Maybe I Do: Richard Gere admits fear about return to acting for first film in six years
“This is the first interview I have done on this movie, so it’s completely fresh – from here on out, I will have said everything.”
That’s how Richard Gere started our chat about his latest film, Maybe I Do.
Refreshingly honest, the star known for hit romcoms including Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride hasn’t done a film since 2017 and is candid about how strange it was returning to set.
“Whenever I start a project, I kind of question whether I know what I’m doing at all,” Gere admitted.
“And after three years of not making a film or working in the theatre, I think I had this feeling of, ‘do I know how to do this? Did I ever know how to do this?'”
“But I think it is like riding a bike – you pretty much remember how to do it.”
The break Gere took was largely due to the pandemic.
A way back
Instead of working, Gere spent lockdown and the period afterwards with his wife and children, waiting for the right opportunity to lure him back to acting.
“I just stayed at home with my family… I mean, the protocols for making movies in that period were so daunting that I didn’t really want to go through it,” he said.
“So it loosened up a little bit and the script came through – Michael Jacobs, a really nice guy, wrote this fun script.
“[I thought] this is a way to get back into the working world with something adult but fun, with actors I knew and had worked with before and trusted.”
‘She knew my movies better than I did’
The film is called Maybe I Do and is about a couple considering marriage who get their parents together, only to find they already know each other well.
His daughter is played by Emma Roberts – the niece of Julia Roberts, who Gere teamed up with for both Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride.
Emma Roberts plays Richard Gere’s daughter. Pic: Signature Entertainment/Prime Video
“Oh, it was funny,” he said about working with Emma.
“I even forgot the movies – she knew my movies better than I did, the ones I had done with Julia.
“And there was a certain irony to that.”
Roberts told Backstage she only got round to telling her aunt she was working with Gere after it had happened.
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“I actually only just told her recently, and I was like, ‘I forgot got to tell you, I worked with Richard,'” she said.
“I love Runaway Bride, I love Pretty Woman, so it was really fun to get to work with him as well, and he’s so sweet.
“It’s like full circle, him playing my dad after him and my aunt working together so much.”
‘She was lovely then, and she’s lovely now’
The cast also features Susan Sarandon, William H Macy and Diane Keaton.
Gere says it was great to be reunited with the latter after first working together decades ago in the 1977 film Looking for Mr Goodbar.
“We had communicated a few times over the years… She was at the beginning of being the biggest actress in the world at that point, and I was just starting to make movies,” he said.
“But she was lovely then, and she’s lovely now.”
Richard Gere stars alongside Diane Keaton, William H Macy and Susan Sarandon. Pic: Signature Entertainment/Prime Video
“You know, she’s witty, and she’s fun and works hard and always finds her own way through doing things – it’s not the obvious, and it’s not the predictable.”
Gere’s character in the film is somewhat jaded, fed up about getting older.
‘Silly not to engage’ in growing old
The actor says it’s not something he himself worries about.
“I have a two-and-a-half year old and a three-and-a- half – almost four-year-old and a ten-year-old, so I don’t have really the luxury of thinking about time or getting older,” Gere laughed.
“Getting older is inevitable. I mean, it would be silly for people not to engage [with] it and even early on to just think about it, you know?”
“But I get – at best – a finite number of years, and it might be a lot shorter based on health and accidents and all kinds of other things, so it certainly is inevitable.”
For Roberts, working with such a stellar cast was a golden opportunity.
But she admits it did put the pressure on.
“I feel like I always come to work prepared, but I was definitely quadruple prepared for this set.” She said.
“But I remember there was one scene where it was like four and a half pages long, and I had the most dialogue and at one point I just forgot my lines because all I could feel was everyone’s eyes looking at me.”
“And even though I’ve obviously been working for a long time, to work with such a huge calibre of talent in one room, it was really amazing.”
Maybe I Do is streaming now on Prime Video.
Entertainment
Lawyer for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs claims there was ‘mutual violence’ between him and ex-girlfriend
A lawyer representing Sean “Diddy” Combs has told a court there was “mutual” domestic violence between him and his ex-girlfriend Casandra ‘Cassie’ Ventura.
Marc Agnifilo made the claim as he outlined some of the music star’s defence case ahead of the full opening of his trial next week.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of
transportation for prostitution. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Ms Ventura is expected to testify as a star witness for the prosecution during the trial in New York. The final stage of jury selection is due to be held on Monday morning.
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Why is Sean Combs on trial?
Mr Agnifilo told the court on Friday that the defence would “take the position that there was mutual violence” during the pair’s relationship and called on the judge to allow evidence related to this.
The lawyer said Combs‘s legal team intended to argue that “there was hitting on both sides, behaviour on both sides” that constituted violence.
He added: “It is relevant in terms of the coercive aspects, we are admitting domestic violence.”
A court sketch showing Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (right) as he listens to his lawyer Marc Agnifilo addressing the court. Pic: Reuters
Ms Ventura’s lawyers declined to comment on the allegations.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian said he would rule on whether to allow the evidence on Monday.
Combs, 55, was present in the court on Friday.
He has been held in custody in Brooklyn since his arrest last September.
Prosecutors allege that Combs used his business empire for two decades to lure women with promises of romantic relationships or financial support, then violently coerced them to take part in days-long, drug-fuelled sexual performances known as “Freak Offs”.
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Combs’s lawyers say prosecutors are improperly seeking to criminalise his “swinger lifestyle”. They have suggested they will attack the credibility of alleged victims in the case by claiming their allegations are financially motivated.
The trial is expected to last around eight weeks.
Entertainment
Harvey Weinstein accuser says film mogul ‘took her soul’ during alleged sexual assault
An ex-model has tearfully told a court that being sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein when she was 16 was the most “horrifying thing I ever experienced” to that point.
Warning: This article contains references to sexual assault
Kaja Sokola told the film producer’s retrial that he ordered her to remove her blouse, put his hand in her underwear, and made her touch his genitals.
She said he’d stared at her in the mirror with “black and scary” eyes and told her to stay quiet about the alleged assault in a Manhattan hotel in 2002.
Ms Sokola told the New York court that Weinstein had dropped names such as Penelope Cruz and Gwyneth Paltrow, and said he could help fulfil her Hollywood dream.
“I’d never been in a situation like this,” said Polish-born Ms Sokola. “I felt stupid and ashamed and like it’s my fault for putting myself in this position.”
Weinstein denies sexually assaulting anyone and is back in court for a retrial after his conviction was overturned last year.
Read more: Weinstein is back in court – but what has happened to the #MeToo movement since 2017?
Weinstein denies the allegations. Pic: Reuters
The 73-year-old is not charged over the alleged sexual assault because it happened too long ago to bring criminal charges.
However, he is facing charges over an incident four years later when he’s said to have forced Ms Sokola to perform oral sex on him.
Prosecutors claim it happened after Weinstein arranged for her to be an extra in a film.
“My soul was removed from me,” she told the court of the alleged 2006 assault, describing how she tried to push Weinstein away but that he held her down.
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Ms Sokola – who’s waived her right to anonymity – is the second of three women to testify and the only one who wasn’t part of the first trial in 2020.
Miriam Haley testified previously in the retrial. Pic: AP
Miriam Haley last week told the court that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006. The other accuser, Jessica Mann, is yet to appear.
Claims against the film mogul were a major driver for the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and abuse in 2017.
Weinstein’s lawyers allege the women consented to sexual activity in the hope of getting film and TV work and that they stayed in contact with him for a while afterwards.
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