Richard Gere Chose to ‘Step Back’ from Fame and Attention in ’90s: ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Looked At’

Richard Gere didn’t gravitate to the celebrity side of movie stardom. 

“I reacted like a wild animal,” he said on a recent episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast of his ascent to Hollywood superstardom. 

Particularly after the back-to-back success of 1990 films Internal Affairs with Andy García and Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts, Gere, now 75, made “a subconscious choice on my part to step back” and act in lower-profile projects, he recalled to host Scott Feinberg. 

“I said, ‘Enough. I don’t really like all this attention. … I don’t wanna be looked at.’ ”

Breaking out in 1980’s American Gigolo and 1982’s An Officer and a Gentleman, Gere initially worked in regional theater and on Broadway before booking a film debut in 1977’s Looking for Mr. Goodbar.

In contrast to his difficult relationship with the spotlight, the Philadelphia native remembered the joy he felt upon realizing he was going to pursue acting professionally.

“I remember getting that rush of energy, of, ‘This is what I’m going to be doing in my life.’ And feeling like a rocket taking off,” he said of booking a summer theater job at the Eugene O’Neill Provincetown Playhouse in Boston.

Of starring in major studio hits and modest indies, Gere continued, “I made some choices — not that I’m ashamed of it — but there were choices not to be in the big game. They were to be in a smaller game.”

He added, “I’ve never done anything, like ‘Nah, f— it. I’ll just take the money and walk through this.’ Even things that I don’t think are very good films, the motivation to do them and the work ethic was the same.”

Gere, who announced in November that he was moving to Spain with wife Alejandra Silva and their sons Alexander and James, has had a busy 2024 on the big and small screens.

He starred in the film Longing with Diane Kruger and Showtime TV drama The Agency (which premiered its first episode Nov. 29), and reunited with American Gigolo director Paul Schrader for Oh, Canada (in theaters now) opposite Jacob Elordi.