Richard Gere Interview

Emmanuel Itier: How challenging was it for you to become Clifford Irving — especially in terms of your physical appearance?

Richard Gere: Well, there was not too much pressure for me to look like him exactly, because nobody knows what he looks like. Sometimes you have to really look like the character you’re playing because people are familiar with his appearance. Not here. There was so much footage on Clifford, so I looked a lot to footage. Also, he is very tall so I had to lift myself in my shoes to look taller. He also has a high forehead like a professor. Also, my hair was all over the place and I had also to alter the look of my nose because he had some nose problem and the doctors did a mess on his face. It was, for me, like doing Richard III. I had to understand his interior flaws.

EI: Did you meet people who knew him?

RG: Yes, I met several people who had met him before I shot the movie. They talked about him and said he was a real charming guy. He loved to have a “salon”. And actually most of these events took place in Ibiza. This is where he concocted all these events. Ibiza was his idea of being Hemingway. He never achieved the kind of recognition he thought he deserved. This “expatriate” life he had was his shot at being Hemingway when he was in Cuba. He had a very romantic view of himself as a writer. What’s filtered here is that he never had a chance to achieve his early promise of where he should be in the world. I really enjoyed “Fake”, the book he wrote about all of this. It’s great imaginative writing. He talks about himself from an emotional and psychological point of view.

EI: The movie is about, partly, the concept of being recognized and being important. Why is it that we have these cravings?

RG: We don’t know ourselves. We want it from the outside, not from the inside.

EI: Is it that also we’re part of a society putting pressures on us and expectations? Aren’t we already okay, but it’s the outside world trying to tell us we’re not okay?

RG: The outside is also a reflection of our interior world. To people like Jesus Christ or Buddha, their experiences of the world were very different. They didn’t see the world that we see. From a physical point of view, they didn’t see the same world.

EI: What do you think of this man who transformed the truth? Was he a fake?

RG: Ironically, he actually told the truth, and this is why his little lie was connected with the larger lie of Nixon and the war. It’s the irony of it that he guessed about it, and he was right. He invented the truth, but, in fact, it was the truth. And we still have a lot of people around us inventing the truth. The parallel with the United States is very clear. The Viet Nam and Iraq Wars–it was a lie that got us into the Viet Nam War and it’s a lie, “the weapons of mass destruction”, that got us into Iraq. The lie turned into thousands of deaths and a nation destroyed. This president we have is a liar. Everyone lies in this government. This is totally unthinkable and insane! Therefore, this film resonates way beyond the caper it is. It’s more than just the tale of a guy who makes up a story. The difficulty was to find the tone that would allow for the small and the big story–the small lie and the big lie. It’s also very slapstick. Some of it is really emotional and to show what people go through in this case. Also, it was metaphysical to show that there are dark forcers in the universe and they are moving us in a mysterious ways. We will never know if there are puppeteers moving everything. Howard Hughes was unique. He was eccentric, but he also essentially founded the oil business and the aviation business. He also founded so many movies. And you put this together with his famous affairs with the beautiful actresses of the time, and you get an amazing man. It’s sex, power and money all put together. This is a guy that was running the show. He was not selling anything. There aren’t so many people like that. There aren’t any Howard Hugheses today in our world.

EI: Have you ever be the victim of some type of “hoax” about you– somebody writing something ridiculous about you?

RG: I have stopped reading the press a long time ago. Sure, lots of crazy things about me came up, especially from tabloids at first, and I expected this. But when some reputable magazines started to also make up stories that I was in a place I never was, or in a country where I never went, or with someone that I didn’t even know, I’m not getting involved with them anymore. It’s a waste of time and energy for me. It has nothing to do with me, so I let it go.

EI: What makes up for longevity in Hollywood? How do you explain you’re still on top of your game after all these years?

RG: I have no idea. I have no answer to that. This is all a mystery…

EI: Is it sex appeal?

RG: I know you want me to say that, but I really have no idea. I’m really fortunate. I thought I was good at being an actor way back, but there were also other very talented people. Somewhat I’m still here and they’re not. So I’m not sure how it works.

EI: Do you think you wanted more than the others maybe?

RG: My life is very rich, believe me. It’s way beyond movies. I don’t need movies to function. I enjoy making a movie, but it’s a job. It’s a project, like a kid in kindergarten that is given a project. It’s fun, and I love working with other people and being creative.

EI: Do you enjoy producing more than acting?

RG: I have done it, but it’s really not fun to me.

EI: You are involved also with lots of projects for peace lately, especially for peace between Israel and Palestine. How come?

RG: I think this is such a small world, and what’s going on over there affects us tremendously. I do lots of AIDS work, and if there is a mutation of a virus that appears in a brothel in Thailand or in Bangkok, the next day it’s in New York. It’s that quick. I don’t think that there is any question of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and I have dear friends on both sides of this conflict. Well, it you can stop this conflict, I think 95% of the problems of the planet go away. It’s a huge responsibility. It’s just not about you, it’s about the rest of us. We’re all connected. There is genuine resolution for this conflict. First, it’s about the huge amount of pain there is over there, on both sides. There is lots of pain in Israel, but there is also a group that never has been acknowledged: the Palestinians. To create this situation, lots of people had to suffer, and this is to be acknowledged–this huge amount of pain. We can’t solve violence by more violence. We did the same thing here after 9/11, when the president went into more violence and more war, instead of seeing an opportunity here to realize and try to understand what’s going on–where is this violence coming from? Who is it coming from? Why are they doing this? And the assumption is that they’re doing this because they are mad-dog animals. Same thing in Israel–they think Palestinians are mad-dog animals with no respect for human lives, but that’s insane. When, in fact, everyone wants the best for their children–to be healthy and educated. We want opportunities for our families. We don’t want to be humiliated daily, and this is part of the main problem. We are all connected and we have to recognize it. The poverty and misery in a far distant place is connected to the ones we have here.

EI: How do we solve poverty in the world?

RG: Again, we are so rich here and in Europe. If we took just 10% of the GNP and effectively used that money for food, hospitals, schools…I’m convinced we can solve the problem of poverty.

EI: Is it also that we don’t have leader–real leaders, like a Jesus Christ, a JFK, a Ghandi…?

RG: Yes, this is true, but there is some awakening that seems to happen. Look now, for example, how so many magazines are talking about the environmental issues of the planet, and some of these magazines try to show how we need to be practical about being “green” and that this is truly accessible to all of us. On all levels, people need to keep talking and communicating. But again, it all starts with recognizing we are all suffering, and it’s hard for some people to do that. It’s about letting the ego dictate us instead of being humble and honest about it, about our suffering. We all have the same problems, but we also have the same solutions, and we can do it together.

EI: In what effective way do you get involved?

RG: In many ways. Right now, for example, I started a program for micro insurance in India. Insurance in the third world is a pioneering idea. We have come up with a program that covers people for most medical problems for 120 rupis a year–that’s $3.00 a year per person! And this is for anything to be done. We can afford to pay for the third world to have it. Immediately, this takes lots of people out of the circle of debt, especially because most of the debts people have in these countries are about medicals bills that needed to be paid for a member of a family. It’s incredible how they get in debt for generations just because someone got sick. This is one example of the work I’m doing.

EI: Any other key program like this one you’re working on?

RG: Yes, it has to do with the incarceration and judicial system. Ninety-eight percent of people in jails are people of color. There is a wrong idea that people of color are genetically prone to these kinds of problems. This is insane. Actually, you can see that there are areas, more than others, where a high percentage of people end up in jail. And of course, when you go in these areas, you find out there is very poor education, little health care, and no community sense. If there are around 150 people whose lives will be spent in and out of jail, it will cost close to a billion dollars during that lifetime for everything. But if you take a portion of that money and invest in these communities, in health care, community services…you’re creating a protective, safe community. And that’s sane, but people think it’s not. It’s hard to change the system because everyone has a living attached, and unions are very strong in the penitential system. But it’s about showing them, the guards in the jail, that they could do some other type of work instead of being stuck working in such a depressing environment. The jail work force has a huge rate of alcoholics and suicides because it’s such a tough environment. We need to create other opportunities for these people. The irony is that if we don’t do anything, both the prisoners and the prison guards’ children will end up behind bars. It’s a cycle we need to break. We need to create opportunities and incentive for people. We need to motivate people to think differently and efficiently.

EI: The movie shows also that we’re living in a society that forgets about the consequences of its acts–a society that doesn’t want to be accountable or responsible.

RG: There is indeed a connection about lies–a lie from a writer creating a book of fiction about Howard Hughes, and a president lying about huge things. And indeed it’s about responsibility and accountability.

EI: What was the appeal of this Clifford Irving for you?

RG: First of all, it was a really good script. It was beautifully structured. The particular appeal was that the character has his own issues that we all have, which also resonated into the much larger universe, meaning Nixon, Watergate…you know, the world, Supreme Court–much bigger stuff. I thought that was really interesting, especially for an actor, who’s almost lying all the time. It’s great!

EI: Do you think he’s a psychopath?

RG: No!

EI: So what was the appeal of this guy for you? Because he’s sort of unusual. So what was it that you liked about the script or the character here?

RG: Well first off, it was a really good script with beautiful structure–beautifully written, and a lot of surprises in it. I think that, in particular, the appeal was the characters were real. They all have their own issues–issues that we all have, but it also resonated in a much larger universe, meaning Nixon and Watergate, the world, the Supreme Court, and much bigger stuff. I thought that was really interesting to play with for an actor–for someone who’s lying all the time.

EI: Spinning things?

RG: No, not spinning things.

EI: Well, he didn’t need to do this. Why did he do it?

RG: He did it because it was fun. Under the surface, it was fun. I don’t think that he thought he was hurting anyone. I think that he really felt like every step along the way, I think that he figured he was going to get caught and he’d give the money back. You have to understand that the time it came out of too was a time…I’m not sure if anyone here is as old as me. That was different.

EI: The book he wrote was surprisingly unapologetic.

RG: Really?

EI: Yeah. Did you read the book?

RG: I did read the book. He was a funny character. He was going to do an interview with me in New York and he cancelled, so I still haven’t met him. What was I talking about before this?

EI: The time this happened.

RG: Right. The time was Happenings. You might remember Happenings, but none of these people will. It was a time, in the art world, where it was the end of the ’60s. Literally, ’71 is when the story takes place, but they came out in the ’60s, and he was kind of never a hippie, but he was like a college professor who had hippie students and was kind of looked up to. He was kind of a Timothy Leary, in a way. He was a cross between Timothy Leary and Hemingway, I think, was his self-vision. Though I never heard him say Timothy Leary, I think he kind of saw himself that way inside.

EI: Like a guru kind of thing?

RG: Like a guru. And there were always women around, and he had his salon in Ibiza. What we do in upstate New York was Ibiza, where all that took place, where he came up with the idea and it was all kind of found.

EI: Were you familiar with the book before the movie?

RG: No, but again, to take it a little further, it was a time when people did things just to shake it up. People’s lives and actions and schemes that they had were like, “Lets take this and turn it upside down.” It wasn’t negative, but it was more like, “Lets just find the humor in our world by flipping it upside down.” I think that, in a way, I believe he thought of this as a Happening–as a kind of an art object, an expression. At the same time, I think it was fueled by a lot of frustration and maybe anger, on his side, that he was not getting the kind of attention that he thought he deserved as a writer.

EI: You decided not to meet with him. What was that based upon? Were you afraid that you’d have to do a performance that was close to who he actually was?

RG: Well, yeah, but he’s obviously a highly manipulative person, and I had the good sense of what I wanted to do with the role. I’d done enough research. I don’t think that this movie is pretending to be a documentary on him. There is one scene that clearly did not happen. The whole thing with the prostitute did not happen, but was a scene used as a dramatic device to show how far this guy would go.

EI: Also the helicopter didn’t happen, right?

RG: He said that it did and then he said it didn’t. Almost everything was taken from notes that he had given the producer when he was developing the script, so he was very contradictory about many of the things that he said. He invented almost everything as he went along and continues to, I’m sure. In any event, I would be happy to meet him. I think that there is some wonderful writing in the fake autobiography. There is some wonderful writing in there. Aside from whether or not it was all fake, there was wonderful writing–just the quality of writing, about himself. He talks about himself. He talks about himself as a journeyman writer, and it seems to be a really interesting self-exploration of Clifford. And then talking about the connection that he had with Howard (Hughes). It was kind of like, “Why me? Why did he pick me?” It was a wonderful improvisation–the whole “why me” thing. There is some really beautiful stuff in there.

EI: Some parts of the film are reflective of our time. In what way do you think that this film is reflective of what’s going on right now in our world?

RG: Oh, well, look at the newspapers. We have a president, a vice president, a Secretary of Defense and an Attorney General; obviously these are people who lie constantly–constantly. The ramifications are that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people dead. Are they in jail? Clifford was in jail, I think, for a year and a half or something. You’d have to ask Marcia (Gay Harden), because I think she would know better than me.

EI: Did the parallels of the script to today’s world also interest you?

RG: Sure, of course. We were using Nixon, but really it’s any president in that same position. We’ve had some really incompetent administrations–probably none as incompetent as this one, though. I was talking about this earlier, but everyone here would admit that we have a president who’s incompetent, and we elected him twice. We also are responsible in that we didn’t call enough people out to try and convince them otherwise. We didn’t go out into the streets enough. You have to take responsibility for this. We didn’t do enough. We all could’ve done more.

EI: For someone who’s interviewed a lot, if you found yourself in the Howard Hughes position like in this movie, how would you deal with it?

RG: It happens constantly. Constantly. It happened just last week. I read a thing and I was like, “What?!’ It was in a major publication, one that you would think was above reproach. It happens constantly. Do I get pissed off about it? Sure I do. The time that’s wasted doing the interview to begin with when this thing doesn’t reflect at all what was said. Then there are the ones that are just made up where I’ve never even met the person.

EI: Can you name the publication?

RG: No.

EI: What was the most fun part about playing a character that’s engaging and charming but then betrays his friends and is completely unreliable all rolled into one?

RG: (Laughs) You make him sound so attractive. I think that a decision that I felt strongly about when we started the picture was that he had to be kinetic. He’s got to be in motion all the time, like a shark. He can’t stop. The water has to be going through the gills. Part of that is, and this is kind of a death wish on his part, that he’s always putting himself into the worst possible situations where he can fail the largest and it demands that he come up with something extraordinary to get out of it. I guess the fun part of watching the movie is thinking, “How is he going to get out of this?” And then he comes up with something that’s even more out-there than what he just had before. That kind of spontaneous improvisation was fun as an actor, certainly.

EI: There was a scene in this where he had his hair slicked back and had the mustache and was looking very much like Howard Hughes. Was that your idea?

RG: I think that was my idea. I wanted to…actually, I said, “Lets get a jacket like the ones that you see on ‘The Aviator’.” I said, “What about if he’s starting to put a mustache on.” It didn’t feel too crazy at that point, but then he’s standing over the mirror and kind of improvising it, and then obviously it becomes progressively crazier when you see him do that.

EI: What was it like working with Alfred Molina?

RG: Alfred is the top. There is no one better than him. There is no one nicer than him. There is no one more creative or choosy than him. This is a love story between two men, basically, and, I mean, he’s the best lover I’ve ever had. (Laughs)