Richard Gere has made a rare remark about being banned from the Oscars for 20 years after he went off-script at the live show.
The 76-year-old actor, known for being an outspoken human rights activist, recently said he was unfazed by the controversy he sparked by denouncing China’s “horrendous, horrendous human rights issue” in Tibet while presenting at the 1993 Academy Awards.
“I didn’t take it particularly personally,” Gere said in an interview with Variety published Wednesday. “I didn’t think there were any bad guys in the situation. I do what I do and I certainly don’t mean anyone any harm. I mean to harm anger. I mean to harm exclusion.”
He went on to say his activism was inspired by the Dalai Lama, his longtime friend and the subject of the 2025 documentary he executive produced, though he never discussed the controversial Oscars speech with the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
“I mean to harm human rights abuses, but I try to stay as close to where His Holiness comes from… that everyone is redeemable, and in the end, everyone has to be redeemed or none of us [are]. So in that sense, I don’t take it personally,” he said.
Gere was supposed to name the nominees for Best Art Direction during his presentation in 1993, but he took the on-stage opportunity to call out China for its government’s restrictions on Tibet at the time, saying: “If something miraculous, really kind of movie-like, could happen here, where we could all kind of send love and truth and a kind of sanity to Deng Xiaoping right now in Beijing, that he will take his troops and take the Chinese away from Tibet and allow people to live as free independent people again.”
Although the Primal Fear star’s tangent was met with applause during the show, the Academy was unhappy with the unscripted moment. After the awards, producer Gil Cates slammed Gere’s speech as “arrogant” and vowed not to invited him back, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.
Cates told the outlet that he disapproved of Gere’s move, as well as his fellow presenters Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, who similarly raised awareness to social issues while speaking on stage.
“[For] someone who I invite to present an award to use that time to postulate a personal political belief I think is not only outrageous, it's distasteful and dishonest,” Cates told the outlet at the time, saying, “I wouldn't invite them to my home, and I won't invite them to a future show.”
Gere, who is banned from China, did not return to present at the Academy Awards again until 2013.
