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Recently Released In Theaters Reviews
2008 FALL MOVIE PREVIEW Blindness How to Lose Friends & Alienate People Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist Flash of Genius Beverly Hills Chihuahua Forever Strong Eagle Eye Miracle at St. Anna Choke Nights in Rodanthe My Best Friends Girl Lakeview Terrace Battle in Seattle Igor Recently Added Spotlights Clark Gregg Sean Faris Charlize Theron Stuart Townsend Justin Hartley Samuel L. Jackson Patrick Wilson Kerry Washington Meg Ryan Jada Pinkett Smith Eva Mendes Debi Mazar Alan Ball Nicolas Cage Anna Faris |
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 Richard Gere
Interview By: Michael Dance Early in our interview with Richard Gere, someone asks whether actors are just putting on a performance when they talk to the press. "Sure. Of course you are," he says. "It doesn't mean it's not true." It's that polite but frank honesty that has turned Gere into a highly respected actor, a feat he accomplished almost subliminally a few years ago, transforming from the star of Autumn in New York and two Julia Roberts movies to the star of Chicago and smaller independent films like Bee Season. Earlier this year, he won rave reviews for his portrayal of Clifford Irving in The Hoax, and now he's following that up with The Hunting Party, a tongue-in-cheek true story about journalists in Bosnia who go hunting for "the world's most wanted criminal." It's directed by The Matador's Richard Shepard and co-stars Terrence Howard and Jesse Eisenberg. "One of the dangers of making a film like this is you don't want to do Bosnia Lite," Gere says. "You don't want to just use this as a background for a vehicle used as just entertainment, and if that's the way it came across then it would be a failure." Combining the gravity of the situation over there with the quirky humor of the plot was the chief balancing act of making the movie. "It's a peculiar film, obviously, because we have incredible broad humor that goes on in this, it's almost the Three Stooges, and at the same time you have something deeply disturbing and tragic going on. And I think the degree of difficulty of this - like a dive, the degree of difficulty is 9.4 on this movie - is finding a way to bring the two of those together without violating either reality structure." Mixing darkness and humor was also, to a lesser extent, something that director Shepard tried to accomplish on his previous film. "The Matador tried to do that, that seems to be where he's coming from," Gere says. "I admired Matador, I saw there was something there: 'Oh, he's working on a different plane.' I don't know if it was totally successful, I don't think Richard thinks it was totally successful, but okay, he's really trying something unusual here." Of course, a film with political overtones such as this one could subject the actors involved to the wrath of the press complaining about Liberal Hollywood. Gere seems to realize this but gives off the impression that he could care less; he has his own philosophy on the matter: "My whole thing is, if you know something, it doesn't matter if you're an actor or a meatpacker or a streetsweeper. If you know something, you have a responsibility to communicate it. If you don't know anything, you have no responsibility, and you shouldn't. But the few things I have knowledge of, certainly the ... |
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