© DIEGO UCHITEL/TRUNK ARCHIVE/SNAPPER MEDIA.[ Celebrity]
46 AWW.COM.AUAUGUST 2017
Still handsome at
67, Richard Gere
says he stays in
shape by working
on his rural
property and
watching his diet.He’s one of Hollywood’s favourite leading men, but his recent movie
Normanis a complete change of direction and already being
Oscar-touted.Chrissy Ileymeets the enigmatic Richard Gere
and discovers the secret to his inner calm.
passion about his work and his philanthropy, and
with great love for his dog Billie, a 15-year-old
female mutt he rescued when she was a puppy.
How did Norman the character evolve? “We
had a lot of time,maybe nine months, before
shooting,” Richard says. “The decision-making
process was a careful one. I let it sink in very
slowly. I had a lot of questions because this was
a unique character, so I didn’t want to make
choices too soon that wouldn’t allow him to
be as unique as he could be.”
He talks as if it is a very fine marinade he is
creating, letting the spice and nuance seep into
his role. “We worked on
all levels – what he wore,
what he looked like, his
emotional mechanisms,
psychology – everything
about him was just very slow burn and then,
one day, he just started showing up. He has got
a unique emotional foundation, this guy, he
doesn’t react to things the way we do.”
Indeed, that is why it is so disconcerting to see
Richard as a character who is constantly rejected,
but keeps going on, who wants to not only earn
connections and make his percentage, but to
make people happy.
“He does this peculiar thing,” says Richard.
“Most of us, when we get hurt, the pain is too
much, so we turn it into anger. Anger is much
easier for us to deal with. I don’t know how he
could still have blood flowing in his veins and»W
e all think of Richard Gere as
the archetypal sexy leading
man, the eternal American
Gigolo, an Officer and a
Gentleman. And for a couple of
decades he was voted sexiest man alive repeatedly.
Handsome, sophisticated, suave, impeccable ...
which is thecomplete opposite of his character
in the recent movieNorman– a small-time New
York Jewish fixer, he is making connections that
we don’t quite believe in, yet he refuses to be
rebuffed. He wears a camel coat and a cap, and we
don’t know where he lives or anything about his
family, yet by the end of the
movie we know Norman.
Richard has become the
character in a performance
so deep and full, it has
resonated across the US. At this time of year, there
is rarely talk of Oscars, but this is being talked
about as the best performance of his career, an
Oscar shoo-in. Yet it’s so totally against type.
Norman moves in a different way. You can see
him thinking, while Richard, you can’t really tell
what he’s thinking. He is languid, confidently
relaxed as he talks at his home in the countryside
outside New York. He is looking out onto his
fields and a walkway going up to the woods.
“This is my favourite place in the world, in
the middle of nowhere,” he muses. Richard the
person likes it that way, too – remote and hidden.
He is mentally private, yet he speaks with open“We all want to feel love
and be wanted.”
finds
happiness
Richard
Gere