Do you find dance liberating, something that brings you out of yourself?
"I was lucky. I was five years old when I started dancing and I think the wonderful thing about dance
for everybody is that you don’t have to be a trained dancer for that but it makes you feel free, when
you really, really let go. And it’s one of the things that I miss most - not being able to go out to
a club with my combat boots and my sweat pants and a hat and a t-shirt and just dance until 4 in
the morning. It’s therapeutic."
So, given your fashion guru status, do you actually prefer to dress down?
"Well, I was dancing and sweating for four hours and that was the fun of it but now that people know
you, it’s different. You can’t just be the crazy girl with the hat dancing for four hours. People
have their eye on me too much and it’s not too much fun."
Many actresses wanted this role - what was the most important element for you in wanting to take this role on?
"The most important element for me in this role was the fact….it was where she was in her life at this
moment. She was a very driven person, she was very focused but she lost her way and become more focused
on the prize and not the journey. I think she was in one of those places in life where we all find
ourselves sometimes where you’ve worked hard at something and you’ve put all your hopes and dreams
into something and then it just blows up. And you’re standing there like, okay, what do I do now?
And you give up. And that’s what I think she is and that is the most important aspect to that character.
Maybe a lot of people would want to do this because the Japanese movie was so charming and worked on
so many levels that to do this project was great and I’m lucky that they decided to choose me."
How did you learn the tango?
"I learned it first time. I’ve always loved the tango. There are the modern dances like the foxtrot etc.
and there is the Latin tango, which came much easier to me. That was more in my blood than for
example the waltz so the tango I learned and it was good. I liked it. It was really fun."
Many people think the tango is the sexiest of all dances.
"It is pretty sexy. It’s passionate. It has a little bit of edge to it and it’s more expressive in
the fact that it’s about love, some sort of love or sexual passion. It’s always about ripping her hair
off or spinning her around or throwing her across the floor. There’s something really going on there
whereas the waltz is more of a genteel dance."
After watching the original film how did you feel about doing it yourself?
"I saw it years ago when it first came out and then I saw it again a couple of years ago and I saw it
again recently and I loved it. I always loved it, just themes that it played upon, the idea of passion,
the idea of needing to be fulfilled as an individual, to be good in a relationship and I think we took
those themes and ultimately I decided to do it because I had issues like how it was going to be adapted
for Americans.
Culturally, we have different issues, so I was like, how is this going to work? So we pulled some of
those themes which was so beautiful about the first movie and put it in our own setting and made it work
in a similar way and add a little of this or that. I think this one had a little more of a comedy edge
to it, too. But we were able to maintain that romance that the first one had and the underlying theme -
you need passion in your life."
You’ve said that this is a tough business - What have you learned and how have you survived?
"It’s a tough business. I’m not saying anything new. It’s very ‘What have you done for me lately?’
it’s very, ‘What’s going on with you?’ Now in the past few years, it’s the big media, the image stuff,
there’s a lot to deal with on a lot of different levels. And then there’s a work itself, which is
the most important part, and how do you keep that fresh and how do you keep going? How do you keep,
as an artist, fulfilling yourself and still creating the opportunity for people to allow you to keep
working in a way, because that’s really the gist of how you keep working."
How would you describe the perfect dance partner?
"The best dance partner is someone who can lead you but then still let you shine, I think. You want
*-0a man who’s going to lead you and be strong and at the same time he’s going to let you have your moment."
You need chemistry?
"Absolutely. If you don’t have chemistry there’s no way…of course you have to have chemistry in everything.
The best dance partner I’ve ever had, I find I dance really good with my gay friends. You know what I mean?
It’s always so much better, like you want to dance salsa with them because they get really into it."
Shall We Dance is about long lost dreams - do you have any long lost dreams?
"Well, not yet. (laughs). No long lost dreams. But as far as dreams, I’ve been lucky enough to
fulfil those in the last fifteen years."
After what you’ve been through in the last year or so - do you think it will affect your roles you get offered?
"Absolutely it does. Actually, I’ve been taking a new approach. It’s harder because I’ve just finished
taking a year off but nobody knows that because people see me being chased when I’m trying to buy milk and
that’s tough but I do believe that it effects it so I’ve been trying to pull back a little bit. I’ve been
more private about the personal side of my life as opposed to why I’m in the public eye to begin with.
It’s just because I was in a movie or I do music and that’s why people know me.
For me it’s about getting the
focus back on that and not about what I’m doing when I’m home. Not only does it affect me career-wise, but for
me, it was affecting my life, the quality of my life and I wasn’t happy anymore. I had to grow up a little bit
and put up certain boundaries. Its okay to talk about this but it’s not okay to talk about that.
It’s not okay for you to chase me down and me to have to adjust my life. Whereas before, I was like, you know
what - I’m not going to let anybody make me change the way I am and do this or do that. But I realise that
it had a lot of repercussions to it."
Your body language and demeanour would suggest you’re in a very happy place.
"I am in a very happy place. I’m a very open person naturally that’s why it’s hard for me to put up
those boundaries, it has been for many years. But I’m older now, more mature now, wiser now I’d
like to think and I have to be."
Have you always been disciplined?
"I’m very disciplined. Ever since I was really young I’d always felt that everything I did in my life
prepared me for what I do for a living. When I was five years old I was in dance classes and I had
to go every single - three days a week. Then when I was 10 or 11 I started doing track and I practised
every day after school. Every day after school and on the weekends I did track meets so I learned a
good discipline.
I think it’s a natural part of who I am as well. I’m a very disciplined person as well and I expect the
best from myself and when I don’t give my best I’m disappointed with myself. So I try to stay focused
and do my best, especially when you’re working on a movie and you’re there to do a job. I just want
them to get their moneys worth. I want them to think, she came, she came prepared, she did what she had
to do, she didn’t cause us any problems, she did great work, thank you very much. So at least I did
everything I could do to do my part. Movies are very big projects. There’s hundreds of people involved but
if you only and if everybody’s doing their part, you can make a great movie."
Is it harder now?
"No, when I started it was harder, now it’s a bit easier. You learn how to do it better as you go
along. You get better at knowing what you have to focus on and not that it goes away instantly but you
can let it go. It tortures you a little bit when you’re a young actor you just drive yourself crazy,
it’s so silly but then you learn."
Are you a workaholic?
"I think I’ve always been somewhat of a workaholic. But I don’t think it’s an unhealthy thing, I
just love what I do. I think I’m more of an artist, a passionate person who really loves what they’re doing."
How much training did you do to act like a professional dance teacher?
"Well, I’m a dancer so I’ve been dancing since I was very young. But I was doing this for five weeks
after I did a movie called An Unfinished Life. We rehearsed every chance we had. We rehearsed every
morning before we’d shoot, during lighting set-ups was really our big time to rehearse and on the
weekends. I didn’t have time to get into it so I had a lot to learn. It was good."
Very early in your career you were the first woman to have a number one single in the charts and a number one movie at the box office - that’s fairly incredible.
"I know, I kept saying, ‘Did you check Barbara Streisand?’ Yes, it was an amazing thing that happened."
Susan Sarandon has had a long career – do you see yourself acting in your 50s?
"Yeah, if I’m lucky. If I have the opportunity, I’ll be doing it anyway! It doesn’t matter what
level I’m doing it at but I’ll be doing something!"
Syndicated Interview - Richard Gere
When was the last time you had a date with your wife and danced with her?
"The last time was almost a year ago at a wedding party. I had finished this movie and my wife had
taken lessons with one of my teachers. Her family and my family were there and all of our friends and
she grabbed me and said ‘We are going to dance for our friends.’ It was a spotlight dance, very romantic.
She had learned to follow and I was doing a lot of the choreography from the movie and we were improvising
dips, twirls and spins and doing all the stuff and it was wonderful. Really wonderful. I can highly
recommend for a husband and wife to take some dance lessons at the Richard Gere Dance School, soon to
open in your neighbourhood."
You have now danced in two movies in a row?
"Not only in two movies in a row, two dancing lawyers. I didn’t realise that until someone told me the other day."
You are not entirely new to dancing because at the beginning of your career you were on stage in Grease?
"Yeah. I did a lot of rock musicals when I came to New York because I could sing and could play musical
instruments. We did not call it dancing then, we called it moving. They would take essentially athletic young
actors and actresses and give us choreography that we could move to. It wasn’t like dancing, but we could
make it energetic and fun. But it clearly wouldn’t qualify as dancing. This is dancing what we are doing in
this movie. And it is extremely difficult because it is ballroom dancing. It’s really hard.
We shot this in Winnipeg where there is a really good ballet company, one of the best in the world. These
wonderful ballet dancers came in and thought they’d pick up ballroom right away but it was extremely difficult.
Even Jennifer, who is a wonderful dancer, had to work very hard to do ballroom dancing."
Were you nervous about the dancing scenes with Jennifer?
"Yeah very because she’s a wonderful dancer and I’m pathetic. I learned to dance well enough for the
movie and make it look good but I’m not a dancer."
Did you notice a difference in your posture when you did two dance roles?
"With the ballroom especially. The thing I did with the tap dance in Chicago was a very internalised
thing. I was just creating rhythms inside myself and it was a jazz body. Ballroom is this very proud,
odd thing you do with your head and torque your body in a strange way. There’s nothing natural about
it whatsoever. Ironically tap dance is a much more natural thing, it’s like walking. It’s just moving.
In a way it’s much easier because of that."
When you are dancing with somebody you like is it completely different to dancing with somebody you don’t like?
"You have to trust them even if you don’t like them. That’s why dance is such a good metaphor for
relationships. For the dance to happen there has to be trust and one person who leads and one person who
follows. It’s not because of the power hierarchy it’s because two people can’t be leading."
Are you a leader or a follower?
"With Jennifer I was a follower. There was the illusion that I was leading but she was definitely in control."
What is the difference between this and the original Japanese film?
"There is no way we could have done exactly the Japanese film because culturally it doesn’t make any sense here.
The Japanese film was about many different levels of repressing sexuality, physical touch, independence...
all these things. That doesn’t really work in this culture, it’s not meaningful in the same way. So we
had to find something that was meaningful here. What the writer came up with - which I thought was very
smart - was to create a family and people who were not dysfunctional but very functional.
They are smart, funny, experienced, active with great kids, the house, the job, the dog, the whole
American dream. It’s not a fake they really are like that. This husband and wife are really good with each
other but even then there is something missing. That was interesting! I think it is a peculiarly American
thing. The other part is about women. There is no way that the wife in the Japanese movie - who is so
dependent, so shy and stayed at home, didn’t have a job, just sat there eating chocolate and watching TV -
would have been related to in America."
Is it also a story about lack of communication?
"On the surface yeah. But you might say why when the wife discovers he is taking dance lessons didn’t
she just ask him about it? It was easier for her to go to a private detective than just to ask her
husband what he was really doing on Wednesday nights. I think the root of that is insecurity or lack of
strength, lack of independence, lack of self knowledge.
You don’t ask the question because you don’t want to know the answer. But if you are strong in yourself
then the answer is the answer. Later on he says to her I just felt guilty about wanting more because we
have so much, everything is so great. I love you, I love my kids but I want more. I want joy, love
whatever that spark is that makes us feel alive and I think we all feel that. We all have pretty good
lives but still there is a sense of more. We can make more breakthroughs we can be bigger. We can be giants."
So are you like the character in Shall We Dance?
"I’m not exactly like him. I’m not like the guy who comes home every night on the train with a briefcase.
I have a little different life. So in a way I have consciously made a life where I am trying to make
breakthroughs. Not that I have achieved it but I’m trying to. This is an every day thing. It’s not like
you say 10 years from now I’m going to have a breakdown. Every day you really have to be looking for this.
If I got stuck into a pattern, which is ok, but then I’m stuck. I’m not free and then boundaries start to
come round and rules and you really don’t go outside of the known. Every day is a struggle to get a bigger,
larger heart, larger mind. That’s an internal process. You can’t really do that leaning on someone else.
What you learn in the process of doing that can be brought then to the relationship and I think that’s
what this movie is about."
Have you ever felt a professional routine in your career?
"No if I did I’d probably stop. It has a certain amount of inertia. There have been times when I have not
felt like working and I had to pay the bills. So I went out and found something I could do, something
that I could turn into something that I could work with. But I am incredibly lucky I have a career that
is not the normal repetition of life over and over. I do different things all the time."
You once said you might stop making movies, what changed that?
"I still like what I am doing. My latest films are dealing with the problems of older men. I’m an
older man, so it is dealing with my issues. When I was a younger man I dealt with younger man issues.
I used to say when I reached 50 that would be it...stop. I think I was fairly serious about that but
then a friend would say they had a script. I’d read it and it was pretty good so I’d say this would be
my last one. I still enjoy it so as long as people want me to keep doing this and they bring me things
that make me feel good to work on I’ll probably keep doing it. Plus it feeds my foundation work which is
very important to me. Not only the money feeds the foundation but also the opportunity sometimes arises
to use things like this promote it."
Your character chooses dancing, has photography been that kind of outlet for you?
"Yeah. I would not think it is as radical a step as in the movie. For me photography is in spurts, it’s
not systematic. I get a buzz on about something and then I’ll take photographs and I will burrow into an
idea and it will evolve into something or it won’t. I don’t see it as a systematic hobby."
A lot of stars colour their hair but not you, why?
"Isn’t it great! I got away with it. Isn’t it so lucky? All the money I’ve saved not having to colour my
hair. The girls know this, it’s expensive doing that once a week. I didn’t even think about it. I know
myself pretty well and I know I’m playing characters. If it’s ok for the character to have white hair then
great the character has white hair. If it’s better that the character has dark hair then I’ll make it
darker. But in terms of my life all I care about is my wife - does she find me attractive? Great, fine."
Would you change the colour of your hair if your wife asked?
"But she wouldn’t. She likes it. I changed it darker for Unfaithful and my wife said don’t do that again."
Release info:
Credit:
Release date:
Certificate:
Running time
DVD ratio
Price (VHS/DVD)
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
20th June 2005
PG
101 mins
1.85:1 widescreen
£19.99
News page content input by Dominic Robinson, 2005.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Posted: May 30th, 2005.
Syndicated Interview - Richard Gere