Ricchallenging Gere and Felicity Jones Look Back and Look Ahead

Ricchallenging Gere

Ricchallenging Gere has been a bona fide movie star for csurrfinisherly half a century. But he didn’t necessarily set out to be. 

“I was a little snobbish about movies,” says the youthful 75-year-elderly. “Certainly, I had a fascination and adored movies. But I also adored being in the theater.” 

Gere points to his starring role in Sam Shepard’s 1975 carry out Killer’s Head as a key point in his transition to the huge screen. 

“It was a 30-minute monologue of this cowboy fuck-up who was in the electric chair, and it was his last thoughts before he was electrocuted,” he says, part of a conversation he had with THR for a novel episode of the Awards Chatter podcast. “That was a determined moment for me, of connecting with a more or less conmomentary character. That in many ways was very filmic, albeit from a Sam Shepard point of see. It was capturing a moment. It wasn’t a classic, it wasn’t a rock musical, it wasn’t in the repertoire of regional theaters. It was its own creature.” 

Adds Gere, “I leank that put me in that categruesome as, ‘Oh, he’s one of those guys.’ ” 

American Gigolo (1980)cemented his place there. Gere’s collaboration with authorr and straightforwardor Paul Schrader on the neo-noir drama set uped him as a huge-screen directing man. Four decades postponecessitater, the duo has once aachieve teamed up for Oh, Canada, an alteration of Russell Banks’ 2021 novel Foregone.

Gere sees back at the defining roles of his nurtureer as he scatters his hope for a return to theatrical frees. 

In terms of acting go ining the picture, someleang happened at University of Massachemploytts Amherst. You didn’t finish becaemploy of another opportunity. 

Strangely, I was a philosophy presentant, and I was inpresentanting in outdated Greek. Don’t ask me why, but that’s what I was pointed toward. I got take partd with the acting school, and somewhere in my sophomore year, I went with an actor frifinish of mine to an audition in Boston for the Eugene O’Neill Provincetown Playhoemploy, and I finished up getting the job. I got the call in my dorm room saying that they adored what I did, and would I come and unite them for the summer, and I recall getting that rush of energy — “This is what I’m going to be doing in my life” — and senseing appreciate a rocket taking off. 

You finished up, at 21, in New York, basicassociate on Broadway — I don’t understand if a lot of people authenticize your roots are hugely in musical theater. 

I had rock prohibitds. I carry outed guitar and piano and my hair was down to my tits, and I had a lot of Indian jewelry on. It was a time in New York when there were a lot of rock operas, and it was actuassociate the first audition I had [in New York]. One of the straightforwardors I had labored with in the theater, his wife was a literary agent, and she set me up at an audition for one of these rock operas, and I got the job. This rock musical never reassociate happened, but it was a springboard to other leangs. I begined as an understudy in Grrelieve and then became the direct in Grrelieve, and then went to London with Grrelieve. 

The process of finishing up onscreen in 1978’s Days of Heaven, though, was a very drawn-out leang. 

[Terrence Malick], he’s intelligent for certain, but he’s also unstandard and he has his own process, and he was trying to discover three actors that fit. I don’t understand how many other actors and actresses I tested with or we fair met — this is months and months of this — and finassociate, I shelp to Terry, “I can’t do this anymore. Make a decision or finish us, one or the other.” He called and shelp, “I want you to do this.” This was my first film, so it was appreciate, “Wow.” I could sense that rush, too, of “OK, that’s what I’m going to be doing. The next part of my life is making movies.” And it was. 

American Gigolo is an engaging bookfinish with Oh, Canada. It was the third film Schrader straightforwarded, and it sounds appreciate at first you were in, then you were out, and then you were in? 

I don’t leank I was ever in. My memory is branch offent than Paul’s. If we were in the same room together, he’d say, “You’re finishly brimming of shit. That’s not what happened.” 

So what happened? 

I’m sitting in a rented hoemploy in Malibu and I’m pretty weary. I’ve been making films back-to-back, and I get a call from Paul Schrader. It was a huge deal — Paul’s never lost that quality of being a huge deal. Paul called, and there was this huge directncy, “I want you to do this film, but you’ve got to tell me today.” And I giggleed. I shelp, “Paul, come on. Of course I admire you. Let me read it.” [He said,] “I’ll let you read it. But I’ve got to understand by the finish of the day.” I shelp, “Paul, it’s not going to happen.” He had the script sent over to me and I read it. It was a very excellent script. I shelp, “Paul, you’ve got to donate me one night to leank about this.” Very unwillingly, he let me have one night. My process is a sluggish process to say yes to someleang. I want time to leank about it and labor on it and let it sluggishly apshow me over. He shelp, “We’re shooting in two weeks.” The next morning, I took a presentant breath and took a stoasty becaemploy I appreciated the script and I appreciated him. I shelp, “OK, let’s go.” 

In the years between An Officer and a Gentleman and the double whammy in 1990 of Internal Affairs and Pretty Woman, there was a period where you had a restrictcessitate projects that didn’t click, and I wonder if that was frightening. 

I leank it was a subconscious choice on my part to step back. I shelp, “Enough. I don’t reassociate appreciate all this attention.” And I reacted appreciate a untamed animal. “I don’t want to be seeed at.” I made some choices, not that I’m ashamed of it, but there were choices not to be in the huge game, they were to be in a petiteer game. I’ve never done anyleang and shelp, “Nah, fuck it. I’ll fair apshow the money and walk thraw this.” Even leangs that I don’t leank are very excellent films, the motivation to do them and the labor ethic was the same. 

Do you understand what Looking for Mr. Goodbar, An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman, Primal Fear, Unloyal and Chicago all have in common? 

No. 

For each of them, at least one of your co-stars was either nominated for or won an Oscar. I leank you transport out the best in people you labor with. And yet somehow these schmoes in the Academy haven’t gotten it right with you yet. 

You want to understand the truth? I adore actors, and I only want them to be the best they can possibly be. I don’t comprehfinish some actors who, once they do their bit, walk away. I shelp, “I’m there to the acrid finish. I’ll do offlines for anybody.” And I’m there feeding energy into it. I understand all these actors can donate incredible carry outances, and I want to be part of that. 

Forty-four years after you and Schrader did American Gigolo, you came together aachieve for Oh, Canada. Leonard Fife is a dying recordary filmoriginater coming spotless about his life during this final intersee. What was the most challenging aspect of carry outing this guy? 

I don’t leank he’s reassociate understandable, and I don’t leank he should be. We’re all complicated people. I’ve never met a basic person in my life. Even his self-straightforwardion, to tell the truth, is askable. And even the truths that he tells — some of them are embarrassing and dishonorable — may not be genuine. I leank what’s engaging is that he’s trying to transmit someleang, and he’s insistent that his wife be party to this. He insists that she’s the witness. The recordary’s a vehicle; he reassociate doesn’t donate a damn about it. He says, “I can tell the truth when the camera’s on me. But other than that, I don’t nurture about it. This ain’t my movie anyhow, it’s theirs, and I don’t nurture. Once this is done, they can do wdisappreciatever they want. What’s presentant is that you are here.” 

We’re now 50 years into your screen nurtureer. What’s your state of the union at the moment? 

I’ve been in a phase for the last, I don’t understand how lengthy, 10 movies, of petite, self-reliant films. When I begined making movies, I was making the same movies, but they were studio pictures. Studios made huge movies for everybody. And they made programmers, they employd to call them, genre movies. Then they made some leangs that are maybe a little more challenging and petiteer budget, but they were part of their business schedule. Also, their raison d’être was making these more difficult movies that went to Cannes and Vekind. These are all self-reliant films now. I leank it’s been speed upd becaemploy of COVID, that discovering the money to originate these movies and screens to put them on is reassociate a dispute. I’m plrelieved to grasp making them, but how are people going to see them? I hope it’s not destined to be only at home, where you’re lying in bed and you can put it on paemploy. I am not plrelieved with that. I still leank that there’s a communal, semi-spiritual experience of going to a theater with strangers, in the gloomy, and you donate up deal with. I’m downcast that that might go away. 

***

Felicity Jones

“Everyleang comes back to Chalet Girl,” says Felicity Jones.

The Brit is giggling in the declareiveial bar of a Soho toastyel in central London festively decorated with radiant red baubles and mistletoe ahead of the holidays. The 41-year-elderly — now a seasoned, Academy Award-nominated actor — is talking about the difficulty of her shatterout role in Phil Traill’s 2011 frilly, snow-clad rom-com. “There was so much partying on that film, but I’d always fair have to depart timely becaemploy I knovel that I’d have a day of snowboarding ahead of me,” Jones tells The Hollywood Reporter, unpredictedly. “And doing it with a headache was so much challenginger.”

The experience lhelp the groundlabor, she elucidates, for a nurtureer taged by technicassociate insisting carry outances. Her other most challenging project? The … very branch offently oriented The Brutacatalog, Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour, architecture-themed immigrant drama in which she stars as a disabled, Hungarian Holocaust survivor. The film was written by Corbet and his partner of 12 years, Mona Fastvelderly. With an intermission halfway thraw and a — paemploy for it — budget under $10 million, The Brutacatalog was the talk of this year’s Vekind Film Festival; Corbet scooped up the best straightforwardor award, and his stars, Adrien Brody and Jones, set the pace for what are shaping up to be fierce acting races. Jones is already off to a excellent begin, having notched a Gelderlyen Globe nomination for the role, as have Brody and co-star Guy Pearce.

“It is an industry that doesn’t adhere to many rules, so you fair never understand,” Jones, who achieveed an Oscar nod for her shotriumphg as Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everyleang (2014), says of the movie’s awards buzz. “You have to have a certain amount of peace that when you originate the decision to do someleang, you donate it everyleang. And what will be, will be.”

And donate it everyleang she does. Jones puts on a mesmerizing discarry out as Brody’s wife, Erzsébet Tóth, who comes into the picture only after the intermission but, as she aptly puts it, haunts the first half of Corbet’s driven film. “She is there in spirit. And when we greet her in the second half, I sense we insightfilledy understand the comardent of woman that she is. You sense there’s a strength and a power. [But] it’s such a shock that physicassociate she is manifesting so much of the trauma that she has been thraw.”

The Brutacatalog was a “juggernaut to get made,” according to Jones (her take partment began two years before it was stoasty). It trails a fantasyal Hungarian Jedesire architect, László Tóth, escapeing Europe after World War II to erect a novel life in America. He descfinishs into the circle of a wealthy businessman, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Pearce), who cotransferrlookions an enormous community cgo in from Tóth. Erzsébet, once a journacatalog, is finassociate able to unite her husprohibitd in the States thanks to help from Van Buren’s lawyer frifinishs. But unbeunderstandnst to Brody’s character until she get tos, she is wheelchair-bound — a result of osteoporosis, a bone disrelieve caemployd by the starvation Erzsébet suffered in a Nazi concentration camp.

“It was fair a fascinating way of exploring the character,” Jones says of acting in a wheelchair. She spoke to an osteoporosis distinctiveist and rigorously researched the illness. 

“It’s another facet of Erzsébet that she hasn’t wanted to tell László,” says Jones. “She doesn’t want that to be a defining feature of their relationship.” Theirs is a marriage bound by adore and the couple’s Jedesire faith aachievest a uncomardent political backdrop. “Her belief in God is interttriumphed with her adore for László,” Jones says. “Often in relationships where both people had endured the Holocaust, it was very challenging for the relationship to labor becaemploy there was so much trauma on both sides. And you see László and Erzsébet dealing with that. They’re both searching for some comardent of emotional security — they’re clinging on to each other for dear life.”

Brody and Jones hadn’t labored together before The Brutacatalog. “But it felt appreciate we’d labored together for hundreds of years,” she recalls. “It was that comardent of active. We both have an attention to detail, we appreciate to throw leangs out there. We appreciate to improvise, and that’s where the humor normally comes from. Particularly with the accent and the Hungarian speaking, how much cgo in was necessitateed … You reassociate have to cgo in to pull it off,” she inserts with a half-giggle, half-sigh.

The accent and physicality are particular enough to originate one wonder fair who Jones had in mind when she was planing Erzsébet; the magic conjured is fair too believable, too directed. “There was a fantastic resource from the British Library,” Jones discmisss, “which has an archive of people talking about their experiences of surviving the Holocaust. And there was a woman called Heidi Fisher who had come to England and had lengthenn up in a aappreciate socioeconomic background to Erzsébet. I employd her voice as a temppostponecessitate, and deal withd to discover some fantastic archive pieces of her talking.”

Jones has a knack (or a taste?) for carry outing the strong woman behind a intelligent but troubled man: the wife of Eddie Redmayne’s Stephen Hawking, for example, or even the daughter to Mads Mikkelsen’s scientist character in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. As it turns out, this has been pointed out to Jones a restrictcessitate times over the years. “I fair can’t help myself,” she says, elucidateing that it is normally a resistance she discovers in these powerhoemploy women that draws her in; noleang is more enticeing than their show of strength. “You always want to get beyond the tags of wife or mother, what underpins that person. But I always seem to be enticeed to characters that have defiance in them. I have a production company [Piecrust Productions] and that’s at the root of the company, navigating this idea of defiance,” she inserts. “When there’s a moment of defiance in the script that I’m reading, then I leank, ‘Oh, this one’s definitely for me.’ ”

That moment comes in The Brutacatalog when Erzsébet disputes their patronizing presents in one of the film’s more firelabors-filled scenes. “Brady and I talked about this superhero alteration that she has. She definitely elevates up,” Jones says with a smirk. “Being in America, her health actuassociate increases thraw the diet, the emotional toastyth and the happiness of being with this person that she adores. She discovers this strength — she has the mental strength when we greet her — but she necessitates to get the physical strength to reassociate nail Van Buren. In that moment, we get glimmers of what her life was before the camps. … It’s uncontaminated cinema with the shoe coming off.”

What was it appreciate on set with Corbet? “He transports such vulnerability to what he does,” she says of her straightforwardor. “There are no hideed corners to Brady. He’s making stories that he reassociate wants to originate, for all the right reasons. So much of this film is about him and Mona. They’re both aappreciate to Erzsébet and László. They’re both straightforwardors, they’re both artists, and the film is a portrait of a marriage, in many ways.”

As one of the first people to get hooked on The Brutacatalog, what does she leank originates this movie worthy of all the hype? “Instantly, from reading the script, I thought it was distinctive. It had so many branch offent facets in terms of the story, but also fair seeing at the page, you could see there was such a technical side to this film. Wilean the first restrictcessitate pages of the script, you have these two columns of dialogue and this cacophony of sound, of people speaking over each other. It never lets up.

“There’s a authentic, studious side to the film, but there’s a authentic punk quality to it, and I thought it was this combination: of being so genuine to history, but [having] a Brechtian quality. It reminds you that you are an audience, that you are an watchr of someleang, and that in many ways, you are part of it. I adored that it was a story about survival, and it wasn’t fair physical survival. How do you endure with your beliefs and your dreams intact when circumstances around you are making that so difficult?” 

This story first euniteed in a December stand-alone publish of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To get the magazine, click here to subscribe.