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.
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
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Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
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