Richard Gere talks working with Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride, what JLo thought of his dancing in 'Shall We Dance', and his first project ever.
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00:00Oh, I'm so scared. Look, I'm only 95 years old. Do you expect me to remember all this stuff?
00:04I'm exhausted from this. Can I lie down and have a nap?
00:12Impossible Relationships. My special gift is Impossible Relationships. That sounds like Pretty Woman.
00:18But I couldn't tell you where it was in the movie.
00:22My special gift is Impossible Relationships.
00:25That movie was really about Gary Marshall, the director. It was his sensibility. It was his heart. It was his humor. It was his humanness.
00:36He just had a light touch. But he also liked to have fun. It was a good time for Julia and me, and we were at the right place at the right time.
00:46But I think that story, it still touches people. I'm amazed all over the world.
00:50I improvised that. That was just an improvisation.
00:58But that scene came from, Gary and I were talking, and we were talking, he said, look, when you're in a hotel, wherever in the world, so what do you do?
01:07And I said, well, if I'm in a hotel, I'm traveling.
01:09So I'm usually jet lagged. I'm usually up all night. Maybe I'll find a ballroom. There's a piano there or a bar.
01:19And usually it's closed in the middle of the night when I'm jet lagged. So it's just me and a guy sweeping, usually. So that's what we did.
01:27These trials, the whole world, it's all show business. Well, of course, that's Chicago.
01:34These trials, the whole world, it's all show business.
01:39Well, we all were in like a musical boot camp when we started that movie. So it was months of that.
01:46And I wanted to get good with the tap dancing. So I had a wonderful teacher.
01:50What she did, she said, look, let me be honest, I can't teach you to be a great tap dancer in a month or two.
01:56But let me just see you move. And I'll use what you naturally do.
02:01And I just started fooling around. And she said, OK, I can work with that.
02:04And we came up with routines that felt like something, like I knew what I was doing.
02:08And I mean, we shot very quickly. That whole movie was shot very quickly.
02:12But that scene, we probably shot in an hour and a half, two hours.
02:18Every night I come home from work and I'd look for you, your face.
02:22You looked on the outside the way I was feeling on the inside. I have no idea.
02:27And I said this.
02:30Every night I'd come home from work and I'd look for you, your face.
02:38You looked on the outside the way I was feeling on the inside.
02:42Well, I remember asking her after we did the dance stuff.
02:45I said, so what do you think? I'm not a dancer. You're a dancer.
02:48So what am I? I'm one to ten.
02:51And she said, hmm, six.
02:53I said, well, that's not so bad.
02:56But she said, you do some things real good.
02:59I remember there was a kind of a twirl. I moved her around really fast.
03:04She'd say, wow, that's world class.
03:06So I was proud of myself.
03:09Okay, I guarantee you there'll be tough times.
03:11I guarantee at some point one or both of us is going to want to get out of this thing.
03:17But I also guarantee you that if you don't ask, I don't ask you to be mine,
03:20I'll regret it for the rest of my life because I know in my heart that you're the only one for me.
03:24It can't be pretty woman because we already did it.
03:34So it's probably runaway bride.
03:38Not because I remember this.
03:39I just figured it out because I'm smart.
03:41I guarantee there'll be tough times.
03:44I guarantee that at some point one or both of us is going to want to get out of this thing.
03:50We were in different places at that point.
03:52You know, she had been in other relationships.
03:54I had been in other relationships.
03:56I'd been married already since then.
03:58I can't remember how long.
04:00It was probably 10 years later.
04:02Yeah.
04:02So we were in different places in our life.
04:05So we kind of used that.
04:06It wasn't kids anymore.
04:08We're a little more grownups.
04:10All right.
04:11I would never have believed one weekend could change my whole life.
04:25I'm blanking on this one.
04:28I'm stumped.
04:30I never would have believed one weekend could change my whole life.
04:33We went to, I think it was Rodanthea.
04:36It was actually a town or close to it in North Carolina.
04:40And there had been a hurricane like the weekend before.
04:45And the entire beach where we were shooting, supposed to shoot, was gone.
04:50And the house that we were supposed to shoot in was a wreck.
04:55There were trucks of sand that were bringing sand back.
04:57And the house had to be reconstructed a bit so we could use part of it anyway for the shoot.
05:04But Diane and I always have a good time together.
05:06Sit, pray, adjust, attack.
05:15This is the trick.
05:16It's not me.
05:17It's somebody else.
05:18It's Julia.
05:20Julia said this.
05:22And not even in my movie.
05:23It was a different movie.
05:25I have no idea.
05:26Sit, adjust, pray, attack.
05:30That was a pretty great experience, shooting that.
05:33We shot very quick.
05:34We didn't have any money.
05:36I mean, a lot of wonderful young actors in that.
05:39And Lou Gossett, of course, won an Academy Award for that.
05:42I was working hard, yeah.
05:43I was doing marine boot camp and shooting all day.
05:47And then when shooting was over, I'd go an hour or two hours of karate, getting ready for the karate scenes.
05:54I was an animal at that point.
05:56You're saying words, and as soon as they enter my ears, I'm going like, what the fuck is Owen saying?
06:04It's confusing.
06:05Of course I know what this is, because I did it six months ago.
06:09This is the agency, ladies and gentlemen.
06:12You're saying words, and as soon as they enter my ears, I'm going like, what the fuck is Owen saying?
06:18I loved the French series.
06:20My wife and I, I think, watched all four or five years of that and loved it.
06:25You know, they sent me the script, and I had some questions about it.
06:29And I had a lot of talks with the writers and the producer, and they came back with some scripts that I thought were really good.
06:37It's very well written.
06:38I'm the head of the CIA in this.
06:40I've never played a character quite like that.
06:41I'm usually the outlaw, not the daddy figure.
06:44I don't like playing the same numbers too often.
06:48They get possessive.
06:51I can't be possessed.
06:52I don't like playing the same numbers too often.
06:55They get possessive.
06:56I can't be possessed.
07:03I don't like playing the same numbers too often.
07:08They get possessive.
07:11I can't be possessed.
07:13The Chikla was an interesting case because that movie was in motion when Paul Schrader called me up and asked me to do it.
07:20And he said, look, you've got to make a decision right away.
07:22I said, I don't make decisions really quick. I'm sorry.
07:26I said, well, you've got it on this one.
07:28So I had a day or two to think about it.
07:31And I said, OK, let's go.
07:32But it was a character I didn't instinctively know.
07:36I said, this is going to be a challenge.
07:38I don't think I even owned a suit at that point.
07:40And there was a lot of what this guy was doing.
07:43It was his presentation.
07:45It was about a two-dimensional construct.
07:49And the movie kind of deconstructed the two dimensions.
07:53And hopefully by the end, there was a third dimension of his character started to emerge.
07:59Ah, the man's got one foot on a banana peel, the other on a roller skate.
08:07I should know this one.
08:09And I don't.
08:10The man's got one foot on a banana peel, the other on a roller skate.
08:14I was working in theater, and I was very happy working in theater.
08:17I consider myself a theater actor.
08:19And I had read a review in the Times about a movie called Badlands.
08:27And I saw this movie, and I flipped.
08:29I thought, this is a great film.
08:31I remember talking to my agents.
08:32I said, look, this guy, Terrence Malick, if he ever makes another movie, I'd like to meet him.
08:37And a couple months later, there was a call.
08:40He wanted to meet me.
08:41I was one of the young actors in New York.
08:43And that was that.
08:45It was a wild experience.
08:46We were shooting in Canada, and we were dealing with the weather.
08:50I remember, I remember at one point, we had scenes in, it was supposed to be summer fun in the sun, in the water of the river.
08:57But it was in Canada, and it had gotten cold, and the river kept freezing.
09:01So they'd come out with axes, and they'd cut the ice.
09:04And we'd go with our little bathing suits, and we're having fun in the water.
09:08And then it would freeze up around us.
09:10And cut!
09:10They would come out and break up the ice, so we could shoot another take.