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Richard Gere poses with a T-shirt Emporio Armani.
“WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER” is a phrase that the actor and producer will repeat at least three times throughout our interview, for which he asked me to focus more on his activist and socially committed part than on his artistic work. Although it has just become known that Oh, Canada directed by Paul Schrader and starring him and the young man Jacob Elordi will compete in the next edition of Cannes, he removes all the weight from his acting side and considers it just a vector in pursuit of humanitarianism since he joined his creative forces with Overman in 2014.
—Do you watch movies lately?
—The truth is that we don’t go out much. We have three small children. An 11-year-old, a five-year-old, and a four-year-old. So around nine thirty at night we are all asleep. If we watch something, it will be on the big television we have at home.
—But are you aware of the premieres? Do you receive links to your friends’ new works or do they only consume the platforms of streaming?
—Well, we get the screeners from the Academy to the app, so we watch all the big movies that way.
—Do you ever check yours?
-No never. Once we’re done with the movie, I don’t watch it again. I’m a little shy about seeing myself on screen and I don’t really like looking at myself.
—Don’t you even see them with Alejandra or Homer?
—No, none of them have seen many of my films.
—So your son doesn’t have an idea of the caliber of star you are?
—He doesn’t understand it. And it is also very difficult for him to see me on the screen because, even if I play an extreme character, I am still his father and it is difficult for him to get into the story. As it happens, he just started acting too. He has suddenly become interested and seems to enjoy it. He’s been writing and directing little movies, so we have this new thing in common.
—Does he also have a talent for music like you?
-Yeah! And that came out of him too. One of the rules in my house is that you have to pick an instrument and learn to play it, so he started hitting the piano when he was a kid. He studied it for two years and then quit, but I insisted that he had to try something else and he switched to drums, which also didn’t last long. However, a couple of years ago he started playing with his own band in college and is now a vocalist in a punk band.
Richard wears a shirt Valentino and pants Prada.
The session with Italian photographers living in the United States Luigi and Iango It was one of the few that the actor has performed in recent years. He had “a good time,” as he confesses. “Our experience with the photographers was very good. Also, since they work in his apartment, they have very good energy,” Alejandra tells me, also on Zoom, a week after my interview with Gere. And she continues: “You saw one and the other alternating to take photos, entering and leaving. ‘Where are they going, what are they doing?’, we asked ourselves. Only at the end, after the four hours we were there with them, did they tell us that they had been cooking for us. They had taken turns and set up a table. They also had their dog there, who is cute, and he sat like one of them, as if he were part of the family. At first, I didn’t understand anything because they hadn’t told me that we were going to a house, and when I arrived a little later than Richard, I was super disconcerted until suddenly I saw my husband with a very wide-brimmed hat and a coat with lapels raised as if he were a detective. I really didn’t understand anything, and while he greeted them I asked them what they had given him. Plus the Succession theme song was playing, all very funny. Even so, or perhaps because of that, I have not seen Richard so comfortable or so loose in a session since I have known him.
One of the best friends of Gere was the photographer Herb Ritts, who died of AIDS in 2002, Alejandra explains to me. “He was a fashion great,” he emphasizes. Richard is very modest and never comments on it, but Herb really started to stand out when he took photographs of him, particularly one at a gas station, with a cigarette in his mouth, standing with his hands clasped behind his neck and a car behind him. One that seems to me supersexy; a little tacky, but sexy. Well, as soon as we left the session, Richard confessed to me the great connection he had felt with Luigi and Iango. ‘I had never found photographers I felt so comfortable with since my friend died,’ he told me, and that made me very happy, because Richard is quite serious. When they photographed me you saw him delighted, sitting in a chair. I kept telling him: ‘Come, let’s make one together. I thought we were going to work together,’ and he repeated: ‘No, no, no, no, no… Just continue with her, she’s spectacular!’ The truth is that we had a good time.
Richard Gere poses with a jacket and t-shirt Emporio Armani.
Despite having been a fashion icon in the eighties, with her unforgettable looks by Armani in American Gigolo, Gere doesn’t seem very interested in fashion. “I have no relationship with fashion at all,” he confesses to me when bringing up the subject. “I have never had it nor do I care. That doesn’t stop him from appreciating a pretty fabric or a sweater, of course. I have a cashmere one, a t-shirt and jeans and sweatpants, nothing special… but no fashion sense. I told the photographers that I would try anything they proposed, but up to a point. I warned them that if I felt ridiculous about someone look “I wouldn’t wear it, but they wanted to play and we tried some different things, although I always prefer clothes to be invisible.” His wife confirms it: “His fashion is me. I buy his clothes because it is true that he is not interested. We always have in our heads the character that he projects in his films, so elegant, and it is not that he is the antithesis, but it is true that he is comfortable and requires a lot of help to fill his closet. He often tells me that he doesn’t need that much, but he has to answer that he only has two shirts. For him, the issue of shopping is a bit of a tug of war, although he still enjoys picking up things for me or giving his opinion when we go to an event. ‘Wait, don’t wear that one. Put that other one on.’ And then there are times when he likes clothes from the movies he makes, clothes from Armani, Brioni, Loro Piana… he always tends to keep something as a souvenir.
Richard Gere wears a T-shirt and pants Emporio Armani.
“His fashion is me. “I buy his clothes because he’s not interested.”
Alejandra Gere
Before maintaining In both conversations with the couple, I was able to ask opinions about Gere from different people who have worked with him throughout all these years in his work as an activist; people like the president of the International Campaign for Tibet, Tencho Gyatso, who highlights his fundamental work to raise the profile of the organization: “He has contributed enormously towards the fulfillment of our mission of preserving Tibetan culture”; o Laura Lanuza, spokesperson for the humanitarian group Open Arms, who works closely with its founder, Oscar Fields. Upon hearing her name, Gere cuts me off:
—If you’ve tried to talk to Oscar, you’ll have noticed that he’s a little busy these days helping in Gaza. I spoke with them the day before yesterday about his incredible work bringing food to the conflict zone with the chef Jose Andres who is also a friend of mine. The crisis taking place there is horrible. We can find culprits everywhere, but what is happening to civilians is heartbreaking; There are women, children, and elderly people who are just trying to get through the day, just like any of us. I think if there’s anything we can do to help them, we should do it. That is why I am very grateful to José Andrés, who appears whenever there is a crisis in any region of the world. I am a big fan of his and consider him my friend. Open Arms has also been doing extraordinary things for a decade. You Spaniards should be proud to have these two heroes. They are really special people.
