Maybe I Do: Richard Gere admits concern about return to performing for first movie in six years

May 20, 2023 at 8:49 AM
Maybe I Do: Richard Gere admits concern about return to performing for first movie 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 began our chat about his newest movie, Maybe I Do.

Refreshingly sincere, the star recognized for hit romcoms together with Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride hasn’t accomplished a movie since 2017 and is candid about how unusual 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 because of the pandemic.

A manner again

Instead of working, Gere spent lockdown and the interval afterwards along with his spouse and youngsters, ready for the suitable alternative to lure him again to performing.

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 stated.

“So it loosened up a little bit and the script came through – Michael Jacobs, a really nice guy, wrote this fun script.

“[I thought] it is a approach to get again into the working world with one thing grownup however enjoyable, with actors I knew and had labored with earlier than 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.

Still from Maybe I Do starring Emma Roberts

Pic: Signature Entertainment/Prime Video
Image:
Emma Roberts performs Richard Gere’s daughter. Pic: Signature Entertainment/Prime Video

“Oh, it was funny,” he stated 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 sure 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 truly solely simply instructed her just lately, and I used to be like, ‘I forgot bought to let you know, I labored with Richard,'” she said.

“I really like Runaway Bride, I really like Pretty Woman, so it was actually enjoyable to get to work with him as nicely, and he is so candy.

“It’s like full circle, him playing my dad after him and my aunt working together so much.”

‘She was beautiful then, and she or he’s beautiful now’

The solid additionally options Susan Sarandon, William H Macy and Diane Keaton.

Gere says it was nice to be reunited with the latter after first working collectively many years in the past within the 1977 movie 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 stated.

“But she was lovely then, and she’s lovely now.”

Still from Maybe I Do starring Richard Gere

Pic: Signature Entertainment/Prime Video
Image:
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 within the movie is considerably jaded, fed up about getting older.

‘Silly to not have interaction’ in rising outdated

The actor says it is not one thing 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 solid was a golden alternative.

But she admits it did put the stress on.

“I feel like I always come to work prepared, but I was definitely quadruple prepared for this set.” She stated.

“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.