Richard Gere
"A Long Way from Hollywood Blvd."
Richard Gere has done it all from thrillers like Primal Fear to romantic comedies like Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride to dramas like Unfaithful and Nights In Rodanthe. And through it all, his basic appeal of good looks and straitlaced nice guy demeanor has never wavered with audiences.
But now, Gere is prepared to push the envelope of his celebrity image further than he ever has before with the urban drama Brooklyn's Finest, in which he plays Eddie Dugan, a worn-down veteran cop. The 60 year-old actor first discussed what attracted him to the role.
"I read the script and I thought this was, it's essentially three short stories, isn't it?" Richard says, "And they interconnect in very tangential ways. Not obvious at all, but the sum of its parts are greater than the parts in a story like this. They somehow feed each other emotionally, psychologically, spiritually without ever really touching each other. I thought, this is a really interesting structure here, kind of mysterious how this work."
"Then, when I knew Michael C. Martin's story of where this thing came from, that he had written it on spec and really had never written anything before intrigued me even more," he adds, "I like the relationship with the hooker in this story. I thought that was unusual and just by nature of this movie, there's so much stuff that you'll never see that Shannon [Kane] and I did that was wonderful."
What Richard felt set apart Brooklyn's Finest from other cop dramas, he says, is how nuanced each of the characters are, from the cops played by himself, Don Cheadle, and Ethan Hawke, to even the prostitute.
"I think all of our emotions are mysterious," he says, "Look, we're dealing with a lot of self-loathing in this movie. I think all these characters, I think, have a high degree of self-loathing in them and find high degrees of masking them."
"I think a prostitute certainly has a lot of self-loathing in her and not wanting to succeed, not wanting to be happy at some level," Gere continues, "I think it's the same thing with my character, not wanting it, wanting to fail somewhere, not because he has to, just because there is a flaw."
It's this aspect, Gere adds, that sets
Richard Gere
"A Long Way from Hollywood Blvd."
the film above the usual run-of-the-mill gung-ho action usually seen in films centered around police officers."That's what I kind of like about it," he believes, "It was hard to figure out how to dramatize this. If it was a novel, there would be an interior monologue explaining a lot of this stuff. And he's fairly passive, this guy, just doesn't want to get involved, and the closest he gets to action is killing himself, which he can't even do. We found out we were going to have to invent a lot. Me singing to her, I suggested it at a certain point, just about self-loathing and and kind of understanding quickly these characters. The other cop with Shannon that I hear from outside the door, that wasn't in the original script, but it just seemed like a moment."
"And then he comes in and says, 'Look, I don't judge anything. It's OK,'" Richard adds, "That's genuine from his side. It's not cover. He's seen so much. He doesn't judge anybody anymore. He only judges himself. And that's an interesting character to me. And it's not a gun-happy guy, it's not a physically intimidating guy, does his job. There was nothing kind of unusual about his career. He was a ghost, so yeah. I think it's juxtaposed against these other stories which are much more action-oriented kind of presences in the film, but it brought its own element to the story."
We wondered whether Richard now feels the life of a police officer is often marred by a bad rap after having worked on the film.
"No, I think their life is misunderstood," Gere replies, "I don't think they are misunderstood. I think it's a rough life. I think a lot of broken marriages, a lot of self-loathing, that's on the negative side of it."
"The positive side of it is whenever we're in trouble, we call a cop," he continues, "I think it was Serpico, someone was talking about cops and they're pigs and all that and I think [Al] Pacino got into someone's face and said, 'Look, when you're in trouble, you call daddy, don't you? And that's me!' And that's what we all do."
Gere shared some positive experiences he has had with police officers.
"I don't think you're
Richard Gere
"A Long Way from Hollywood Blvd."
taught in the beginning that cops are going to be your best friend," Richard recalls, "Of course, every time you're driving and you see a cop car on the side of road or behind you, you get a little (grunts). But look, these are just guys doing a job and, for the most part, well motivated, that they're there to help. I've gotten to know some cops a lot and I'm kind of amazed about how intuitive they are about people and about situations.""There was one cop where I live and there was a U-Haul that came through town and just something that said that's wrong, I don't know why that U-Haul is coming through," he adds, "But he pulled it over and it turned out that it had some stolen stuff in the back. And it was just some instinct that they innately have or have developed because they're professionals. They're top professionals. A sense of feeling when something's off or when something's needed, but being connected to their environment in a way that we really aren't and I really admire that."
Richard shared his experience of working with the film's director Antoine Fuqua, whose films include Training Day, Tears Of The Sun, King Arthur, and Shooter.
"I enjoyed the process of evolving this," he says, "I was shooting two other films at the time, so this kind of fit in with the other ones. And by the nature, it was that much money to do this thing. In New York, pretty big-sized stuff going on and we had to own a lot of streets when we were shooting this and a lot of locations. But in the process of casting, he and I got to spend a lot of time together. We were talking about maybe this actress or that actress. Like Shannon, we tested on it about three times with her and some actresses about as many times as well."
"But that process was trying to figure out how to do to tell the story of this guy, which is essentially a literary character, not an action character and highlight moments that were illuminate his interior life without saying it," Gere adds, "He was essentially a silent character. He's a reactor. But I think Antoine
Richard Gere
"A Long Way from Hollywood Blvd."
was really good in that. I enjoyed doing that. When I saw the rest of the film and how he had also can do the action stuff, too, this kind of pumped-up adrenaline kind of storytelling, it's kind of unusual that someone can do both."Gere goes on to say he enjoyed working with Fuqua because he considers him an "egoless" director.
"I think he comes fresh everyday, which I really like," he says, "He comes fresh to the shoot everyday. Depending on what's going on, we move. There are some directors who will come six months in advance and put marks on the floor where the camera is going to be. This is where this lens is here and there and there and there and we're out of here. Antoine is very free and I like to work that way because you never know what kind of energy you'll have that day or idea that comes up that is going to be better than what we had before, that we had planned for."
"So he's able to move quickly right and left and up and down and we were able to capture, I think, some things that were pretty spontaneous," Richard adds, "He's not afraid of that at all and I think you have to be egoless to come into a situation clean. I think the directors that I work best with were able to do that. It wasn't what they were imposing or what they thought, but being able to feel what was going on and being able to capture whatever that was and allow it to be special."
The film was shot in the New York City boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, which Richard said suited him nicely, since he is a resident.
"I live in New York, so I can go home at night, so that's a big deal to me," he claims, "So, plus, I know this city right now, so I'm quite comfortable here."
Gere shared some of the stuff that didn't make the film, particularly involving more scenes between Eddie and the prostitute Chantel.
"There was a lot of stuff between us, really unusual, more unusual relationship," Richard reveals, "It wasn't just physical. There's other stuff going on. But, again, it was unbalancing the
Richard Gere
"A Long Way from Hollywood Blvd."
movie, in terms of these three short stories."Richard discussed for us the difference between the traditional prostitute encounter and Eddie's in the film.
"Well, he's real about it," he explains, "When he says, come with me, he means it, here. He thinks it's a genuine relationship, but it's in a deeper situation. As I said, there's a lot of stuff that is not in this movie that we shot, but the relationship is clearly one of a client and a hooker. But that to me is not the important part of this. It's not what I take away from this. Antoine and I frankly had arguments about this because I wanted more of the other stuff in this and I still think there should have been more of that other stuff in it. But I don't think if it had been purely sexual, I don't think any of those scenes would work, I don't think they'd have any content to them. If there was a sense of being exploited or abused in any way, I don't think they would work. I mean, there's clarity in it."
"I think from her point of view, I think it's interesting, when he says, 'When you look at me, what do you see?'" Gere continues, "And she says nothing, clearly, she sees something dark. Self-loathing is what she sees, in the deepest, possible sense and instead of talking about it, she goes and gets a pillow and sits down and starts servicing him. That's her way of communicating. I don't judge that any more than my character does. I don't judge that at all. I don't find that exploitive in any way, one way or the other. It's how people express themselves."
Gere explained a pivotal scene in the film where Eddie removes his badge and persuades Chantel to come away with him.
"I think it was a pure spontaneous impulse," he believes, "It was the cop's impulse and it was ironic that he acted on the pure cop's impulse after he gave up his badge. Before that, it was, don't get involved, you're going to see stuff everyday, you can't get involved, just get through the day."
"Don't reduce this too much," Richard continues, "These are complex things. It's not just that. He
Richard Gere
"A Long Way from Hollywood Blvd."
gave up the badge, he actually went out of his way in saying to this girl who was the only relationship that he has in the world, 'Let's get out of this, come with me, I want you the way you are, you don't have to be anything else.' She says no. They're both incapable of dealing with these kind of emotions. But I think these are much more complex things than reducing them to connect the dots"Though Richard says he would not go so far as to use the experience of playing a police officer to try and be more heroic in real life.
"I'm not foolish, man," Gere notes, "I'm not going to jump into the middle of a fight, that's for sure. I think everyone has that impulse to help, but look, these guys with guns, you don't jump in the middle of that. That's insane. Look, cops, teachers, I'd rather them get the money than the bankers and CEO's. At least, they get to be in a nice, clean office all day. Let that be their perk and let's give the money to our teachers and cops."
