{"id":325866,"date":"2025-12-03T22:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325866\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T22:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:28:12","slug":"richard-gere-on-dalai-lama-documentary-20-year-oscar-ban-and-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325866\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Gere on Dalai Lama Documentary, 20-Year Oscar Ban and Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRichard Gere<\/a> is more than just an executive producer by name on \u201cWisdom of Happiness,\u201d a documentary about his longtime friend the Dalai Lama<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve never worked this hard to get a film that I\u2019ve been associated with to be seen in the world,\u201d Gere, who first met the Dalai Lama about 45 years ago, tells me. \u201cI think this is important enough that I have to give my last bit of energy to put this out there for people to see. At the very least, it will put a seed in the minds of people who see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film chronicles the then 89-year-old Dalai Lama\u2019s life. It features the Nobel Peace Prize winner speaking directly into the camera as if he is having a one-on-one conversation with the viewer.<\/p>\n

\n\tGere joined the doc as executive producer<\/a> after co-directors Philip Delaquis and Barbara Miller showed him an early cut. Gere, alongside his longtime collaborator writer-director Oren\u00a0Moverman, spent a month helping to re-edit the film and add a new score.<\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout the film, the Dalai Lama recalls his childhood and family memories. He also offers guidance about the search for happiness and his belief that compassion and being of service are the key to achieving \u201cpeace of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I originally saw it about a year ago, I thought about his 90th birthday coming up. I said, \u2018This is terrific and I think we can make it even better,\u2019\u201d the \u201cPretty Woman\u201d star says. \u201cEverything was coming to together and I was thinking, yes, this is the center of a celebration of this extraordinary life. But then in the meantime, the world has gotten so much crazier that this has taken on a different kind of life to me. There is a medicinal quality I think to this film at a time when there\u2019s a deep sickness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Dalai Lama asks audiences to \u201ctake a deep breath, step back and question ourselves,\u201d Gere explains. \u201cWe\u2019re on a very wrong track here, and it\u2019s gotten worse over the last years. Even a sense of basic kindness is lacking in the way people talk to each other. Obviously, this comes from our leaders, especially the one we have now. How did that happen? We were responsible. We all have to take credit for that and responsibility for that.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf we want a world a certain way, then we have to elect leaders who have a similar vision to us and will lead us towards this higher level of possibility \u2014 who we are as individuals and how we can create a world, a society where people can live with each other rather than this battlefield every day, all day long, with the craziness. Especially, as I say, coming from this very crude mentality that is now in our leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tI wonder if Gere thinks the Dalai Lama could have an impact even on a man like Donald Trump. \u201cI don\u2019t know that it would touch him,\u201d Gere says. \u201cI would hope that it would. I would pray that it would. But boy, I don\u2019t know how you explain what he has done to this country, what it feels like to be an American now, 10 or 11 months in. It\u2019s just astonishing. It\u2019s beyond what anyone could ever imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere have been dozens of documentaries made about the Dalai Lama. Gere says he\u2019s seen most, if not all of them. He laughs when he remembers being pitched a script for a biopic. \u201cIt was the silliest script I\u2019d ever read,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was the CIA literally carrying him out of the Potala Palace [in Tibet] in the middle of the night. They were trying to honor the invasion of Tibet and the escape of His Holiness after he\u2019d been threatened by the Chinese, but it was just a ridiculous, silly story. It was like Rambo coming and getting him out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tEver since meeting the Dalai Lama, Gere has been an outspoken activist for Tibetan independence. He was banned from the Academy Awards for 20 years when he went off script while presenting at the show in 1993 to denounce China\u2019s policies in Tibet. He didn\u2019t present again until 2013.<\/p>\n

\n\tGere has never discussed the controversy with the Dalai Lama. \u201cIt never came up,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019ll tell him once in a while if I get an award or something and he sends a note, congratulating me, that he\u2019s happy for me, But that\u2019s about as close as it gets to actually talking about movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fact, Gere insists the ban never bothered him as much as one might assume.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t take it particularly personally,\u201d Gere says. \u201cI didn\u2019t think there were any bad guys in the situation. I do what I do and I certainly don\u2019t mean anyone any harm. I mean to harm anger. I mean to harm exclusion. I mean to harm human rights abuses, but I try to stay as close to where His Holiness comes from\u2026 that everyone is redeemable, and in the end, everyone has to be redeemed or none of us [are]. So in that sense, I don\u2019t take it personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Dalai Lama has seen \u201cWisdom of <\/a>Happiness.\u201d<\/a> Well, parts of it. He watched it with his niece, Tencho Gyatso, who is the president of the International Campaign for Tibet. \u201cHe really didn\u2019t have any interest in seeing himself at all,\u201d Gere says. \u201cSo she kind of skipped forward through that, but when there was this old footage where he was seeing his old friends and family and remembering \u2014 he was delighted going into his memory bank of his childhood, like we all would.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the trailer for \u201cWisdom of Happiness\u201d below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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