Richard Gere Finds Happiness

He’s one of Hollywood’s favourite leading men, but his recent movie Norman is a complete change of direction and already being Oscar-touted. Chrissy Iley meets the enigmatic Richard Gere and discovers the secret to his inner calm.

- Chrissy Iley

We all think of Richard Gere as the archetypal sexy leading man, the eternal American Gigolo, an Officer and a Gentleman. And for a couple of decades he was voted sexiest man alive repeatedly. Handsome, sophisticated, suave, impeccable ... which is the complete opposite of his character in the recent movie Norman – a small-time New York Jewish fixer, he is making connections that we don’t quite believe in, yet he refuses to be rebuffed. He wears a camel coat and a cap, and we don’t know where he lives or anything about his family, yet by the end of the movie we know Norman. Richard has become the character in a performance so deep and full, it has resonated across the US. At this time of year, there is rarely talk of Oscars, but this is being talked about as the best performance of his career, an Oscar shoo-in. Yet it’s so totally against type.

Norman moves in a different way. You can see him thinking, while Richard, you can’t really tell what he’s thinking. He is languid, confidently relaxed as he talks at his home in the countryside outside New York. He is looking out onto his fields and a walkway going up to the woods.

“This is my favourite place in the world, in the middle of nowhere,” he muses. Richard the person likes it that way, too – remote and hidden. He is mentally private, yet he speaks with open passion about his work and his philanthropy, and with great love for his dog Billie, a 15-year-old female mutt he rescued when she was a puppy.

How did Norman the character evolve? “We had a lot of time, maybe nine months, before shooting,” Richard says. “The decision-making process was a careful one. I let it sink in very slowly. I had a lot of questions because this was a unique character, so I didn’t want to make choices too soon that wouldn’t allow him to be as unique as he could be.”