AUGUST 2017 AWW.COM.AU 49
© DIEGO UCHITEL/TRUNK ARCHIVE/SNAPPER MEDIA. GETTY IMAGES.
Richard as
Norman (top) in
the film of the
same name and
with his friend,
the Dalai Lama, in
Brussels last year.he’d been told he and his
family could never leave
China again if he did.
So, is it the China
factor that’s caused
Richard departure from
mainstream Hollywood?
“Not at all, not at all,”
he says. “It’s just a
choice. I am making
the films I have always
made. It’s just that they
are not being made in
the studios anymore.
Independent movies
are made cheaper
and quicker.”
Does he care that he
is not allowed into China?
“Yes because I would like to
help the Chinese people. The
Chinese policies are based on no
protection or civil rights for the
Chinese, as well as the Tibetans.
But it’s not just me that is not
allowed into China – if you
are aligned to human rights
organisations or the Dalai Lama,
or you are a human rights lawyer,
you are not allowed in. The UN
is not allowed in to monitor the
situation, no one is.”
After his speech in
1993, there was a
period when the Oscar
organisers made it clear
he was unwelcome, which
may make it difficult ifNorman – which opened
in Australia in late May – is nominated. “That
was true, but I was rehabilitated a few years ago.”
says Richard. “I was invited back – they changed
producers on the show.”
He sounds very nonchalant about this. In the
past few years, he says, he has deliberately opted
for films that were shot near home so that he
could be hands on with his 17-year-old son,
Homer. He shares custody of Homer with ex-wife
Carey Lowell, whom he married in 2002. They
split around 10 years later, but the divorce was
only finalised in 2016. Before that, in the early
1990s, he was married to supermodel Cindy
Crawford, none of which he is going to talk
about, partly because he is private and partly
because he thinks it’s too frivolous. “I made a
decision that until Homer left home, I don’t want
to work further away than New York and now
we are just looking at colleges for him.” »not feel angry. He gets
frustrated, but we don’t
see him angry. There is
nothing dark inside of this
guy. I called him a holy
fool. There is something
Chaplinesque about him,
the way he is in The Tramp.
He’d never want to hurt
anybody, yet there were
so many defeats and
humiliations. Everyone
has a Norman in their life
and they usually try to
keep them away.”
Maybe everyone has
a little of Norman in
themselves. Someone who is
eager to please, constantly taking
rebuffs, always overly available.
Or is it that we all dread being that
person? “Exactly,” says Richard.
“We all want to feel love and be
wanted when we walk into a room,
but we all don’t push ourselves like
Norman does. I don’t think Norman
even sees it as a rejection. We would
see it as a humiliation, but his
emotional framework doesn’t really
have that language. He is able to
transform defeats and humiliations.”
It’s been years since
Richard did a Hollywood
blockbuster-style movie.
He has charted a new
terrain for himself in
independent movies,
starting with Arbitrage in 2012 and he is happy
there. Earlier this year, The Hollywood Reporter
said Richard Gere was, in fact, ostracised from
the Hollywood franchise-type movie because
of the China factor. As a practising Buddhist and
long-time friend of the exiled Tibetan Dalai Lama,
he infamously made an impassioned speech at
the 1993 Oscars when he went way off script
while presenting the Best Art Direction category,
using the moment to draw attention to China’s
“horrendous, horrendous human rights situation”.
These days, it is much more de rigueur for a
presenter or award winner to use their chance
with a billion people watching as a platform
to promote their chosen cause, but then it was
radical and Richard was one of the pioneers.
Rumour has it that because China is such a big
market for Hollywood films, it doesn’t want
Richard involved. One story goes that a Chinese
director had to turn down work with Richard as“ I spend a lot of time with
my son. He’s a busy kid.”