I'm 57 years old, how much longer can I be a sex symbol? Let's
be realistic.
Richard Gere
The star of 'Pretty Woman', 'An Officer
and a Gentleman' and 'American Gigolo' believes he is too old
to be called a sex symbol. |
I think Clifford had a great deal of self-loathing that he
was dealing with. He's just like us; we all lie and we all cheat,
and even if we don't do it, we think it and we could at any
moment. There's nothing that he does in this movie that we haven't
done to some degree, and some us do much worse than these sorts
of lies. He even convinces himself of the stories he's telling.
You can see that when he talking, he's like a bad actor. You
don't quite believe him but you know that he believes what he's
saying.
Richard Gere
On playing Clifford Irving, who falsely
claimed to have written the official autobiography of Howard
Hughes, in the 2007 movie 'The Hoax'. |
I have always said that it's very flattering to be desired,
just as it's flattering that people accept the reality of the
character you play, but it was always ridiculous to assume that
because I could play a gigolo on screen I would be anything
like that off the screen.
Richard Gere
Referring to his 1980 movie 'American Gigolo'
which catapulted him to stardom and made him an instant sex
symbol. |
Why is it when we have 10 million people in this country who
say "No", we still have a president who says "Yes."
In a democracy, something's wrong here.
Richard Gere |
We've had too many World AIDS Days.
Richard Gere |
I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe,
and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm
a giraffe.
Richard Gere
To British newspaper The Guardian, June
2002. |
I cry every chance I get.
Richard Gere |
His Holiness is my root guru, and he's been quite tough with
me at times.
Richard Gere
On Dalai Lama. |
His Holiness said, if you can love and respect an insect,
something we instinctively are repulsed by, then that's a huge
step.
Richard Gere
On Dalai Lama. |
In film, we're playing with something that literally fragments
reality, and being aware of the fragmentation of time and space
I think lends itself to the practice, to loosening the mind.
There is nothing real about film. Nothing. Even the light particles
that project the film can't be proven to exist. Nothing is there.
We know that when we're making it; we're the magicians doing
the trick. But even we get caught up in thinking that it is
all real-that these emotions are real, that this object really
exists, that the camera is picking up some reality.
On the other hand, there is some magical sense that the camera
sees more than our eyes do. It sees into people in a way that
we don't normally. So there's a vulnerability to being in front
of the camera that one doesn't have to endure in normal life.
There's a certain amount of pressure and stress in that. You
are being seen, you are really being seen, and there is no place
to hide.
Richard Gere |
Sex
and the City
