“The officer and gentleman was not a turning point in my career” – Corriere.it

Officer, gentleman but also very late (nearly two hours), Richard Gere – with one of those smiles that made him an icon, because not everyone can smile even with their eyes – left himself to be forgiven by the many who were waiting for him at the Magna Grecia Film Festival , which the star was a special guest yesterday. The pretext for this invitation was to celebrate his fortieth birthday An officer and a gentleman, specially. A movie etched in fantasy, and to reference that fantasy again, one could say that the actor owes a lot: joining the cast as a successful young actor, he gained international fame from that movie in 1982. But, who is 72 years old today, reveals : I never considered that a turning point, actually. I consider myself very fortunate to have been involved in it, but for me the film was a turning point in my career.”days of paradise (1978 film directed by Terrence Malik). I consider it my real debut.

to get him to wear Taylor Hackford had to rewrite the script with him, the uniform of the US Navy: he suggested it to me after meeting me at a restaurant in New York, but to me it seemed too emotional. I loved Hackford documentaries, so I told him that if we wanted to move forward, we were going to have to rewrite the script, make it blunter, more realistic. We’ve been working on it for months. The result was a resounding success. Even Bertolucci, whom I admired, praised me – says Gere -. He told me he liked the movie, too, but didn’t like the political message. I asked him what the political message was. “When the army enters the factory, the workers applaud.”

dignified and polite In his story, Gere also revealed something about another cult like Pretty woman: No one expected to be successful. We thought it was a small movie, and not because it sparked that definition in everyone who watched it. Something magical happened, a spell… But these aren’t things you can decide at the table… How to fall in love: You don’t choose to do it, it just happens. That is why no remake or sequel to the film was made: there were no projects in this sense. I understand the motivation at the business level would have been… Every now and then Julia and I were asked, “What do you think if we tell how the characters came to be,” but we never got past the conversation because it was artistically made meaningless.

Among other things This does not make any sense for the actor, there is a tendency: I understand that I feel real pain for the directors, but all I did was collaborate with them. Maybe that’s also why I didn’t feel the need to debut as a director… It’s not that it would never happen, but I’m satisfied with what I’ve done so far… Regardless. From a few movies… Then, after I had four children, I decided to devote a lot of time and energy to them. Energies that are nourished by Buddhism (but I don’t expect anyone to become one, I just hope everyone finds their own way to be happy), but at the same time consumed by anxiety given what is happening in the world. I am a child in World War II and so far we are in a critical moment, after the Russian invasion but also because of China. Thus, even if I am an absolute pacifist, I believe it is necessary to protect those in difficulty.