The movie Richard Gere only made for the money: “Not a soul decision”
Who doesn’t love a good rom-com? If you say no to that question, I can only assume you have a problem with fun. “I don’t think I’m really the target audience for those kinds of films,” some male audiences might say, and while the genre is often made with women in mind, reducing rom-coms to a one-dimensional stereotype is lazy. To dismiss the genre as shallow and lacking substance reeks of prejudice and pretentiousness because there are plenty of great rom-coms out there — and Richard Gere could certainly tell you a thing or two about them.
The actor has starred in several popular rom-coms, proving himself a suitable leading man for tales of lust and love, starting with 1990’s Pretty Woman. Before then, the actor had risen to prominence in the romantic drama Days of Heaven by Terrence Malick, starring alongside Brooke Adams and Linda Manz. The movie won an Oscar for its cinematography and while it received rather mixed reviews at the time, it is now heralded as one of the greatest movies of the 1970s.
Gere then rose to further acclaim with roles in American Gigolo, An Officer and a Gentleman, the American remake of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, and The Cotton Club, yet it was Pretty Woman that he eventually became best known for. Starring opposite Julia Roberts, the film sees Gere play a businessman named Edward who hires Roberts’ Vivian to be his escort for the week. He showers her in cash, but soon, the time they spend together becomes increasingly frequent, and they develop strong feelings for each other.
The role allowed Gere to become a worldwide star, earning him a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. As it stands, Pretty Woman is one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies of all time, just behind Hitch, What Women Want, and in the top spot, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. However, Gere was initially unsure about the role and admitted that it was the money that convinced him to take it.
He once revealed to Movieline, “Pretty Woman is something I never would have done. Neither is An Officer and a Gentleman. I had no interest in these scripts whatsoever.”
He explained: “At the point of Pretty Woman, I had been kind of out of things for a while. I consciously [had] just said, ‘Going off to do other things’ and I fucked up my career to the point where [people were no longer saying], ‘Well, let’s get Gere to do that.’ I had to crawl a little bit to get scripts.”
However, when Pretty Woman came around, he realised the benefit of doing the film. “One thing lead to another and I started to see something I could bring to this. But it was a fairly mercantile decision, not a soul decision. Made the movie, had a great time making the movie and, probably because of the lack of pressure to do something important, I was able to explore other things in myself and as a man, too. I think I found a much freer way of working in that film, which I’ve used ever since.”
The movie earned him huge success, and he even went on to reunite with Roberts and director Garry Marshall for the film Runaway Bride nine years later.
