Why Hollywood Won't Cast Richard Gere Anymore

Those aforementioned humanitarian efforts have triggered some negative side effects on his career.

With Chinese financing and global box-office results becoming more and more important to the success of traditional Hollywood movies, Gere has found himself essentially out of the running for mainstream projects, according to an interview with Vanity Fair. He attributes his alienation to his advocacy for Tibetan independence and to his continued criticisms of what he calls "China's horrendous, horrendous human rights situation." He even cites an independent project that was torpedoed after the Chinese director was allegedly told that if he worked with Gere, he and his family "would never have been allowed to leave the country ever again, and he would never work."

Gere's problems with China didn't end with simple threats. They've also impacted his relationship with big studios, who began seriously chasing capital from the communist country in the late '90s. After completing the 1997 socio-political thriller Red Corner—in which Gere plays an American attorney wrongfully accused of murder and abused by a corrupt Chinese court system—the studio "dumped it," in Gere's words, presumably meaning they stopped promoting it and limited its release.

"Everyone was happy with the film. I get calls from the heads of the studio. Went on Oprah," Gere told The Hollywood Reporter. "Then, out of nowhere, I get calls saying, 'We don't want you doing press.' MGM wanted to make an overall deal with the Chinese. China told them, 'If you release this film, we're not buying it.'"

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