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People Are Expecting Me To Be A Certain Way All The Time. It's Not Like If I Come In Here With A Totally Different Personality And Right Before The Camera Starts They See This New Character. It Confuses Everything. Life Has A Consensus Reality To It And If You Use That To Your Advantage It Makes It Much Easier.

-Richard Gere

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People Are Expecting Me

Richard Gere

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People Are Expecting Me To Be A Certain Way All The Time. It's Not Like If I Come In Here With A Totally Different Personality And Right Before The Camera Starts They See This New Character. It Confuses Everything. Life Has A Consensus Reality To It And If You Use That To Your Advantage It Makes It Much Easier.

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I'm Not That Tough; I'm Not That Smart. I Need Life Telling Me Who I Am, Showing Me My Mind Constantly. I Wouldn't See It In A Cave.

Movie Acting Is Primarily Listening. If You're Really Engaged, That's All A Movie Audience Wants To See Is You Processing What's Happening In Your World.

I Just Had A Device Made That Fits In Your Mouth And Juts Your Jaw Out Like You Have An Underbite. It Locks In That Position To Keep Your Throat Passage Open When You Sleep. This Is The Sacrifice I Make For My Wife. It Was Either This Device Or Me Sleeping In The Other Room.

I Can See The Character In A Photograph, In The Way A Guy Stands Or Holds His Hands, The Way He Buckles His Belt. I Fantasize A Lot Looking At Photographs. I'm Sure That Doesn't Work For Many People.

The Idea Of Fixing Of Healing Is An Important Part Of Any Genuine Spiritual Approach. Kabbalah Is Very Much About This Idea Of Fixing Of Things That Have Been Damaged. From A Buddhist Point Of View, Things Have Been Damaged Because Ignorance Has Intoxicated The Mind.

I Think Most Of Our Religious Institutions Are Pretty Corrupt, So They're Not Reliable. I Think The Christian Religion That I Was Brought Up With Has Very Little To Do With Christ, Really, And More An Institutions That Have Built Up Around The Church.

In A Situation Like This, Of Course You Identify With Everyone Who's Suffering. (but We Must Also Think About) The Terrorists Who Are Creating Such Horrible Future Lives For Themselves Because Of The Negativity Of This Karma. It's All Of Our Jobs To Keep Our Minds As Expansive As Possible. If You Can See (the Terrorists) As A Relative Who's Dangerously Sick And We Have To Give Them Medicine, And The Medicine Is Love And Compassion. There's Nothing Better.

I Have A Lot Of Beautiful Friends.

I've Stayed Good Friends With Most Of My Girlfriends.

One Of The Joys Of Being An Actor Is That You're Always Learning New Things. And I've Been Doing This Since I Was 19, So There's Been A Lot Of New Things I Have Learned For Each Part. I Always Assume That I Can Do It.

When I Started Acting, It Was Really The Way For Me To Be Able To Communicate.

I Don't Know Any Of Us Who Are In Relationships That Are Totally Honest - It Doesn't Exist.

Cute Relationship

I Can't Say I Have Control Over My Emotions; I Don't Know My Mind. I'm Lost Like Everyone Else. I'm Certainly Not A Leader.

Well I Think On A Simple Ecological Level That The Diversity Of This Planet Is Important For Our Survival, That All Of Our Different Cultures, People Are Important To The Health Of The Whole The Same Way That A Species Of Animal Should Be Saved And At A Simple Ecology Level.

I Think Life Is Self-examination. Certainly The Voyage That One Takes.

I Haven't Worked With People Who Are Jealous Or Competitive. That's A Particularly Deadly Attitude To Have When You're Working On A Film.

Everyone Responds To Kindness.

I'm Less Needy About Needing To Express Myself Through Acting. I Have Many Different Lives Outside Of This That Are Extremely Fulfilling.

I Have No Sense Of Time, And I'm A Dreamer.

Food Is The Only Beautiful Thing That Truly Nourishes.

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I Cry Every Chance I Get.

The Dalai Lama Said That He Thinks Mother's Love Is The Best Symbol For Love And Compassion, Because It Is Totally Disinterested.

People Have A Different Idea Of How Movies Are Made Than They Really Are.

I've Always Said It's Flattering To Be Desired, Just As It's Flattering That People Accept The Reality Of The Character You Play. But It Was Always Ridiculous To Assume That Because I Could Play A Gigolo On Screen I'd Play Anything Like That Role Off Screen.

It's Human Nature - We Want To Believe Our Children, Our Families, Our President!

There Is Nothing Real About Film. Nothing. Even The Light Particles That Project The Film Can't Be Proven To Exist. Nothing Is There.

Billions Of People Don't Practice A Religion At All.

Everyone Seems To Think They Know What Acting Techniques Are. Techniques Just Help You Get To A Certain Place, But If The Thing Is Happening Just By Itself You Don't Need Those Techniques.

Western Buddhists In Many Ways Are Much Serious Buddhists Than Tibetans Are.

The Secret Of My Success Is My Hairspray.

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People Are Always Talking About Freedom. Freedom To Live A Certain Way, Without Being Kicked Around. Course The More You Live A Certain Way, The Less It Feel Like Freedom. Me, Uhm, I Can Change During The Course Of A Day. I Wake And I'm One Person, When I Go To Sleep I Know For Certain I'm Somebody Else. I Don't Know Who I Am Most Of The Time.

The Drive For Happiness Is Vital; It's What Keeps Us In Motion.

I Know Who I Am. No One Else Knows Who I Am. If I Was A Giraffe, And Someone Said I Was A Snake, I'd Think, No, Actually I'm A Giraffe.

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If The Work Is Going Well And It's Something That Has Value With Some Meaning To It, It Gives Back A Lot.

It's Not Enough To Say That The Olympics Is An Athletic Contest Outside Of Politics, Because It's Not. The Chinese Clearly Are Using The Olympics To Recreate How They Are Viewed In The World And How They View Themselves.

When You Work As An Actor, You've Got To Feel Safe Even In What Appears To Be The Simplest Things.

Why Is It When We Have 10 Million People In This Country Who Say 'no', We Still Have A President Who Says 'yes.' In A Democracy, Something's Wrong Here.

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On A Movie Set That Works, You Have Your Father Figure, The Director, You Have Your Siblings, Your Other Actors.

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There Are Some Problems On This Planet That Seem To Be Intractable.

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The Reality Is, We Can Change. We Can Change Ourselves. We Can Change Our Minds. We Can Change Our Hearts. And Therefore The Universe Changes.

I've Had An Interesting Life.

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I'm Younger Than I Once Was. Internally. Less Self-conscious. Less Insecure.

If You Have Any Question In Your Mind, Don't Do It. If You Go In Thinking It's Going To Fix Something That's Wrong, Don't Do It.

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I Had A Friend In The Neighborhood Whose Father Had Playboy Magazines, And We Would Go Over And Look At Them. I Remember Cutting Out Pictures And Hiding Them In My Room.

Certainly There Have Been Better Actors Than Me Who Have Had No Careers. Why? I Don't Know.

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America Has Never Paid Any Attention To Other People, So It's Absurd For Bush To Say That It's All In The Best Interests Of The Iraqi People.

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Things Come Out Of Nowhere, And You Start Evaluating The Director, The Cast, And All Those Other Things Going Into It.

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My Life Is Pretty Simple And Normal.

The Idea That You're Completing Someone Else In A Marriage To Me Is Death. That To Me Is A False Start And Most Of Us Are Usually Taught That ... You've Got To Stand On Your Own. Then You Can Build Something Extraordinary.

In The Process Of Developing A Character, You Do, In Fact, Start To Take Him On As A Personality. It's Part Of My Job.

I Do My Work As An Actor, But Another Part Of My Work Goes To The Piece As A Whole. I Can Be Fairly Detached Looking At My Work And Be Brutal On Myself.

I Have To Admit, A Manicured Look Works For Me.

We've Had Too Many World Aids Days.

I Honestly Do Not Think About Celebrity Or Image Or Sexual Expectations On Me. It Only Comes Up When People Have A List Of Questions. But What I Am Told Is That There Is A Quality That I Have Onscreen, Where It's A Little Bit Of Everything.

Sometimes I'm Kind Of Spacey. I'm Like Ferdinand The Bull, Sniffing The Daisy, Not Aware Of Time, Of What's Going On In The Real World.

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It Was Important For Me To Have A Partner Who Was Ballsy.

Maybe The Dalai Lama Is The Only Person Who Is Totally Honest, And Even With Him, He's Skillful Not To Hurt Anybody. He's Skillful.

People Get Offended By Animal Rights Campaigns. It's Ludicrous. It's Not As Bad As Mass Animal Death In A Factory.

Even In Comedies, You've Got To Feel Safe For Things To Just Happen In A Way That Is Natural And Free, And Recognizable As Human.

I've Got A Lot Of Opportunities, A Lot Of Love In My Life, A Lot Of Things Going For Me. Still, It's Not Complete. I Know This Is Not The Whole Thing. There's Much More.

I Think That As Human Beings We Tend To Compartmentalize, And We Have A Selective Morality Based On The Situation We're In.

I Do Think That Good Actors Can Do Any Part. It Doesn't Mean That They Are The Best Ones To Do It.

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