Richard Gere’s prolific cinematic career seemingly owes a lot to Garry Marshall’s 1990 romance comedy Pretty Woman which in a way made him a star pushing him to the top of the ladder. Starring alongside Julia Roberts, the movie has been one of the all-time hits with a strong fanbase still hymning the prowess of the movie. Despite the popularity and decent critical nod, however, Gere seems to think that he had no chemistry with Roberts.
Richard Gere Says He Had No Chemistry With Julia Roberts In Pretty Woman
Richard Gere who recently celebrated his 75th birthday gave some surprising comments on Pretty Woman, the movie that brought him immense fans in Hollywood with a 65% Rotten Tomatoes positive score as a bonus. The actor thinks that he had not much of a chemistry with his co-star Julia Roberts.
Gere played Edward Lewis, a rich corporate raider from New York while Julia Roberts’ Vivian Ward, a free-spirited Hollywood prostitute has been hired by him as an escort for a week. Eventually, he falls in love with Ward and the complexity of the narrative images as they try to bridge the gap between the two distinct worlds they live in.
“No chemistry,” Gere said at a masterclass hosted by Cartier at the Venice Film Festival when he was shown some footage of behind the scenes of the film. “I mean, this actor and this actress, obviously, had no chemistry between them… I haven’t seen that in a long time, too. It was a sexy, sexy scene,” the actor added (via Variety).
The scene in talk here is the steamy piano scene with Roberts’ which also has a separate fanbase.
Richard Gere Thinks His Pretty Woman Character Was ‘Criminally Underwritten’
Gere also felt that despite the prowess of the movie, his character was “criminally underwritten.” Directed by Garry Marshall, the movie comes from a screenplay written by J. F. Lawton who has Under Siege, and Mistress to his writing credit. Adding onto the scene, Gere said that it was not in the original screenplay. “This was never in the script… We didn’t know how we would use it later. It ended up being integral to the film,” the actor said.
With a similar humorous trace to his previous comment on Roberts regarding chemistry, the actor also joked that he “was playing a character that was almost criminally underwritten. It was basically a suit and a good haircut.”
“We just basically improvised this scene. I just started playing something moody that was about this character’s interior life,” Gere continued revealing that the scene came up when Marshall asked Gere to open his creative wings to develop a scenario fitting to his character.
The scene made sense and eventually made it to the final cut of the movie as Roberts’ character was him in a different light which later complemented the narrative. “There was a mysterious yearning and maybe a damaged quality to this guy that she didn’t know,” Gere said.
The actor further shared that they had fun making the movie. “We were having fun making this. The whole time we made the movie, we didn’t know if anyone would ever see this.” Made with a reported budget of $14 million, Pretty Woman went on to become a huge bit at the box office earning $463.4 million globally.
Stream Pretty Woman on Max.
