Film: Gere up for a serious China smashing session

Richard Gere is an avid supporter of the Dalai Lama and Tibet. So he was delighted to star in Red Corner, a political thriller, where he could indulge in a spot of China-bashing. Cameron Docherty met the man who juggles fame and the Buddhist faith

He is as elusive as smoke. Restless and edgy, he paces around the marble floor of his Malibu home wondering why people are always curious about his private life, and isn't it enough just to talk about his profession.

Finally, Richard Gere settles into an armchair and remains motionless, staring straight ahead, his nobleman profile tilted ever so slightly upward, as if he were listening for ethereal music lesser mortals cannot hear.

He precedes to spend the next hour talking to me without ever looking at me. His voice is scarcely audible, even from three feet away; he makes so faint an imprint on his surroundings, I keep fighting the uneasy sensation that he might dematerialise before my eyes.

Not that one expected a teddy bear. Gere is notorious for clamming up during interviews. He gets thoroughly incensed when asked personal questions; he still refuses to say anything at all about his split from supermodel Cindy Crawford. "Why I got divorced is deeply personal between Cindy and me," he exclaims. "There are some areas of my life I just won't discuss ... It's the last area of privacy.

"This insistence on people knowing about your private life," he shakes his head with disgust. "I did not become an actor because I wanted to be a media celebrity," he adds contemptuously. "I became an actor because I love film, because I love language. I love painting. I love all art forms."

But after more than two decades in Hollywood, Gere, 48, knows the score. He's not only a movie star, but a salesman too. Which is why, no matter how uncomfortable it gets, he puts himself in the position to be scrutinised, analysed and (occasionally) brutalised in print. I think he enjoys the process, though he'd never admit it.

What he's far happier discussing is his film, Red Corner, a political thriller in which he plays an American businessman framed for murder in Beijing. His character is then thrust into a Chinese judicial system that operates under the dictum that you are guilty until proven innocent, and if you're a Westerner, no one cares.

Of course, Gere relished the opportunity to indulge in China-bashing. It's a role he's become accustomed to since taking an aggressive stance on the plight of Tibet - his charity, the Gere Foundation, is dedicated to promoting awareness of China's hostile takeover of the territory in 1949 - and becoming a practising Buddhist and staunch supporter of the Dalai Lama.

In the movie, the Chinese, with the exception of a female attorney, are portrayed as a corrupt, sinister race, who'd murder you as soon as look at you. No wonder, at a time when China is slowly opening its doors to Hollywood - last year, the communist government released seven US movies for consumption - Red Corner was not on its shopping list, (indeed, along with Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet, it was condemned by the People's Republic as being "deeply offensive").

Not that Gere is stung by the criticism. "The state of any society is mirrored in the state of its judicial system," he says reflectively. "It is used as a weapon by the military. Their power is based on silence - people are afraid to speak their mind. In China they are afraid to speak at all. Tiananmen Square was not about anger; it was about speaking out for the first time."

He'd wanted to do a film about Tibet for years. Regretfully, he ruled himself out of starring in Seven Years in Tibet - "too old" - and waited for a script that would combine his spirituality with his political stance. "Initially, Red Corner was written about the Soviet Union," he says. "Then someone thought of setting it in China. After I read it I immediately called the head of the studio and said, 'I'm in.'

"It's extremely rare to get a piece that's emotional and close to your heart," he adds. "Red Corner is new, it's fresh, it's right-now. At the same time it has maybe the most adult relationship that I've portrayed on film with a woman. It's not romantic. It's about true intimacy, which is ultimately about trust."

Because Gere is banned from China - and because it is notoriously difficult to shoot in Beijing without the authorities breathing down your neck - MGM, which financed the $32m production, built sets on the studio lot to resemble the Chinese capital and flew in hundreds of extras to give it an authentic look.

Once principal photography was completed, Jon Avnet, the director, went to Beijing with a second unit crew to secretly shoot footage of city landmarks such as Tiananmen Square and the US Embassy for pick-up shots. The effect works so well that it's difficult to tell where Beijing ends and the Los Angeles set begins, which gives Gere great satisfaction.

"I'm proud of the film," he admits. "Being able to tell a story that's political and deeply spiritual at the same time has been very enlightening for me. They're not separate issues, politics and religion, but it's rare that you find a vehicle to combine them, and that the people you work with share those goals."

While Gere may have succeeded in juggling politics and religion on celluloid, combining the trappings of movie star fame with the teachings of his Buddhist faith is a much more complex matter entirely. He wears his contradictions boldly. His right wrist boasts a mala, Buddhist prayer beads; the left, an expensive watch.

"This is my work," he reasons with a shrug and wry smile that seem to convey that, whether you like it or not, HE has come to terms with this strange dichotomy. "When you analyse it, it's completely irrational. If I hadn't learned to deal with it, I'd be in the loony bin by now."

He first got interested in Buddhism when he was 24: "I was unhappy," he says, "and Buddhism tackles the fundamental question 'Why am I unhappy?'" - and has been practising it for more than 20 years. He meditates each day, studies Buddhist texts, and travels to India every year to study with the Dalai Lama. Has it made him happier? "I'm more comfortable in my skin," he replies thoughtfully. "I have less anxiety and less anger."

Gere compares meeting the Dalai Lama to falling in love, and though they've since become close friends, he still talks about "His Holiness" in the rapt terms of a teenager speaking of his first love. "His Holiness generates love and compassion to every human being. He literally sends out light. I haven't made that leap yet," he says. "I haven't given up self-aspiration. I still love making movies."

Ironically, while most actors would consider it a blessing to be as successful as Gere, he views it with a strange degree of pessimism. "To be in a position where people are talking about getting your commitment to a film very far ahead is something you dream about - but when it's there, it's quite alarming," he glumly admits. "It's taking you away from your sense of who you are and what you know."

Even the enviable roles he's landed, particularly in the hit movies Pretty Woman and Primal Fear, have contributed to that sense of erosion, it seems. "You put your energy, your thought, your imagination, your spirit into something," he explains. "It's all rooted in who you are. Your appearance is what you manipulate to create the illusion of being someone else. And that costs you every time you're successful."

What does it cost you? Gere wanders over to the window and looks thoughtfully out at the expansive blue Pacific Ocean in front of him. "It costs you yourself," he says, so softly I can barely hear him.