footage of that storm is in the movie now. That thing was totally out of control. We had to find other things to shoot while they
rebuilt the beach, the house, and before we even started shooting. It was serious.
DL: We were standing on the stairs of the house and there was a moment where Richard is upstairs, I’m downstairs, but we don’t
know that both of us are having a similar moment within the house. We can’t see each other at all. The ocean waves just blew up my
dress. I screamed and ran away, “Cut, cut, cut! That was not part of the scene.” I said, “Well neither was the ocean coming up my
dress. What do you want me to do? Pretend it’s not happening and nobody will see?” I don’t think we could use that take.
RG: There were wild tides too, as I recall. We started shooting something on the beach and if we didn’t get it done quickly, the tides
would be all the way up past the shore where we were shooting.
DL: The horses would have been swimming.
IH: Do you look for properties to do together? Do you read something and think, “Oh God, Diane would be good for that,” or
“Richard would be good for that”?
RG: I keep trying to find things that I can’t do with her, because it’s so obvious that we should be doing everything together. Every
time I read something, it’s always Diane, isn’t it? I read and go, “It’s Diane, isn’t it?”
DL: That’s very sweet. He’s buttering me up for kill here, I love it. There were a couple of times that have been close calls that didn’t
happen.
RG: We are both very picky also. We are very picky and don’t necessarily work a lot.
DL: When you have kids, you factor in where, when, how long. I remember you saying, “Bring Eleanor, she’ll like the Antarctic.” I
said, “Wait, let me get this right. We’ll be in an ice breaker on a big metal ship for how many weeks?”
RG: I had forgotten about that one.
DL: Lots and lots of penguins.
RG: There was a movie we were going to shoot in Antarctica. Again, “It’s Diane, isn’t it?” She was perfect for it.
DL: She’s too skinny. She can’t handle the cold.
RG: I said, we’re going to go down to Iraq. Well, after we came back from Iraq, I didn’t want to do it anymore. It was so hard,
everything about it. It was hard to get down there, hard to function when you are down there, we were trying to do camera tests…it
was impossible.
DL: You can’t form consonants; it’s too cold.
RG: And if a storm comes in, you can be stuck there for three months.
DL: That’s the fine print in the contract.
RG: And not being able to work?
DL: Well, the sun is always out — you can just run out and shoot.
RG: Yeah, we didn’t make that one.
IH: What are each of you looking for these days in scripts?
RG: I look less than an hour from my house. That’s one very powerful criteria. Every time I have thought, “Well, I am desperate to
make a movie where I’m an out-of-work musician who has one leg…” whatever it is, but very specific.
DL: I’m seeing a top hat.
RG: Those never happen. It’s always something that you were working on this and then something comes in, you look at it…
DL: It’s adopting you.
RG: Oh, yeah. It’s always a surprise. I have never had anything that was part of the development process that worked — ever.
DL: I really want to play a bitch in a comedy. There it is, so I’m open to any submissions. No, I’m half kidding.
RG: She’s not kidding at all.
DL: Whenever she says she is kidding, then you know. That’s kind of territory for me — being sympathetic is a burden I would like to
shirk, at this point. Something like Anjelica Huston in The Grifters or something.
IH: You both share pretty important pivotal scenes in this film with James Franco. Each of you obviously had your separate time with
him. What was that experience like for both of you?
RG: It was also very quick. It is a small part. In movies you care about, the small parts are incredibly meaningful. You’ve seen that in
movies where they will hire any actor to play a small part and it destroys the movie. You get nothing out of the scene. You start
questioning basic reality. To have really terrific actors in small parts is maybe the most important thing in a film. It’s just the fact that
he was willing to do it and also brought so much of himself. I wasn’t there when he shot his scenes with Diane, but to see how much
he brought to those was wonderful. During the storm sequence in Ecuador, we actually were creating the storm. There was a faulty
rain line and the whole set started to collapse and we were underneath it. I ran one direction and he ran the other. The powers that be
came in and said, “We are stopping production. Someone will get hurt.” This was the last day we had with him. He had to go off and
shoot something else. I said, “Okay, let’s take a deep breath here. We’re not going to do that, but let’s shoot. We need a couple of
close-ups and we can cut in what we have. We can finish the big stuff later.” We did that, we took a deep breath, went in and did
some tight close-ups. It was something we could control with not a lot of craziness around. In the end, we didn’t need the rest of the
big stuff. We had enough to make it work. It was enormous pressure to get everything done with him in the time we had allotted.
Everything he did is in the film. It adds a lot to the film.
IH: Diane, Richard has a sexy, timeless quality that has made him such an icon. Why do you think that is?
DL: Oh, my word.
RG: You don’t have to answer that question.
DL: I don’t know. I feel like he might know what I would say.
RG: While she is thinking, I’ll tell you a story. I was shooting a film in Sarajevo and we ended up calling it The Hunting Party. We did
a press conference there because we were shooting in the community. It was about this size, and there was a very young and shy girl
in the back. She raised her hand and said, “On behalf of three generations in my family, I would like to thank you for continuing to
make movies. We love you. On behalf of myself, my mother and my grandmother.” I thought how sweet that was, but it also gave me
a sense that I’m really old. I’ve been doing this a long time.
DL: I was just remembering that wonderful movie you made with Mr. Altman.
RG: Dr. T and the Women.
DL: Yes, and I love that movie. One thing I always felt about Richard, whether it’s on screen or in person, is that he has this ability to
make you feel as though he can see right through you. He can see the core of you. I don’t know if its true, but it might as well be true
because I have nothing opposing that. Women just feel basically disrobed, and that’s a plus.
RG: A plus for me too.
DL: At the same time, I do recall when we were filming The Cotton Club and you would come in the mornings and tell me what color
my aura was.
RG: Hey!
DL: That was a good thing! I didn’t know that was the thing you were embarrassed about of all the stories we have. I think it’s
adorable. So, he was right every time. I would look up the color and he was right. I was defensive that day, or whatever. It’s true —
you can’t really pull the wool over Richard’s eyes. It’s very disarming and it’s charming.
RG: And annoying.
DL: A little annoying. It works to his advantage.
IH: I’m looking ahead to Halloween and wondering which of your characters might make good costumes…
DL: I’m going to write that one down and tell my daughter. I will say, “See what I do for a living, dear? This gentleman said this to me
today and I had no comeback. What should I have said?” I like that. I have a visual from it, but I don’t know what to say.
IH: Maybe the rock star from Streets of Fire? That would be cool.
DL: I know you are serious.
RG: And that is what’s deeply frightening about it — you are serious.
IH: Both of you are parents in real life. For each of you, did any of the circumstances you found yourself in resonate with you as a
parent? Did you go through any of this yourself as a child?
DL: I’ve certainly yelled at people on the phone over parenting issues. I’ve certainly had comeuppance moments with teenagers. You
can’t be popular and be productive very often. They don’t go together sometimes, but that is a very adult lesson. It requires a lot of
finesse that sometimes escapes us and, in hindsight, we wish we could have done better. That is a very humbling, parental reality. You
learn it as you go. You don’t get any rehearsal, and every kid is different.
RG: You do get a rehearsal.
DL: You do?
RG: Yeah, you’ve been married a couple of times. I’ve been married a couple of times.
DL: That didn’t help me as a parent. You mean my first son, the sons. The husbands?
RG: What are you talking about?
DL: The joke is: “Have you met my first born?”
RG: “No, that’s my husband.” Yeah. The clinical psychologists in the back row, could they come up now please?
Popularity: 1% [?]
By: Izumi Hasegawa
Izumi Hasegawa: It’s always great to see you two on screen. Did you know that the other was already signed to this when you got on
board? How does it feel to be reunited once again?
Diane Lane: I remember this phone call that we had. I was in Toronto, and it was January of 2007.
Richard Gere: This is going to be a Rashomon, by the way. Her story is going to be totally different than mine.
DL: You said, “So, you’re really going to do this, huh?” We were both like, “Yeah. We are really going to go for it.” All these
conversations had been had in sections. By the time we finally got on the phone with each other, we were a little pregnant. It was like
that — we knew we were on the track, yet still with a question mark at the end, just a little bit. Then I’ll have to say that I finally got
the chance to see Lackawanna Blues and that sealed the deal for me. Richard was so enamored with George C. Wolfe as a person.
RG: It was vaguely like that, but — is the producer here? So I can say anything I want? The script was not perfect. They had brought
this to me a couple of years before we actually ended up making it. I kept going, “This needs a lot of work. I get where it could go. I
think I understand how it probably functions the best for the story it’s telling, but the script is not happening.”
DL: It read like a play for a little while, like two people without being fleshed out.
RG: In a way, it didn’t give us space to let anything organic happen. It was trying to work it too much in an obvious kind of way.
Anyhow, through the process of that, it still wasn’t coming together. Diane, of course, was perfect for the part. There wasn’t a
director involved. It was all kind of fluffy, out in the air somewhere. Then, I think, for me, it was probably meeting George [Wolfe]
that I said, “Okay, here is a smart guy.” We just talked about movies and storytelling when he came over to my office. Diane was in
Toronto and we were in New York. She didn’t have a chance to meet him, but you obviously spoke on the phone. We spent quite a bit
of time just talking about things in general, to see where we were coming from. I had a comfort level with him. As Diane said, we
spoke about it and I said, “Look, I feel good with this guy. We’ll develop it, we’ll work on it — it won’t be easy, but we’ll find what
there is in this material that resonates with us. We’ll try to bring something to it.” It wasn’t easy, believe me. It wasn’t like, “Here’s the
script. Do you want to do it or not?” “Yes, let’s go.” It really was a slow burn over quite a bit of time.
IH: Because George had done a lot of stage work, did he direct differently than film directors?
RG: I don’t think so. He has a sense of the theatrical. There are a couple of scenes in the movie that maybe a movie director wouldn’t
have thought of. He thinks about music a lot. He designed a couple of scenes around music. He specifically had something in his mind
that would be the music of those scenes. We improvised a lot within that, but I think he’s more of an idea guy, coming from the world
of theatre. What’s the idea of the scene? Then we would construct something that would make that work. I think that a lot of movie
directors tend to go by the feeling of it and find a way to film the feeling, rather than something that is more manifest in the behavior.
DL: He would talk a lot also about the energy of the scene. He talked about the house being a character in the story that goes through
the storm, as we are part of the story going through our storm. There are these parallel lines — it’s very theatrically described.
RG: George is incredibly articulate also. A lot of film directors, especially that don’t come out of the theatre, find it very hard to
articulate what they are trying to do.
DL: That’s true — communicating.
RG: George absolutely can communicate. That is his life in the theatre. You learn how to do that there. If you can’t say it, then you
probably are not going to get it on stage. You need to have that level of communication. Theatre is a verbal medium, and George is
incredibly verbal. In a way, that made it easier for us because we weren’t thinking, “What is he talking about?”
DL: We just nodded a lot.
RG: “What does he want here?” Sometimes you do that in a movie. You try 15 different things and the director is still not giving you
anything. You kind of go, “Okay, look — I’ve done everything I could do. What do you want?” But George isn’t really like that. No,
he has a very clear sense that he can verbalize.
IH: This is the third time you are working together. You have great chemistry. What did you discover, this time, working together?
RG: I discovered that she’s still 18 and I grew older. That’s what I discovered.
DL: I am just enjoying the fact that this was the first time we’ve heard that question, and I know we’re going to be hearing it a few
more times. I’m trying to come up with really funny answers for every single time. First thought that came to mind was that you
could teach an old dog new tricks. Then, see? There was no laugh. It’s true that Richard and I have this thing. It feels like five minutes
ago we were in Germany doing this table, and it was eight years ago.
RG: I don’t remember that at all.
DL: It’s another worm hole where I keep popping up in your past. It’s wonderful to have the comfort level of all our past
conversations and experiences to not have to wear kid gloves. We can get right in there and trust each other’s boundaries, or not be
worried about them, walking on egg shells like you would with somebody you just met, in terms of communication.
RG: Or someone who is crazy.
DL: At least we know that we don’t have to wonder.
RG: We don’t have to worry. We absolutely know for sure. I think what Diane said is true. If you have a built-in level of respect and
trust, and an openness to be yourself, and especially in film acting, then you are way ahead. It allows for a deeper and uncensored
communication.
DL: You can get there by take two instead of take seven, hopefully. George liked that idea.
IH: What do you think this film teaches us about life?
DL: Teaches us? Interesting — I have to go in another room and think about that one.
RG: She is stuck on the teaching. I don’t know that the movie is teaching anything. Aren’t movies that work probably a mirror in
some way, so we can see ourselves? I don’t think this is a story for teenagers. There is not a lot in this for teenagers.
DL: Except they will see themselves with their parents.
RG: When they become parents, then they will see it like we all do. I think this is about people who have been through a lot. They
know themselves enough that they know what’s emotionally and psychologically real and what isn’t. It’s very hard to be a kid and
know that you are just floating on hormones. I think these people have a certain sense of dignity and responsibility about them that they
listen to each other. They can be affected by each other, but they trust their basic instincts that they are going towards the good.
DL: Right, and they have a sense of what that is as well. That’s the joke about the old dog and new tricks. When you meet someone
who challenges you on a level of what you’ve become comfortable with about yourself — you really thought you had it figured out —
then somebody challenges you, that is very affecting. To open that door of being willing to reassess one’s self, one’s ambitions in life,
and say “I can do better” and “What would that look like?” because somebody else has forced you to open your eyes where you didn’t
want to look, that is very endearing. That is what intimacy is — into me you see. So when somebody sees something about you that
you would rather not look at yourself, it can definitely get the adrenaline going.
IH: I could really see that your character was torn about this decision she had to make about her ex-husband. That is really a testament
to your performance — that we are going through that with you. But in real life, would you consider giving a guy like that a second
chance?
RG: The camera should be on this guy — that was brilliant.
IH: It works for the movie.
DL: You mean to string it along? I don’t know, I guess I would have to parlay that into the best answer I can. That’s to say that it’s
not unheard of to manipulate the children into taking sides in a relationship with the parents. I like the fact that the movie touched on
that because all is fair in war and love. When you get the kids to take sides, that’s cheating — that’s below the belt. They are not
supposed to be used as balancing the scales of power within the emotional dynamics of the adults. It’s very unfair. That, to me, was
worth visiting. You say, “Well, when that happens, then we are justified in saying it’s an unfair fight.” I don’t want to play with
somebody who is going to fight not fair.
IH: Of course, everyone is talking about the great chemistry in the films you do together. To me, the most effective part of this film is
that we really felt you guys falling for each other. It really, really took off when you guys were writing each other letters. Maybe you
recorded the voice over at the same time or maybe you didn’t. How was that process different?
RG: It’s interesting because that wasn’t part of the original script. That was an addendum and it was in trying to figure out where the
movie was in the editing process. The movie was strange. In a way, it ended earlier than that, not in terms of the time but in terms of
our story. It actually ended earlier. The letters, I think, are from the book. A lot of it was from the book.
DL: Yes, letting people into the later part of our relationship…
RG: It kept us alive as a couple until almost the end of the movie. That actually wasn’t part of the original structure.
DL: It was conveniently available — hindsight: 20/20.
RG: The novelist knew that, though. I guess, when we were fashioning the script, we didn’t think that was necessary. In terms of
storytelling, the kind of mysterious ways that stories are conveyed, then it was required.
IH: You had never read the novel prior to this?
RG: Not prior to making the movie.
IH: Have you read or are you aware of his other novels?
DL: Oh yeah, very aware.
RG: I wasn’t very aware. I’ve seen a couple of the movies. I thought The Notebook was a terrific film, but I had never read any of
the books.
DL: So many books, so little time. I want to say one thing about the letter-writing. I love the rebelliousness of snail mail. I’m very
sentimental about anything that can arrive with a postage stamp on it, how quickly things become relics. There is something about
paper, the other person’s hands and breath, and pennants were upon that paper. It’s tactile.
RG: It’s time.
DL: You can touch the same object that the other person touched just for you.
RG: Time and effort had to be committed to this thing. Care was taken.
DL: And you couldn’t just edit and leave no trace of your change of thought like you can now.
IH: Do you do much corresponding with anyone by snail mail?
DL: There are always birthdays. I’m exaggerating slightly. Even my daughter, who just turned 15, got some letters in the mail. She
was ecstatic. She had forgotten that existed as an option.
RG: My son is the same way. I have an eight-year-old son. When he gets a letter from an old teacher who writes from vacation
somewhere around the world, he knows the difference when a card comes and someone just signs it. But if someone actually wrote
sentences, it’s huge. It touches your heart in a totally different way.
IH: Can you recall your first impressions of each other?
DL: Yes.
RG: This is new territory. I thought we had done everything. Okay, go ahead.
DL: Ladies first, suddenly? Okay, here we go. I don’t know what to do now. I was very insecure and I think it manifested itself by
coming off age-appropriate for 18. Just a little defensive and a little bitchy maybe?
RG: Yeah.
DL: And I got the part! It was interesting because I was filming Streets of Fire and I had to come out and do the chemistry meeting.
Can you imagine flying out with that in mind? No pressure or anything. You walk in the room and you are already pissed off. So I was
just: “Hi, I’m here. Do you like me?” That’s how I felt.
RG: I just went down the worm hole. It’s Francis Ford Coppola and me. She’s worked with him two or three films, so you had a
comfort level with him for sure.
DL: Earlier that year, basically. I was like, “Now you want me to audition? This is unfair.” I thought I was in like Flynn. I was making
all Cathy Moriarty’s price down, that’s why they had me in there. I was such a bitch.
RG: She really remembers everything. I have no memory of this whatsoever. I remember she was an absolute doll, no question about
it. What had been out at that point — that was the adult you and not kid you?
DL: Six Pack?
RG: It was one of the ones you had done with Francis and it was out already.
DL: Sure, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish were probably out.
RG: Yeah, and absolutely adorable, watch-able, and something mysterious going on. But she was very self-possessed at the same time.
She came in with all those qualities — precociousness, in terms of being able to deal with a situation. At 18, I couldn’t deal with
anything. I couldn’t even speak. I could see immediately how she could play this part and bring a quirky “I don’t care” attitude.
Underneath, you knew that she desperately did. That’s one of the tricks of film acting. Underneath is the opposite of what you are
showing, almost always. The subtlety with which you can communicate, that is probably the degree that you succeed, or not
nonverbally. It has to be done quick and without relying on words. She has always had that quality. And very defensive yes, I do
remember that much. You were leaving the room and like, “Wow, okay.” I woke up the next day and I called Francis and said, “She’s
the one. She is absolutely the one.” But he had made up his mind already.
DL: Well, I’m glad to hear that after all this time. No, seriously.
RG: And Cathy Moriarty was more expensive.
DL: So it’s true.
IH: Can you talk about the love scenes? Is it harder to do it when you are friends, or does that make it easier? Do you laugh more?
DL: Oh yeah, we laugh a lot.
RG: Should we tell them? It was body doubles. We weren’t even there.
DL: They burned it all in later. You know how when they do movies where they save the stunt for the end?That’s in case something
bad happens. That’s what they did with the love scene for us — in case one of us got hurt. “Oh, my back!” Sorry.
RG: I guess it seems to me that they went pretty quickly. We didn’t have to labor them.
DL: George was so funny that day.
RG: George was nervous.
DL: He couldn’t be in the room. He had to be in another room with the monitors and saying, “Go for it, honey. You know how to do
it.”
RG: And she does.
DL: That was the royal “we” he was speaking to, because it takes two.
IH: You shot on location in North Carolina, right?
DL: Yes, and the house was being reclaimed by the sea, as you can see in the trailer.
IH: How was that shooting? Was the storm real? Were any of the sea caps and stuff real?
RG: There is footage in this that was shot during tests before I got there. Did we both get there about the same time? Anyhow, the
storm hit. There was a hurricane. It took much of the set. That house was gone.
DL: The stairs were gone, all kinds of things.
RG: And the beach was gone. The storm took the beach away so we had to rebuild the beach. They were doing camera tests, so a lot
of the footage of that storm is in the movie now. That thing was totally out of control. We had to find other things to shoot while they
rebuilt the beach, the house, and before we even started shooting. It was serious.
DL: We were standing on the stairs of the house and there was a moment where Richard is upstairs, I’m downstairs, but we don’t
know that both of us are having a similar moment within the house. We can’t see each other at all. The ocean waves just blew up my
dress. I screamed and ran away, “Cut, cut, cut! That was not part of the scene.” I said, “Well neither was the ocean coming up my
dress. What do you want me to do? Pretend it’s not happening and nobody will see?” I don’t think we could use that take.
RG: There were wild tides too, as I recall. We started shooting something on the beach and if we didn’t get it done quickly, the tides
would be all the way up past the shore where we were shooting.
DL: The horses would have been swimming.
IH: Do you look for properties to do together? Do you read something and think, “Oh God, Diane would be good for that,” or
“Richard would be good for that”?
RG: I keep trying to find things that I can’t do with her, because it’s so obvious that we should be doing everything together. Every
time I read something, it’s always Diane, isn’t it? I read and go, “It’s Diane, isn’t it?”
DL: That’s very sweet. He’s buttering me up for kill here, I love it. There were a couple of times that have been close calls that didn’t
happen.
RG: We are both very picky also. We are very picky and don’t necessarily work a lot.
DL: When you have kids, you factor in where, when, how long. I remember you saying, “Bring Eleanor, she’ll like the Antarctic.” I
said, “Wait, let me get this right. We’ll be in an ice breaker on a big metal ship for how many weeks?”
RG: I had forgotten about that one.
DL: Lots and lots of penguins.
RG: There was a movie we were going to shoot in Antarctica. Again, “It’s Diane, isn’t it?” She was perfect for it.
DL: She’s too skinny. She can’t handle the cold.
RG: I said, we’re going to go down to Iraq. Well, after we came back from Iraq, I didn’t want to do it anymore. It was so hard,
everything about it. It was hard to get down there, hard to function when you are down there, we were trying to do camera tests…it
was impossible.
DL: You can’t form consonants; it’s too cold.
RG: And if a storm comes in, you can be stuck there for three months.
DL: That’s the fine print in the contract.
RG: And not being able to work?
DL: Well, the sun is always out — you can just run out and shoot.
RG: Yeah, we didn’t make that one.
IH: What are each of you looking for these days in scripts?
RG: I look less than an hour from my house. That’s one very powerful criteria. Every time I have thought, “Well, I am desperate to
make a movie where I’m an out-of-work musician who has one leg…” whatever it is, but very specific.
DL: I’m seeing a top hat.
RG: Those never happen. It’s always something that you were working on this and then something comes in, you look at it…
DL: It’s adopting you.
RG: Oh, yeah. It’s always a surprise. I have never had anything that was part of the development process that worked — ever.
DL: I really want to play a bitch in a comedy. There it is, so I’m open to any submissions. No, I’m half kidding.
RG: She’s not kidding at all.
DL: Whenever she says she is kidding, then you know. That’s kind of territory for me — being sympathetic is a burden I would like to
shirk, at this point. Something like Anjelica Huston in The Grifters or something.
IH: You both share pretty important pivotal scenes in this film with James Franco. Each of you obviously had your separate time with
him. What was that experience like for both of you?
RG: It was also very quick. It is a small part. In movies you care about, the small parts are incredibly meaningful. You’ve seen that in
movies where they will hire any actor to play a small part and it destroys the movie. You get nothing out of the scene. You start
questioning basic reality. To have really terrific actors in small parts is maybe the most important thing in a film. It’s just the fact that
he was willing to do it and also brought so much of himself. I wasn’t there when he shot his scenes with Diane, but to see how much
he brought to those was wonderful. During the storm sequence in Ecuador, we actually were creating the storm. There was a faulty
rain line and the whole set started to collapse and we were underneath it. I ran one direction and he ran the other. The powers that be
came in and said, “We are stopping production. Someone will get hurt.” This was the last day we had with him. He had to go off and
shoot something else. I said, “Okay, let’s take a deep breath here. We’re not going to do that, but let’s shoot. We need a couple of
close-ups and we can cut in what we have. We can finish the big stuff later.” We did that, we took a deep breath, went in and did
some tight close-ups. It was something we could control with not a lot of craziness around. In the end, we didn’t need the rest of the
big stuff. We had enough to make it work. It was enormous pressure to get everything done with him in the time we had allotted.
Everything he did is in the film. It adds a lot to the film.
IH: Diane, Richard has a sexy, timeless quality that has made him such an icon. Why do you think that is?
DL: Oh, my word.
RG: You don’t have to answer that question.
DL: I don’t know. I feel like he might know what I would say.
RG: While she is thinking, I’ll tell you a story. I was shooting a film in Sarajevo and we ended up calling it The Hunting Party. We did
a press conference there because we were shooting in the community. It was about this size, and there was a very young and shy girl
in the back. She raised her hand and said, “On behalf of three generations in my family, I would like to thank you for continuing to
make movies. We love you. On behalf of myself, my mother and my grandmother.” I thought how sweet that was, but it also gave me
a sense that I’m really old. I’ve been doing this a long time.
DL: I was just remembering that wonderful movie you made with Mr. Altman.
RG: Dr. T and the Women.
DL: Yes, and I love that movie. One thing I always felt about Richard, whether it’s on screen or in person, is that he has this ability to
make you feel as though he can see right through you. He can see the core of you. I don’t know if its true, but it might as well be true
because I have nothing opposing that. Women just feel basically disrobed, and that’s a plus.
RG: A plus for me too.
DL: At the same time, I do recall when we were filming The Cotton Club and you would come in the mornings and tell me what color
my aura was.
RG: Hey!
DL: That was a good thing! I didn’t know that was the thing you were embarrassed about of all the stories we have. I think it’s
adorable. So, he was right every time. I would look up the color and he was right. I was defensive that day, or whatever. It’s true —
you can’t really pull the wool over Richard’s eyes. It’s very disarming and it’s charming.
RG: And annoying.
DL: A little annoying. It works to his advantage.
IH: I’m looking ahead to Halloween and wondering which of your characters might make good costumes…
DL: I’m going to write that one down and tell my daughter. I will say, “See what I do for a living, dear? This gentleman said this to me
today and I had no comeback. What should I have said?” I like that. I have a visual from it, but I don’t know what to say.
IH: Maybe the rock star from Streets of Fire? That would be cool.
DL: I know you are serious.
RG: And that is what’s deeply frightening about it — you are serious.
IH: Both of you are parents in real life. For each of you, did any of the circumstances you found yourself in resonate with you as a
parent? Did you go through any of this yourself as a child?
DL: I’ve certainly yelled at people on the phone over parenting issues. I’ve certainly had comeuppance moments with teenagers. You
can’t be popular and be productive very often. They don’t go together sometimes, but that is a very adult lesson. It requires a lot of
finesse that sometimes escapes us and, in hindsight, we wish we could have done better. That is a very humbling, parental reality. You
learn it as you go. You don’t get any rehearsal, and every kid is different.
RG: You do get a rehearsal.
DL: You do?
RG: Yeah, you’ve been married a couple of times. I’ve been married a couple of times.
DL: That didn’t help me as a parent. You mean my first son, the sons. The husbands?
RG: What are you talking about?
DL: The joke is: “Have you met my first born?”
RG: “No, that’s my husband.” Yeah. The clinical psychologists in the back row, could they come up now please?
Popularity: 1% [?]
Inside 'Nights in Rodanthe' 3:02
CNN's KJ Matthews talks to Richard Gere and Diane Lane about their latest film, '
CNN's KJ Matthews talks to Richard Gere and Diane Lane about their latest film, '
Lane, Gere finally get their happily ever after in
'Rodanthe'
By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES — Romantic chemistry? Diane Lane and
Richard Gere aren't sure how they got that reputation,
especially since their past on-screen pairings always skewed
toward the dysfunctional.
In 1984's The Cotton Club, she was a sultry jazz singer and he
was a troubled cornet player.
They joined again 2002's Unfaithful, earning Lane an Oscar
nomination and causing a stir with its steamy scenes — though
not with Gere. He played the cuckolded husband.
Now, with the film adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks tearjerker
Nights in Rodanthe, opening Friday, Gere and Lane finally get
to rush into each other's arms.
Lane plays a mother of two who is separated from her husband
but weighing whether to rebuild the relationship. She escapes to
oversee a seaside inn on the Outer Banks of North Carolina,
where she meets a doctor (Gere) who is trying to reconstruct
his life after he realizes his own marriage and relationship with
his son (James Franco) have collapsed.
Naturally, being stranded alone together at the gothic beachside
home — as a hurricane is about to strike — triggers feelings of
love between them.
It was producer Denise Di Novi (Message in a Bottle) who "had
the vision," Lane, 43, says, sitting with Gere in The Polo
Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel. "She said, 'I want you guys
paired up together again because of the C-word.'
'Rodanthe'
By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES — Romantic chemistry? Diane Lane and
Richard Gere aren't sure how they got that reputation,
especially since their past on-screen pairings always skewed
toward the dysfunctional.
In 1984's The Cotton Club, she was a sultry jazz singer and he
was a troubled cornet player.
They joined again 2002's Unfaithful, earning Lane an Oscar
nomination and causing a stir with its steamy scenes — though
not with Gere. He played the cuckolded husband.
Now, with the film adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks tearjerker
Nights in Rodanthe, opening Friday, Gere and Lane finally get
to rush into each other's arms.
Lane plays a mother of two who is separated from her husband
but weighing whether to rebuild the relationship. She escapes to
oversee a seaside inn on the Outer Banks of North Carolina,
where she meets a doctor (Gere) who is trying to reconstruct
his life after he realizes his own marriage and relationship with
his son (James Franco) have collapsed.
Naturally, being stranded alone together at the gothic beachside
home — as a hurricane is about to strike — triggers feelings of
love between them.
It was producer Denise Di Novi (Message in a Bottle) who "had
the vision," Lane, 43, says, sitting with Gere in The Polo
Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel. "She said, 'I want you guys
paired up together again because of the C-word.'
Gere, 59, puts a hand on her arm and laughs. "There are a lot of C-words," he says.
Lane is stunned. "I mean 'chemistry!' "
After a weekend of interviews, the statement "Talk about your chemistry …" was repeated to the point that Lane doesn't even want to
say the word out loud.
"If you want to be a scientist about it, fine," she says, "but don't ask the petri dish to explain it to you."
The template for Rodanthe epitomizes another C-word — chick flick — though Gere protests that it's more. The male characters,
quarreling fathers and sons, are given substantial stories, he points out.
"What would you call Bridges of Madison County? Is that a women's picture?" he asks. "Because it's definitely in that world, there's no
question about that. But its not like, I forget the title, the uh …Traveling Pants? It's not that. And that to me is a women's picture."
Lane laughs. "You could have The Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants. But it would be a very different movie."
"Make it Biker Jackets instead," Gere says.
Though it may not be the newest genre, straight-up romance is something new for them together. Most famous screen couples end up
playing similar roles in similar movies.
Gere and Lane tend to be more experimental.
Cotton Club was a 1930s crime thriller and a train wreck behind the scenes. "I saw it the other night (on cable) and was freaking out,"
Lane says. "It is a beautiful oil painting of a film."
"Which film is that?" Gere asks.
"The Cotton Club," she says. "It just needed the patina of time to be fully appreciated."
Gere rolls his eyes. "It's astonishing that even the narrative holds together." He laughs and says, "There was never a script."
In Unfaithful, they were more at odds than in love.
Neither is sure why their film relationship has evolved this way. "We never plan these things," Lane says.
"I think next time, we need to do something that's less naturalistic, something outsized," Gere says.
"This is a fairy tale already, so outsize that," she says.
Even the name "Rodanthe," a real town on North Carolina's Hatteras Island, sounds as if it might be next door to Narnia. "Or from
Arabian Nights," Lane says.
Even the seaside estate where the characters meet, with its wooden towers and jutting decks, is a kind of hazy fantasy.
"It's this fantasy dreamscape … It's someplace else. Your imagination. Once upon a time …" Gere says.
Asked to share some bold romantic experience of his own, Gere (who is married to actress Carey Lowell) defers to his co-star. "I've
never had anything like that," he says, presumably joking. "But Diane has had a lot of this. So I'm going to go away and come back
when she's done recounting."
Lane (who is married to Josh Brolin), laughs and says, "I can't compete with things that even happened in our film."
Her character builds boxes out of driftwood and stuffs them with mementos, and she offers that she has a similar habit.
"I have different boxes for different people. I'm a very sentimental person, and I have to come to terms with this because it's very hard
for me to part with even a concert ticket. It'll be on the fridge for a year, and then I get embarrassed and have to put it in a box."
It's Gere's turn again, but he still demurs. He stands and says he needs to finish packing for his flight home to New York. "Come on,"
he says. "You could fill two pages with what Diane just said. You've got no more space."
Lane is stunned. "I mean 'chemistry!' "
After a weekend of interviews, the statement "Talk about your chemistry …" was repeated to the point that Lane doesn't even want to
say the word out loud.
"If you want to be a scientist about it, fine," she says, "but don't ask the petri dish to explain it to you."
The template for Rodanthe epitomizes another C-word — chick flick — though Gere protests that it's more. The male characters,
quarreling fathers and sons, are given substantial stories, he points out.
"What would you call Bridges of Madison County? Is that a women's picture?" he asks. "Because it's definitely in that world, there's no
question about that. But its not like, I forget the title, the uh …Traveling Pants? It's not that. And that to me is a women's picture."
Lane laughs. "You could have The Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants. But it would be a very different movie."
"Make it Biker Jackets instead," Gere says.
Though it may not be the newest genre, straight-up romance is something new for them together. Most famous screen couples end up
playing similar roles in similar movies.
Gere and Lane tend to be more experimental.
Cotton Club was a 1930s crime thriller and a train wreck behind the scenes. "I saw it the other night (on cable) and was freaking out,"
Lane says. "It is a beautiful oil painting of a film."
"Which film is that?" Gere asks.
"The Cotton Club," she says. "It just needed the patina of time to be fully appreciated."
Gere rolls his eyes. "It's astonishing that even the narrative holds together." He laughs and says, "There was never a script."
In Unfaithful, they were more at odds than in love.
Neither is sure why their film relationship has evolved this way. "We never plan these things," Lane says.
"I think next time, we need to do something that's less naturalistic, something outsized," Gere says.
"This is a fairy tale already, so outsize that," she says.
Even the name "Rodanthe," a real town on North Carolina's Hatteras Island, sounds as if it might be next door to Narnia. "Or from
Arabian Nights," Lane says.
Even the seaside estate where the characters meet, with its wooden towers and jutting decks, is a kind of hazy fantasy.
"It's this fantasy dreamscape … It's someplace else. Your imagination. Once upon a time …" Gere says.
Asked to share some bold romantic experience of his own, Gere (who is married to actress Carey Lowell) defers to his co-star. "I've
never had anything like that," he says, presumably joking. "But Diane has had a lot of this. So I'm going to go away and come back
when she's done recounting."
Lane (who is married to Josh Brolin), laughs and says, "I can't compete with things that even happened in our film."
Her character builds boxes out of driftwood and stuffs them with mementos, and she offers that she has a similar habit.
"I have different boxes for different people. I'm a very sentimental person, and I have to come to terms with this because it's very hard
for me to part with even a concert ticket. It'll be on the fridge for a year, and then I get embarrassed and have to put it in a box."
It's Gere's turn again, but he still demurs. He stands and says he needs to finish packing for his flight home to New York. "Come on,"
he says. "You could fill two pages with what Diane just said. You've got no more space."
Pretty kiss for Richard
Hollywood star Richard Gere celebrated the premiere of his love movie "The smile of the stars" at Potsdamer Platz
His Pretty Woman he held for two days in Berlin, hidden, but the evening brought Richard Gere (59) wife Carey Lowell
(47) with his film premiere. Hand in hand they entered yesterday the Red Carpet at the Cinemaxx on Potsdamer Platz,
where his love drama "The smile of the stars" Germany celebrated premiere.
"Richard, Richard" cried his predominantly female fans. The man with the mad-sex appeal fell on them, was here and there
a photograph with them and make them, gave interviews to journalists.
Gere flew to Rome next
Meanwhile, waited his beautiful wife (played in the Bond movie "License to Kill the Bond Girl) patiently in the background.
"My wife was the whole time with me here, but she is happy if they bear the entire hubbub has nothing to do," said Gere.
Smile and added: "They had fun on room service."
Geres delightful film colleague Diane Lane (43) said: "Richard is great. We're almost like a family and watch on each other
mutually. "For the third time they stood together in front of the camera. Over the years they have become good friends.
And it. Albert you around on the red carpet and posed quite familiar.
Sweet gesture: When Gere (on the left Armgelenk wore a Buddhist prayer chain) with his wife wanted to go to the movies,
he discovered raindrops on Careys blazers and she lovingly wiped away, then snapped her hand and vanished.
Still wanted on the evening of the Hollywood star leave - onward flight to Rome.
Hollywood star Richard Gere celebrated the premiere of his love movie "The smile of the stars" at Potsdamer Platz
His Pretty Woman he held for two days in Berlin, hidden, but the evening brought Richard Gere (59) wife Carey Lowell
(47) with his film premiere. Hand in hand they entered yesterday the Red Carpet at the Cinemaxx on Potsdamer Platz,
where his love drama "The smile of the stars" Germany celebrated premiere.
"Richard, Richard" cried his predominantly female fans. The man with the mad-sex appeal fell on them, was here and there
a photograph with them and make them, gave interviews to journalists.
Gere flew to Rome next
Meanwhile, waited his beautiful wife (played in the Bond movie "License to Kill the Bond Girl) patiently in the background.
"My wife was the whole time with me here, but she is happy if they bear the entire hubbub has nothing to do," said Gere.
Smile and added: "They had fun on room service."
Geres delightful film colleague Diane Lane (43) said: "Richard is great. We're almost like a family and watch on each other
mutually. "For the third time they stood together in front of the camera. Over the years they have become good friends.
And it. Albert you around on the red carpet and posed quite familiar.
Sweet gesture: When Gere (on the left Armgelenk wore a Buddhist prayer chain) with his wife wanted to go to the movies,
he discovered raindrops on Careys blazers and she lovingly wiped away, then snapped her hand and vanished.
Still wanted on the evening of the Hollywood star leave - onward flight to Rome.
| Richard Gere promoting "Nights in Rodanthe". |
Nights In Rodanthe Interview
Richard Gere and Diane Lane heat it up.
Richard Gere and Diane Lane heat it up.
Richard Gere interview: Star talks of love, on-screen and off
October 10, 2008
By ELLIE GENOWER
AFTER watching him sweep countless movie heroines off their feet in films like Pretty Woman and An Officer And A
Gentleman, it's a relief to find out that actor Richard Gere is a romantic in real life.
"I think all of us are romantic," he says.
"Some people more so than others – at different times of their lives. We all have incredibly yearning hearts. I've
never seen anyone who gave up on looking for love in my life – even my suicidal friends. ADVERTISEMENTWe are
all learning towards love in our own ways. And I don't think that ever stops."
Gere, who describes the most romantic place in the world as anywhere his wife (actress Carey Lowell] is, stars in the new
romantic drama Nights In Rodanthe, based on yet another bestselling book by the tearjerker author of The Notebook,
Nicholas Sparks.
The film is Gere's third appearance opposite actress Diane Lane. The pair worked together in 2002's critically acclaimed film
Unfaithful and Frances Ford Coppola's 1984 drama The Cotton Club.
"What's funny is we don't actually talk to each other at all," he admits. "We have almost no relationship outside
of making movies. We talk to each other on the phone, maybe once or twice a year. And every 10 years or so, we'll
make a movie. It's very intense and we're right in each other's space, hearts and minds. Then we move on, and 10
years later, we do it again. It's a peculiar relationship we have. Thank God we have wonderful marriages."
In the film, Gere plays surgeon Dr Paul Flanner, the only guest at a beachside inn in remote Rodanthe, North Carolina. He
ends up falling for Adrienne, who is managing the inn to help out a friend for the weekend.
A recently separated mother of two, Adrienne is still dealing with her husband's betrayal and the recent news that he wants to
return home. One thing leads to another, and the weekend in Rodanthe ends up being the couple's second chance at love.
Gere and Lane have an innate chemistry on screen, but he says it's not easy to explain. "I don't think art comes out of
rational work," he says.
"It allows some kind of mysterious communication to happen and hopefully some of it ends up on film. I won't tell
you which ones, but I've made films that were extremely successful with women that I didn't get along with at all –
we could barely talk to each other.
"It's funny, there's a film I made – I think it's the most successful film I made – Pretty Woman. That movie
works on some quirky level, and it's really simple. There have been 150 movies which have tried to do that since,
but they can't do it. There are certain unknown mysterious qualities which happen in adult romances. You can't
necessarily write it. It has to be the chemistry of the people. I don't know if the other films Diane and I have done
– if they were with other people – they would have worked. Much of it is the fact that sometimes, there's this thing
between us."
Gere acknowledges that it's unusual to see movies with over-40s in the lead roles these days, but he has a relaxed attitude to
youth-obssessed Hollywood.
"Most of the movie-going public is under 22 probably, so that's the obvious answer," he says.
"But I think in the larger sense, if the scripts were there, these kinds of films would find a way of getting made. If
you can't make them for $50 million, you make them for $15 million. So the necessity of having a mass market
isn't there."
At 59, the actor is fortunate to have tackled many different genres, from his famous romantic dramas, to Oscar-winning
musical Chicago, and last year's ensemble indie hit I'm Not There.
"When someone makes me do it, and I look back through my career, I see I've done lots of different types of
movies I like," he says.
"But there's still quite a few I haven't done, and maybe I'll get a shot at before I die. It's the violent ones that I
probably have no interest in whatsoever. Even a film like The Jackal, which I was happy with my work in, had gone
over the violent edge for me. I probably wouldn't do another movie like that again."
Like his character, Gere also found love a second time round with his model-turned-actress wife Carey Lowell. They have an
eight-year-old son, Homer, named after Gere's father. Despite the long hours and demands of the job, he says his family
are his "priority".
"My priorities are my wife and kids for sure. I hope they are for everybody else," he says.
"I have a very balanced life. It's not all about movies and it's not all about acting. This is a great job we have, an
incredible job. I'm incredibly thankful for it and I acknowledge that every day – the kind of life that I've been able
to live because of it. I don't over estimate in terms of what it means in the universe.
"We're living the dream, but we have to know that we are," he adds.
"We can never take this for granted, in any way whatsoever, and that's for all of us to realise. That in our own
ways, we can give back a lot, depending on what we do.
|We're in this as working people who care about the universe."
Giving back to society has been a passion for Gere since he developed an interest in Tibet in his 20s. He has since set up The
Gere Foundation which contributes to Tibetan charities, although his outspoken views have got him into trouble in the past –
he was banned from being an Oscars presenter after criticising China's occupation of the country.
"China is this really interesting situation," he says earnestly.
"They want to be part of the vision for the new world and they have one foot in that world, and they have one very
stubborn leg stuck in the old world which is repression and human rights abuses and a mindset which is prone
towards violence and not listening to the needs and concerns of others.
"We, as citizens of the world, need to encourage them constantly to take that foot out of the old world and jump
wholeheartedly into the new vision which is listening and concern, and the sense that we're all in this together."
• Nights In Rodanthe is released in cinemas across the city today.
October 10, 2008
By ELLIE GENOWER
AFTER watching him sweep countless movie heroines off their feet in films like Pretty Woman and An Officer And A
Gentleman, it's a relief to find out that actor Richard Gere is a romantic in real life.
"I think all of us are romantic," he says.
"Some people more so than others – at different times of their lives. We all have incredibly yearning hearts. I've
never seen anyone who gave up on looking for love in my life – even my suicidal friends. ADVERTISEMENTWe are
all learning towards love in our own ways. And I don't think that ever stops."
Gere, who describes the most romantic place in the world as anywhere his wife (actress Carey Lowell] is, stars in the new
romantic drama Nights In Rodanthe, based on yet another bestselling book by the tearjerker author of The Notebook,
Nicholas Sparks.
The film is Gere's third appearance opposite actress Diane Lane. The pair worked together in 2002's critically acclaimed film
Unfaithful and Frances Ford Coppola's 1984 drama The Cotton Club.
"What's funny is we don't actually talk to each other at all," he admits. "We have almost no relationship outside
of making movies. We talk to each other on the phone, maybe once or twice a year. And every 10 years or so, we'll
make a movie. It's very intense and we're right in each other's space, hearts and minds. Then we move on, and 10
years later, we do it again. It's a peculiar relationship we have. Thank God we have wonderful marriages."
In the film, Gere plays surgeon Dr Paul Flanner, the only guest at a beachside inn in remote Rodanthe, North Carolina. He
ends up falling for Adrienne, who is managing the inn to help out a friend for the weekend.
A recently separated mother of two, Adrienne is still dealing with her husband's betrayal and the recent news that he wants to
return home. One thing leads to another, and the weekend in Rodanthe ends up being the couple's second chance at love.
Gere and Lane have an innate chemistry on screen, but he says it's not easy to explain. "I don't think art comes out of
rational work," he says.
"It allows some kind of mysterious communication to happen and hopefully some of it ends up on film. I won't tell
you which ones, but I've made films that were extremely successful with women that I didn't get along with at all –
we could barely talk to each other.
"It's funny, there's a film I made – I think it's the most successful film I made – Pretty Woman. That movie
works on some quirky level, and it's really simple. There have been 150 movies which have tried to do that since,
but they can't do it. There are certain unknown mysterious qualities which happen in adult romances. You can't
necessarily write it. It has to be the chemistry of the people. I don't know if the other films Diane and I have done
– if they were with other people – they would have worked. Much of it is the fact that sometimes, there's this thing
between us."
Gere acknowledges that it's unusual to see movies with over-40s in the lead roles these days, but he has a relaxed attitude to
youth-obssessed Hollywood.
"Most of the movie-going public is under 22 probably, so that's the obvious answer," he says.
"But I think in the larger sense, if the scripts were there, these kinds of films would find a way of getting made. If
you can't make them for $50 million, you make them for $15 million. So the necessity of having a mass market
isn't there."
At 59, the actor is fortunate to have tackled many different genres, from his famous romantic dramas, to Oscar-winning
musical Chicago, and last year's ensemble indie hit I'm Not There.
"When someone makes me do it, and I look back through my career, I see I've done lots of different types of
movies I like," he says.
"But there's still quite a few I haven't done, and maybe I'll get a shot at before I die. It's the violent ones that I
probably have no interest in whatsoever. Even a film like The Jackal, which I was happy with my work in, had gone
over the violent edge for me. I probably wouldn't do another movie like that again."
Like his character, Gere also found love a second time round with his model-turned-actress wife Carey Lowell. They have an
eight-year-old son, Homer, named after Gere's father. Despite the long hours and demands of the job, he says his family
are his "priority".
"My priorities are my wife and kids for sure. I hope they are for everybody else," he says.
"I have a very balanced life. It's not all about movies and it's not all about acting. This is a great job we have, an
incredible job. I'm incredibly thankful for it and I acknowledge that every day – the kind of life that I've been able
to live because of it. I don't over estimate in terms of what it means in the universe.
"We're living the dream, but we have to know that we are," he adds.
"We can never take this for granted, in any way whatsoever, and that's for all of us to realise. That in our own
ways, we can give back a lot, depending on what we do.
|We're in this as working people who care about the universe."
Giving back to society has been a passion for Gere since he developed an interest in Tibet in his 20s. He has since set up The
Gere Foundation which contributes to Tibetan charities, although his outspoken views have got him into trouble in the past –
he was banned from being an Oscars presenter after criticising China's occupation of the country.
"China is this really interesting situation," he says earnestly.
"They want to be part of the vision for the new world and they have one foot in that world, and they have one very
stubborn leg stuck in the old world which is repression and human rights abuses and a mindset which is prone
towards violence and not listening to the needs and concerns of others.
"We, as citizens of the world, need to encourage them constantly to take that foot out of the old world and jump
wholeheartedly into the new vision which is listening and concern, and the sense that we're all in this together."
• Nights In Rodanthe is released in cinemas across the city today.
60 Seconds: Richard Gere
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Richard Gere will be 60 next summer but is still a sex symbol for women all over the world. In his new film, Nights In
Rodanthe, Gere – most famous for risible hooker makeover flick Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts – conjures up some
romantic chemistry with co-star Diane Lane, 43. It's the third time the pair have worked together. The film is out on Friday.
Are you and Diane Lane close?
You have some great on-screen chemistry.
The funny thing is we don’t talk much at all. We have almost no relationship outside making movies. We exchange Christmas
cards and, maybe once or twice a year, we’ll call each other. Then, every ten years or so, we make a film, and it’s very
intense and we’re right in each other’s hearts and minds. It’s a peculiar relationship. Thank God, we both have wonderful
marriages.
Do the sex scenes come naturally?
I found it pretty easy. I’m crazy about her. Plus we also know our boundaries. If we get too close we talk about it and say,
'We can go there but let’s not go there.'
Are you romantic?
It’s in all of us. In some of it's closer to the surface than others, and at different times of our lives, but we all have incredibly
yearning hearts. I’ve never in my life seen anyone who gave up. Even my suicidal friends are still looking for love. As long as
the heart is still beating, they’re yearning.
Do you have a favourite romantic film?
Two For The Road starring Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, the kind of movie we’ll probably never see again. It’s about
people over 30 with problems in their lives and it seems most of the movie-going public is under the age of 22.
You also had some great chemistry with Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
You can’t force that kind of thing. If it hadn’t been that script, these two actors and that director, it wouldn’t have worked.
You can’t isolate elements that way and think just because it’s them or him it’s going to work. It doesn’t happen like that.
Robert Redford says people only saw him for his looks when he was starting out. Was it the same for you?
Not really, because I was playing much crazier characters. Robert always played the guy next door. I got the parts of drug
addicts and bad boys. In Days Of Heaven, my first film, and Looking For Mr Goodbar, I was a bad guy. They were marginal
but real characters who didn’t have much to do with me. I was a very simple, small-town kid.
Have you read any crazy stories about yourself?
I stopped reading the press a long time ago. Lots of crazy things came up about me at first, especially from the tabloids. There
is an infamous ‘Gere stuck a hamster up his bum’ urban myth. I expect that sort of thing but when reputable magazines
started making up stories claiming I was in a country I had never been to with someone I didn’t even know, I just decided not
to pay attention to any of it. It’s a waste of energy.
What do you wish for the world?
An end to poverty.
Is that possible?
We’re so rich in the US and Europe that if we took just ten per cent of our GNP and used that money for food, hospitals and
schools, we could solve the problem of poverty. In India, it’s incredible how families get into debt just because someone gets
sick. So I’ve started a programme for micro-insurance that covers people for most medical problems for 120 rupees a year
[about £1.50]. Insurance in the Third World is still a pioneering idea but it helps to take lots of people out of the circle of debt
as most of the debts in these countries are due to medical bills.
What are your thoughts on the end of the George Bush era?
We’ve had some pretty incompetent administrations but none as incompetent as this one. Everyone would admit we have a
president who’s incompetent and we elected him twice. We’re responsible for that because we didn’t go out into the streets.
We all could have done more.
Are you looking forward to turning 60?
I thought I’d be dead by the time I was 30, so the fact I’ve lasted this long amazes me. When I was shooting The Hunting
Party in Sarajevo, the film crew did a press conference to introduce ourselves to the community. There was a very shy young
girl sat at the back who raised her hand. She said: ‘On behalf of three generations of my family – myself, my mother and my
grandmother – I’d like to thank you for continuing to make movies.’ I thought: ‘How sweet.’ Then I thought: ‘I’m really old.’
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Richard Gere will be 60 next summer but is still a sex symbol for women all over the world. In his new film, Nights In
Rodanthe, Gere – most famous for risible hooker makeover flick Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts – conjures up some
romantic chemistry with co-star Diane Lane, 43. It's the third time the pair have worked together. The film is out on Friday.
Are you and Diane Lane close?
You have some great on-screen chemistry.
The funny thing is we don’t talk much at all. We have almost no relationship outside making movies. We exchange Christmas
cards and, maybe once or twice a year, we’ll call each other. Then, every ten years or so, we make a film, and it’s very
intense and we’re right in each other’s hearts and minds. It’s a peculiar relationship. Thank God, we both have wonderful
marriages.
Do the sex scenes come naturally?
I found it pretty easy. I’m crazy about her. Plus we also know our boundaries. If we get too close we talk about it and say,
'We can go there but let’s not go there.'
Are you romantic?
It’s in all of us. In some of it's closer to the surface than others, and at different times of our lives, but we all have incredibly
yearning hearts. I’ve never in my life seen anyone who gave up. Even my suicidal friends are still looking for love. As long as
the heart is still beating, they’re yearning.
Do you have a favourite romantic film?
Two For The Road starring Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, the kind of movie we’ll probably never see again. It’s about
people over 30 with problems in their lives and it seems most of the movie-going public is under the age of 22.
You also had some great chemistry with Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
You can’t force that kind of thing. If it hadn’t been that script, these two actors and that director, it wouldn’t have worked.
You can’t isolate elements that way and think just because it’s them or him it’s going to work. It doesn’t happen like that.
Robert Redford says people only saw him for his looks when he was starting out. Was it the same for you?
Not really, because I was playing much crazier characters. Robert always played the guy next door. I got the parts of drug
addicts and bad boys. In Days Of Heaven, my first film, and Looking For Mr Goodbar, I was a bad guy. They were marginal
but real characters who didn’t have much to do with me. I was a very simple, small-town kid.
Have you read any crazy stories about yourself?
I stopped reading the press a long time ago. Lots of crazy things came up about me at first, especially from the tabloids. There
is an infamous ‘Gere stuck a hamster up his bum’ urban myth. I expect that sort of thing but when reputable magazines
started making up stories claiming I was in a country I had never been to with someone I didn’t even know, I just decided not
to pay attention to any of it. It’s a waste of energy.
What do you wish for the world?
An end to poverty.
Is that possible?
We’re so rich in the US and Europe that if we took just ten per cent of our GNP and used that money for food, hospitals and
schools, we could solve the problem of poverty. In India, it’s incredible how families get into debt just because someone gets
sick. So I’ve started a programme for micro-insurance that covers people for most medical problems for 120 rupees a year
[about £1.50]. Insurance in the Third World is still a pioneering idea but it helps to take lots of people out of the circle of debt
as most of the debts in these countries are due to medical bills.
What are your thoughts on the end of the George Bush era?
We’ve had some pretty incompetent administrations but none as incompetent as this one. Everyone would admit we have a
president who’s incompetent and we elected him twice. We’re responsible for that because we didn’t go out into the streets.
We all could have done more.
Are you looking forward to turning 60?
I thought I’d be dead by the time I was 30, so the fact I’ve lasted this long amazes me. When I was shooting The Hunting
Party in Sarajevo, the film crew did a press conference to introduce ourselves to the community. There was a very shy young
girl sat at the back who raised her hand. She said: ‘On behalf of three generations of my family – myself, my mother and my
grandmother – I’d like to thank you for continuing to make movies.’ I thought: ‘How sweet.’ Then I thought: ‘I’m really old.’
Portage Central grad to appear in Gere film and 'All My Children'
by Stephenie Esters
October 12, 2008
Shannon Kane had just finished filming a soon-to-be released movie as Richard Gere's love
interest when she got picked to play a character on the television soap "All My Children."
Former Portage resident Shannon Kane poses with "Brooklyn's Finest" co-star Richard Gere.
All this, and she's only been out of Portage Central High School for five years.
"It's been really exciting," Kane said of her career during a telephone interview Monday from her
adopted hometown of New York City.
Television viewers can catch the 23-year-old Kane this week on ABC as Natalia, who was first
introduced a little over a week ago while lurking outside the home of popular character
Jesse Hubbard, the town's police chief.
"I have some unresolved business with Jesse, so I go to his house to talk to him about something personal," Kane said.
The former Kalamazoo and Portage resident expects viewers to learn her character's connection by the end of this week. She is not sure
how long her character will last, as she has not yet been offered a contract guaranteeing her a longer association with the show, Kane
said.
In a few months, she will turn her attention to promotions and tours abroad for "Brooklyn's Finest," in which she stars as Chantel, a
street-smart, Brooklyn-raised Puerto Rican young woman who works as a prostitute. Her character gets involved romantically on-screen
with Gere.
The Antoine Fuqua-directed movie also stars Don Cheadle ("Hotel Rwanda" and "Ocean's Eleven"), Ethan Hawke ("Training Day,"
"Before Sunset"), Wesley Snipes ("Blade: Trinity" and "Murder at 1600") and Emmy winner Ellen Barkin ("Ocean's Thirteen"). Filmed in
July, the movie is set for a December or early 2009 release, she said.
"It's like a really dark love letter to the police," Kane said of the movie in which she stars opposite Gere. "It's a cop film, and I play a
hooker."
Kane said the movie and her personal preparation for it were "enlightening." She said she interviewed a real-life prostitute and talked to
several strippers and young Puerto Rican women throughout New York City.
Kane said she realized Chantel was still in her system when a former boyfriend said something negative to her and she responded the way
Chantel would have.
"She's very feminine and very beautiful. But if you cross her, she will bite your head off," Kane said.
While in high school, Kane participated in Kalamazoo County's Education for the Arts program. After graduating, she spent a year in the
dance program at Western Michigan University, then moved to Los Angeles and ultimately to Brooklyn, N.Y.
Though her face might be familiar from print ads, Kane said the modeling gigs for those ads supplement income from her true desire,
acting.
Over the years, Kane has been a dancer on the short-lived "Show Me the Money" game show with William Shatner and has had small
roles on "CSI: Miami," "Entourage" and in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless."
Asked if she feels "established" given how much she has accomplished in a short period of time, Kane laughed. But she noted that she
does feel like she impressed Gere, Cheadle and the others with her acting skills in "Brooklyn's Finest."
"I think any actress in this business who feels 'established' has another thing coming," Kane said. "This isn't my passion for security. But
it is my passion, whether I have security or not
by Stephenie Esters
October 12, 2008
Shannon Kane had just finished filming a soon-to-be released movie as Richard Gere's love
interest when she got picked to play a character on the television soap "All My Children."
Former Portage resident Shannon Kane poses with "Brooklyn's Finest" co-star Richard Gere.
All this, and she's only been out of Portage Central High School for five years.
"It's been really exciting," Kane said of her career during a telephone interview Monday from her
adopted hometown of New York City.
Television viewers can catch the 23-year-old Kane this week on ABC as Natalia, who was first
introduced a little over a week ago while lurking outside the home of popular character
Jesse Hubbard, the town's police chief.
"I have some unresolved business with Jesse, so I go to his house to talk to him about something personal," Kane said.
The former Kalamazoo and Portage resident expects viewers to learn her character's connection by the end of this week. She is not sure
how long her character will last, as she has not yet been offered a contract guaranteeing her a longer association with the show, Kane
said.
In a few months, she will turn her attention to promotions and tours abroad for "Brooklyn's Finest," in which she stars as Chantel, a
street-smart, Brooklyn-raised Puerto Rican young woman who works as a prostitute. Her character gets involved romantically on-screen
with Gere.
The Antoine Fuqua-directed movie also stars Don Cheadle ("Hotel Rwanda" and "Ocean's Eleven"), Ethan Hawke ("Training Day,"
"Before Sunset"), Wesley Snipes ("Blade: Trinity" and "Murder at 1600") and Emmy winner Ellen Barkin ("Ocean's Thirteen"). Filmed in
July, the movie is set for a December or early 2009 release, she said.
"It's like a really dark love letter to the police," Kane said of the movie in which she stars opposite Gere. "It's a cop film, and I play a
hooker."
Kane said the movie and her personal preparation for it were "enlightening." She said she interviewed a real-life prostitute and talked to
several strippers and young Puerto Rican women throughout New York City.
Kane said she realized Chantel was still in her system when a former boyfriend said something negative to her and she responded the way
Chantel would have.
"She's very feminine and very beautiful. But if you cross her, she will bite your head off," Kane said.
While in high school, Kane participated in Kalamazoo County's Education for the Arts program. After graduating, she spent a year in the
dance program at Western Michigan University, then moved to Los Angeles and ultimately to Brooklyn, N.Y.
Though her face might be familiar from print ads, Kane said the modeling gigs for those ads supplement income from her true desire,
acting.
Over the years, Kane has been a dancer on the short-lived "Show Me the Money" game show with William Shatner and has had small
roles on "CSI: Miami," "Entourage" and in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless."
Asked if she feels "established" given how much she has accomplished in a short period of time, Kane laughed. But she noted that she
does feel like she impressed Gere, Cheadle and the others with her acting skills in "Brooklyn's Finest."
"I think any actress in this business who feels 'established' has another thing coming," Kane said. "This isn't my passion for security. But
it is my passion, whether I have security or not
Courtesy of Margo form a Polish magazine
RICHARD GERE - GERE: 'THE JACKAL WAS TOO VIOLENT'
31 October, 2008
RICHARD GERE regrets his role alongside BRUCE WILLIS in THE JACKAL - because the movie was too violent.
The devoted Buddhist admits he likes his movies to be more peaceful affairs.
He says, "I don't really like too much violence. Looking back, I would say The Jackal was too violent. I wouldn't do that movie again."
And the ageing movie hunk admits he hasn't always liked his co-stars: "I won't mention names, but I have made very successful movies with
colleagues where we barely spoke to each other off set."
31 October, 2008
RICHARD GERE regrets his role alongside BRUCE WILLIS in THE JACKAL - because the movie was too violent.
The devoted Buddhist admits he likes his movies to be more peaceful affairs.
He says, "I don't really like too much violence. Looking back, I would say The Jackal was too violent. I wouldn't do that movie again."
And the ageing movie hunk admits he hasn't always liked his co-stars: "I won't mention names, but I have made very successful movies with
colleagues where we barely spoke to each other off set."
Parla con me
Richard Gere expresses himself on the political situation of its country and on the society they puts into effect in general terms.
Richard Gere expresses himself on the political situation of its country and on the society they puts into effect in general terms.
Richard Gere paves a path to freedom
www.mindfood.com
Despite receiving criticism for his outspoken political and spiritual views, Richard Gere continues to fight for what he believes in.
Richard Gere admits he finds it hard to say no. As the co-founder – with Uma Thurman’s father Robert – of the Tibet House in New
York, he is devoted to helping the Himalayan people gain independence from China.
There's his Gere Foundation, a human rights group that gives grants to victims of war and natural disasters around the globe; his
tireless campaigning for AIDS research in India; his work with refugees in Central America; and his mission to raise awareness for the
world’s vanishing tribes.
“I do what I can,” Gere tells MiNDFOOD. “My commitment is to go wherever I am needed, to do whatever is needed.”
The last few months have been frantically busy for the 59-year-old Gere, who has the energy of a man half his age.
He’s just completed filming three movies back to back but confesses they weren’t actually his priority. With the Beijing Olympics in
August, the eyes of the world have been on China. And Gere took that as a wonderful opportunity to promote freedom for Tibetans.
The devout Buddhist is banned for life from entering China because of his outspoken views and he was one of the first people to call
for a boycott of the Olympics.
When MiNDFOOD caught up with him in New York he was looking on the bright side, hoping the Chinese government would amend
it’s human rights record.
“It’s (been) an amazing opportunity for the Chinese to re-evaluate how they are and how they will function in the changing world,” he
says.
“I think it’s been a great opportunity to make incredible leaps. All of us who care about that part of the world hope they can fulfill our
hopes.”
He’s actually supposed to be talking about his new movie Nights in Rodanthe, a romance with his old Cotton Club and Faithless co-star
Diane Lane, but the conversation quickly turns to his work promoting freedom in Tibet.
Three films – Amelia about flying pioneer Amelia Earhart, Hachiko: A Dog’s Story and Brooklyn’s Finest a police drama – all came
together at the same time three months ago.
“I had lots of other plans. But they were all nice scripts,” he says. “At first I said I don’t have time, there’s no way I can do them all.
It would be one day here, three days there. I don’t know how I could make it work.
“A lot of time I just think things over and go easy. But basically they all found a way to work around my real schedule.
“I had to take a deep breath and ask myself physically can I do this? Can I handle it? I talked to my wife she said go ahead, do it.”
Gere doesn’t laugh when I suggest it was his actress wife Carey Lowell’s way of keeping him out of trouble during August’s
Olympics.
He takes a deep breath and reels off what he calls his real schedule, as opposed to his movie schedule.
“I’ve been giving testimony in the Senate and House of Representative hearings in Washington,” he explains. “We’re doing
demonstrations around the world. It’s my commitment. I go wherever I can.”
Back in June he scored a major public relations coup when Italian motor company Fiat employed him to appear in a 45-second TV
commercial driving a car from the glitz of Hollywood to the snow capped Himalayas.
The Chinese government was furious, protesting that Gere’s involvement gave the advert political overtones.
Fiat backed off and apologised, saying the company would distance itself from “Mr Gere’s social and political views.” But the row
gave Gere exactly the sort of publicity he needed to highlight the Tibetan people’s plight.
Gere was just beginning his acting career when he first travelled to Nepal in 1978 with his then partner, the Brazilian artist Sylvia
Martins.
He quickly became enamoured by the displaced Tibetan monks and the gentle way they handled their suffering.
“When I talk to Tibetans who were in solitary confinement for 20 or 25 years, they say to me, totally from their heart, that the issue is
larger than what they’ve suffered at the hands of their torturer, and they feel pity and compassion for this person who was acting out
animal nature,” he says.
Five years later, in 1983, Gere – by then a major star after his leading roles in American Gigolo and An Officer and A Gentleman –
travelled to India to meet Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
“It completely changed my life the first time I was in the presence of his Holiness, no question about it,” he says. “It wasn’t like I felt,
‘Oh, I’m going to give away all my possessions and go to the monastery now.’ But I felt that this was what I was supposed to do –
work with these teachers.”
Philadelphia-born Gere, who was bought up as a Methodist by his insurance salesman father Homer and mother Doris, has been a
devout Buddhist ever since.
He also started working in the slums of India, helping women and children infected by the HIV/AIDS virus.
“When I go there I’m just a simple student like everyone else,” he says. “But I’m also the guy who can help. When I’m in India there
are a lot of people who require help and it’s very difficult to say no.”
In 1986 Gere disappeared from view to go on a fact-finding mission to Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.
He spent three years working with the Central American refugees and tribal groups before re-emerging in 1990 to star opposite Julia
Roberts in the smash hit Pretty Woman.
He set up the Gere Foundation the following year to raise awareness and much needed cash for the causes close to his heart.
“I’m in a kind of unique position in that I do have some cash in my foundation, so I’m able to offer some front money to various
groups to help them get projects started,” he says.
But Gere’s good works haven’t always made him popular. He was banned from presenting at the Oscars after using the 1993
ceremony to criticise the Chinese government.
And in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks he was booed at a New York victims’ benefit for saying: “We have to
learn how to forgive.”
Not that he cares what people think. He say he never reads press about himself and as someone who has been consistently at the top of
the acting tree for almost 30 years, he now commands up to $15 million a movie.
He’s generous with his earnings. When invited to open the annual summer sale at London’s famous Harrod’s department store he
donated his entire $100,000 fee to Survival International, a group dedicated to supporting tribal people and protecting their land.
It’s a far cry from his struggling student days in the 1970s when he was waiting tables in between acting classes in New York. Legend
has it that he served Robert de Niro and told him that he’d be equally successful one day.
Nowadays Gere probably doesn’t need to work quite so hard. But like the charity work, he finds it hard to turn down good scripts.
He’s really excited about Hachiko as it’s the first children’s film he has ever done. It means his eight-year-old son Homer will be able to
watch his daddy at work.
“It’s a famous story in Japan about a dog,” he says. “The story is about loyalty. If it doesn’t make you cry nothing will. I’ve cried
every time I’ve read that story.”
In Nights in Rodanthe Gere plays a troubled doctor who stops off at a seaside inn and falls for the unhappily married hostess, played
by Lane.
Based on the Nicholas Sparks novel, it’s a real tear jerker about two lost souls colliding. Last time Gere worked with Lane, she was the
adulterer whose affair with a good looking young man, played by Olivier Martinez, drives Gere to murder.
As we sit chatting in a restaurant not far from Gere’s home in Manhattan’s leafy Greenwich Village, he teases 43-year-old Lane about
her yearning to quit acting and become a stay-at-home mother.
“This is my last film for a while because I want to be home with my kids,” Lane explains. “They’re teenagers and they would prefer
me to be away working.”
“My daughter identifies with me working. I’ve been doing this 30 years and the idea of me doing anything else is like no, no.
“She’s 15 and I have a step daughter the same age. I’ve talked about not working but they don’t want me around. But this is it, my last
film for a while.”
Gere plunks his arm on her elbow as if to pin her down and says: “If she thinks about retiring I will bring her round. We’re like
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. We have to keep on going.”
Not that Gere wants to work quite a hard as he has done recently. He loves playing baseball with Homer and spending quality time with
wife Carey and 18-year-old stepdaughter Hannah.
His four-year marriage to supermodel Cindy Crawford broke up in 1995 over his reluctance to settle down and have children. But that
changed after he met Law and Order actress Carey, now 47.
Homer James Jigme Gere was named after both of his grandfathers. Jigme is a Tibetan word meaning fearless – something Gere is
when he takes on governments over human rights.
Last year he was accused of “public obscenity” when he grabbed hold of Bollywood actress Shipla Shetty at an AIDS awareness rally
in Jaipur, India and kissed her several times on the cheeks.
He quickly left the country saying the controversy had been “manufactured by a small hard line political party.” Two judges sided with
Gere and told him he was free to return to the land he loves.
Apart from setting up a care home there for women and children with AIDS, he spends time on retreats studying with the Dalai Lama
and Buddhist teachers.
“Some of them are hermits up in the hills but they come down when His Holiness gives teaching,” says Gere, who says he still gets
nervous around the spiritual leader.
“The Tibetans radiate. They literally send out light. His Holiness generates love and compassion. He has committed himself to that.
“I haven’t made that leap yet. I haven’t given up self-aspiration. I still love making movies.”
www.mindfood.com
Despite receiving criticism for his outspoken political and spiritual views, Richard Gere continues to fight for what he believes in.
Richard Gere admits he finds it hard to say no. As the co-founder – with Uma Thurman’s father Robert – of the Tibet House in New
York, he is devoted to helping the Himalayan people gain independence from China.
There's his Gere Foundation, a human rights group that gives grants to victims of war and natural disasters around the globe; his
tireless campaigning for AIDS research in India; his work with refugees in Central America; and his mission to raise awareness for the
world’s vanishing tribes.
“I do what I can,” Gere tells MiNDFOOD. “My commitment is to go wherever I am needed, to do whatever is needed.”
The last few months have been frantically busy for the 59-year-old Gere, who has the energy of a man half his age.
He’s just completed filming three movies back to back but confesses they weren’t actually his priority. With the Beijing Olympics in
August, the eyes of the world have been on China. And Gere took that as a wonderful opportunity to promote freedom for Tibetans.
The devout Buddhist is banned for life from entering China because of his outspoken views and he was one of the first people to call
for a boycott of the Olympics.
When MiNDFOOD caught up with him in New York he was looking on the bright side, hoping the Chinese government would amend
it’s human rights record.
“It’s (been) an amazing opportunity for the Chinese to re-evaluate how they are and how they will function in the changing world,” he
says.
“I think it’s been a great opportunity to make incredible leaps. All of us who care about that part of the world hope they can fulfill our
hopes.”
He’s actually supposed to be talking about his new movie Nights in Rodanthe, a romance with his old Cotton Club and Faithless co-star
Diane Lane, but the conversation quickly turns to his work promoting freedom in Tibet.
Three films – Amelia about flying pioneer Amelia Earhart, Hachiko: A Dog’s Story and Brooklyn’s Finest a police drama – all came
together at the same time three months ago.
“I had lots of other plans. But they were all nice scripts,” he says. “At first I said I don’t have time, there’s no way I can do them all.
It would be one day here, three days there. I don’t know how I could make it work.
“A lot of time I just think things over and go easy. But basically they all found a way to work around my real schedule.
“I had to take a deep breath and ask myself physically can I do this? Can I handle it? I talked to my wife she said go ahead, do it.”
Gere doesn’t laugh when I suggest it was his actress wife Carey Lowell’s way of keeping him out of trouble during August’s
Olympics.
He takes a deep breath and reels off what he calls his real schedule, as opposed to his movie schedule.
“I’ve been giving testimony in the Senate and House of Representative hearings in Washington,” he explains. “We’re doing
demonstrations around the world. It’s my commitment. I go wherever I can.”
Back in June he scored a major public relations coup when Italian motor company Fiat employed him to appear in a 45-second TV
commercial driving a car from the glitz of Hollywood to the snow capped Himalayas.
The Chinese government was furious, protesting that Gere’s involvement gave the advert political overtones.
Fiat backed off and apologised, saying the company would distance itself from “Mr Gere’s social and political views.” But the row
gave Gere exactly the sort of publicity he needed to highlight the Tibetan people’s plight.
Gere was just beginning his acting career when he first travelled to Nepal in 1978 with his then partner, the Brazilian artist Sylvia
Martins.
He quickly became enamoured by the displaced Tibetan monks and the gentle way they handled their suffering.
“When I talk to Tibetans who were in solitary confinement for 20 or 25 years, they say to me, totally from their heart, that the issue is
larger than what they’ve suffered at the hands of their torturer, and they feel pity and compassion for this person who was acting out
animal nature,” he says.
Five years later, in 1983, Gere – by then a major star after his leading roles in American Gigolo and An Officer and A Gentleman –
travelled to India to meet Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
“It completely changed my life the first time I was in the presence of his Holiness, no question about it,” he says. “It wasn’t like I felt,
‘Oh, I’m going to give away all my possessions and go to the monastery now.’ But I felt that this was what I was supposed to do –
work with these teachers.”
Philadelphia-born Gere, who was bought up as a Methodist by his insurance salesman father Homer and mother Doris, has been a
devout Buddhist ever since.
He also started working in the slums of India, helping women and children infected by the HIV/AIDS virus.
“When I go there I’m just a simple student like everyone else,” he says. “But I’m also the guy who can help. When I’m in India there
are a lot of people who require help and it’s very difficult to say no.”
In 1986 Gere disappeared from view to go on a fact-finding mission to Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.
He spent three years working with the Central American refugees and tribal groups before re-emerging in 1990 to star opposite Julia
Roberts in the smash hit Pretty Woman.
He set up the Gere Foundation the following year to raise awareness and much needed cash for the causes close to his heart.
“I’m in a kind of unique position in that I do have some cash in my foundation, so I’m able to offer some front money to various
groups to help them get projects started,” he says.
But Gere’s good works haven’t always made him popular. He was banned from presenting at the Oscars after using the 1993
ceremony to criticise the Chinese government.
And in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks he was booed at a New York victims’ benefit for saying: “We have to
learn how to forgive.”
Not that he cares what people think. He say he never reads press about himself and as someone who has been consistently at the top of
the acting tree for almost 30 years, he now commands up to $15 million a movie.
He’s generous with his earnings. When invited to open the annual summer sale at London’s famous Harrod’s department store he
donated his entire $100,000 fee to Survival International, a group dedicated to supporting tribal people and protecting their land.
It’s a far cry from his struggling student days in the 1970s when he was waiting tables in between acting classes in New York. Legend
has it that he served Robert de Niro and told him that he’d be equally successful one day.
Nowadays Gere probably doesn’t need to work quite so hard. But like the charity work, he finds it hard to turn down good scripts.
He’s really excited about Hachiko as it’s the first children’s film he has ever done. It means his eight-year-old son Homer will be able to
watch his daddy at work.
“It’s a famous story in Japan about a dog,” he says. “The story is about loyalty. If it doesn’t make you cry nothing will. I’ve cried
every time I’ve read that story.”
In Nights in Rodanthe Gere plays a troubled doctor who stops off at a seaside inn and falls for the unhappily married hostess, played
by Lane.
Based on the Nicholas Sparks novel, it’s a real tear jerker about two lost souls colliding. Last time Gere worked with Lane, she was the
adulterer whose affair with a good looking young man, played by Olivier Martinez, drives Gere to murder.
As we sit chatting in a restaurant not far from Gere’s home in Manhattan’s leafy Greenwich Village, he teases 43-year-old Lane about
her yearning to quit acting and become a stay-at-home mother.
“This is my last film for a while because I want to be home with my kids,” Lane explains. “They’re teenagers and they would prefer
me to be away working.”
“My daughter identifies with me working. I’ve been doing this 30 years and the idea of me doing anything else is like no, no.
“She’s 15 and I have a step daughter the same age. I’ve talked about not working but they don’t want me around. But this is it, my last
film for a while.”
Gere plunks his arm on her elbow as if to pin her down and says: “If she thinks about retiring I will bring her round. We’re like
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. We have to keep on going.”
Not that Gere wants to work quite a hard as he has done recently. He loves playing baseball with Homer and spending quality time with
wife Carey and 18-year-old stepdaughter Hannah.
His four-year marriage to supermodel Cindy Crawford broke up in 1995 over his reluctance to settle down and have children. But that
changed after he met Law and Order actress Carey, now 47.
Homer James Jigme Gere was named after both of his grandfathers. Jigme is a Tibetan word meaning fearless – something Gere is
when he takes on governments over human rights.
Last year he was accused of “public obscenity” when he grabbed hold of Bollywood actress Shipla Shetty at an AIDS awareness rally
in Jaipur, India and kissed her several times on the cheeks.
He quickly left the country saying the controversy had been “manufactured by a small hard line political party.” Two judges sided with
Gere and told him he was free to return to the land he loves.
Apart from setting up a care home there for women and children with AIDS, he spends time on retreats studying with the Dalai Lama
and Buddhist teachers.
“Some of them are hermits up in the hills but they come down when His Holiness gives teaching,” says Gere, who says he still gets
nervous around the spiritual leader.
“The Tibetans radiate. They literally send out light. His Holiness generates love and compassion. He has committed himself to that.
“I haven’t made that leap yet. I haven’t given up self-aspiration. I still love making movies.”
CHUPI IN CRISIS: Richard Gere Joins the Chopping Block
October 21, 2008,
The Palazzo PriceChops continue. Though this time, it's not Chupi's forlorn triplex penthouse that is taking the hit. Nope, it's actually one
of two units (not including Julian Schnabel's) that found a buyer. Richard Gere, to be exact. He's been trying to flip his full-floor spread in
the Chupster since the spring, at an asking price of $17.995 million. He bought the 4BR, 4BA piece of pink for $12 million a year ago.
Now, as of yesterday, Gere's asking price is down to $15 million
October 21, 2008,
The Palazzo PriceChops continue. Though this time, it's not Chupi's forlorn triplex penthouse that is taking the hit. Nope, it's actually one
of two units (not including Julian Schnabel's) that found a buyer. Richard Gere, to be exact. He's been trying to flip his full-floor spread in
the Chupster since the spring, at an asking price of $17.995 million. He bought the 4BR, 4BA piece of pink for $12 million a year ago.
Now, as of yesterday, Gere's asking price is down to $15 million
Hope Heart(R) Announces Charitable Support for Jewelers for Children and Healing the Divide
October 18, 2008
Released By: Paradise Production Company
Hope Heart®, an inspirational and unique jewelry line offered by Paradise Production Company, announced today that it will donate
a portion of its sales proceeds to the Jewelers for Children and Healing the Divide non-profit organizations. The Hope Heart®
jewelry line can be viewed and purchased through their website at http://hopeheart.us.
Hope Heart® jewelry is a symbol that encompasses the legend of the heart and the spiritual principles of yin and yang. It was
created by a remarkable young woman, Lauren Rose Weinkrantz, as a gift for her mother to convey a message of love and peace.
"Both the Jewelers for Children and Healing the Divide organizations represent what the Hope Heart® message is all about," said
Barbara P. Roth, president of Paradise Production Company.
The Jewelers for Children, http://www.jewelersforchildren.org, was founded by the U.S. jewelry industry with the mission of
helping children in need. Since its inception, it has donated more than $30 million to programs benefiting children whose lives have
been affected by illness, abuse or neglect. Healing the Divide was created with a commitment to work for a world filled with peace
and justice, http://www.healingthedivide.org.
Reader Contact Information:
Paradise Production Company, 210.710.7117, http://hopeheart.us/
October 18, 2008
Released By: Paradise Production Company
Hope Heart®, an inspirational and unique jewelry line offered by Paradise Production Company, announced today that it will donate
a portion of its sales proceeds to the Jewelers for Children and Healing the Divide non-profit organizations. The Hope Heart®
jewelry line can be viewed and purchased through their website at http://hopeheart.us.
Hope Heart® jewelry is a symbol that encompasses the legend of the heart and the spiritual principles of yin and yang. It was
created by a remarkable young woman, Lauren Rose Weinkrantz, as a gift for her mother to convey a message of love and peace.
"Both the Jewelers for Children and Healing the Divide organizations represent what the Hope Heart® message is all about," said
Barbara P. Roth, president of Paradise Production Company.
The Jewelers for Children, http://www.jewelersforchildren.org, was founded by the U.S. jewelry industry with the mission of
helping children in need. Since its inception, it has donated more than $30 million to programs benefiting children whose lives have
been affected by illness, abuse or neglect. Healing the Divide was created with a commitment to work for a world filled with peace
and justice, http://www.healingthedivide.org.
Reader Contact Information:
Paradise Production Company, 210.710.7117, http://hopeheart.us/
"Finally we are nice to each other"
Video Interview: Diane Lane and Richard Gere indulge in memories
(on the search bar type Richard Gere )
Video Interview: Diane Lane and Richard Gere indulge in memories
(on the search bar type Richard Gere )
| Gere News |
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