Richard Gere's test: Would I see this movie?
NEW YORK — Whatever you do, never refer to Richard Gere as an icon, or a legend, or any version thereof.
"It's not my thing. I'm a dad. That's what I am. I have a job, a really good job, and I'm a dad," says the father of Homer, 15, from his marriage to Carey Lowell.
The actor — who made women swoon as sleek lothario-for-hire Julian Kaye in 1980's American Gigolo, played moody piano for a saucy hooker in 1990's Pretty Woman, and mesmerized as slick lawyer Billy Flynn in 2002's Chicago — booked a passage to India for his latest project. He's a guest at The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in theaters Friday, which finds him looking for love and connection amid the feisty pensioners as the cast's new addition.
The sequel features a who's who of acting greats, including Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. It required Gere to work all of four weeks, in a country he loves, on something he would go watch himself in a theater.
"It's not a deep, deep film, but it has depth to it, and gravitas. It's unpretentious. It's a literate adult script that can poke fun at all of us," he says. "I can't imagine doing something that I would not want to see myself."
Much of the film gently, and humorously, deals with the themes of aging and finding romance in your golden years. But deepening laugh lines are not something that Gere, 65, dwells on.
"I'm not aware of it. Not at all. It's about being curious. I'm more curious now than when I was a kid. I haven't started falling apart. It may change at that point, when things don't work anymore," he says.
He began acting in the theater as a 19-year-old and continues to reinvent himself, most recently playing a homeless man in last fall's Time Out of Mind. He spent time on Manhattan streets panhandling, calling it "a profound experience of what it is to be a black hole. You're avoided."
There's nothing accidental about his choices: Gere is particular about how he's photographed, where he sits during an interview, and what he's ordering for dinner (risotto and salad).
"I'm very fortunate. Every day, I'm very aware of that," he says. "Why, I don't know. A lot of people are good at what they do."
His son, meanwhile, won't be part of forging any kind of Gere acting dynasty. "He has no interest, which is great," Gere says. "He has his own interests and they're very different than mine."