In this image released on December 23, Richard Gere poses for photographer at Bulgari Hotel on December 22, 2024 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Rosdiana Ciaravolo/Getty Images)Getty Images
Richard Gere remembers the “cool kids” in North Syracuse, and apparently doesn’t think of himself as one of them.
The 75-year-old actor spoke about his childhood during an interview on the Italian talk show “Che tempo che fa” in Milan. The Daily Mail reports the award-winning star was promoting his new film, “Oh, Canada,” which is currently in select theaters.
“I love Italy, if I could I would be Italian,” Gere reportedly told the show. “I grew up in a small town in Upstate New York. The only cool kids were Italians, very elegant, wonderful shoes, they had this way of moving… We all wanted to be Italian!”
Gere, a descendant of Mayflower pilgrims, was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Central New York, graduating from North Syracuse High School in 1967. He went to UMass-Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship before turning to a career in acting.
“Oh, Canada,” also starring Uma Thurman, Jacob Elordi and Michael Imperioli, tells the story of draft dodgers who fled to Canada to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. The film is directed by Paul Schrader, who previously collaborated with Gere on “American Gigolo.”
Gere said that he wished his father could have seen the film. Homer Gere, who spent most of his life in North Syracuse, died at age 100 last year.
““I am interested in how my father would respond to the film. I used my experience of being with him these last years, he was failing but he was so present. He remembered everyone’s stories, and how he was emotionally attached to them,” Richard Gere told Forbes. “But there were times he was disoriented and he felt like he was in a dream and out of control. Things weren’t in the contextual reality that he remembered. And his brain had to put pieces together in a different way, and I think the moment in the film where I become disoriented is one of the best parts.”
Gere, who now lives in Spain with his wife Alejandra Silva, is also known for roles in “Pretty Woman,” “An Officer and a Gentleman,” “Arbitrage,” “The Jackal,” and “Runaway Bride.” He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role in “And the Band Played On,” won a Golden Globe for 2003′s “Chicago,” and was named People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1999 (plus the “Sexiest Couple” with Cindy Crawford in 1993).
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