‘What is it about Richard Gere?’ the Observer asked in 1998, when a slightly prickly encounter between Hollywood’s ‘most famous Buddhist’ and journalist William Leith seemed to rattle Gere’s zen composure.
Gere was unnerved when Leith attended two group interviews promoting Red Corner, his latest film. ‘“You again,” he said, looking definitely put out. I sat down. He eyed me cagily.’ When it came to their one-to-one, ‘there was a flash of intense discomfort in his eyes. He made a comment accusing me of following him around, which I was.’ Leith was nervous, too, recalling that in one previous interview with Ladies’ Home Journal, when asked about being a ‘sex object’, Gere reportedly ‘took out his johnson’.
