A tourist visiting from Paris stumbled across a man pulling a partially eaten burger from a trash can on the streets of New York. Not realizing it was Richard Gere, she offered him some help.
“It’s unimaginable that something like this could happen,” said the heartbroken woman, who thoughtfully offered the millionaire beggar some fresh food.
In 2014, Richard Gere was in New York filming Time Out of Mind, a drama movie where he stars alongside Kyra Sedgwick and Steve Buscemi.
Gere, now 74, plays George, a man with mental illness who’s forced to live on the streets after he’s kicked out of the apartment he was previously squatting.
On the first day of shooting the film, the star was asked by the director, Oren Moverman, to “be” homeless to film a scene. Gere was dressed in rags and placed on the bustling city streets among everyday people.
Initially, Gere had some reservations about filming in a big city but when he walked the streets of New York City as a homeless man, with an empty coffee cup begging for change, few people noticed.
“I was out there for the very first shot, 40 minutes plus – no one made eye contact with me,” Gere said. “I was in character,” he said. “I was in one of the busiest places in New York. If I had been Richard Gere there, I wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds.”
But it’s not that Gere was unrecognizably dressed or made-up, he said.
“It was just I wasn’t the movie star and people’s projections on what they saw from the body language and where I was in the street filled in these spaces with an erroneous story,” Gere adds.
Offering further explanation, Moverman says, “No one gave him a cent. No one even recognized him. And that proved the whole point: The homeless are all around us and we don’t see them.”
Undercover homeless
Unfortunately, someone snapped a shot of him, and sharing it on social media, it was suggested the star of An Officer and a Gentleman was undercover and bringing awareness to the homeless crisis. The viral post, that at the time hit the eyes of almost 2 million people, even said he was handing out $100 to every homeless person he saw.
Addressing the exaggerations and unsubstantiated claims, Gere – who doesn’t have his own social media – used actor Jenna Malone’s Facebook to clear things up.
“Hi, Richard Gere here. I was completely surprised to find that last week someone posted a photo of me on a Facebook fan page as a homeless man on the streets of New York…”
He then explains the message attached to the post is “fictional” and that he was filming a movie, not part of an experiment. He adds he never distributed $100 bills.
Cold pizza
And though no one dropped any change in his cup, one woman did take notice.
As the Runaway Bride star foraged through a trash can near Grand Central Station and pulled out a half-eaten burger, Karine Gombeau was leaving a nearby pizza place with her husband Bruno and teenage son.
The family was visiting from Paris and spotted the old “hobo,” wearing a tuque, baggy pants and a light jacket, clutching the previously trashed burger.
She had no idea who was under the filthy clothes.
Heartbroken by the sorry sight, Gombeau, then 42, approached him and offered leftovers from an “enormous” pizza that she, her husband and 15-year-old son ordered at an Italian eatery, she told The New York Post.
Gere took the package and asked, “What’s in the bag?”
“I tried to tell him in English, but it came out half in French,” she starts. “I said, ‘Je suis désolée [I am sorry], but the pizza is cold.’”
Accepting the gift, the millionaire said, “Thank you so much. God bless you.”
The Parisian, who works in the travel industry, later said she was heartbroken to see so many homeless people in the city.
“It leaves me really sad to know we waste food, and they have nothing. It really moves me.”
Surprise!
Two days later, a worker at the hotel she was staying gave Gombeau a copy of a local paper.
She explains that she was shocked to see a photo of herself with the heartthrob on the pages inside.
“It was magical…It’s crazy, this story. It’s unimaginable that something like this could happen,” she excitedly said.
“I think he’s very handsome, even at his age.” Offering a critique she then adds, “Pretty Woman was not my favorite movie, but I really loved Chicago.”
Speaking to the publication, the woman explains the family, visiting the city for four days, had no idea they stumbled onto a movie set.
But there was one obvious hint.
As her husband was capturing memories of Grand Central Station on video, Gombeau says that “People came from all over the station,” and demanded her “husband stop filming.”
She adds, “People came out of the subways. It was very confusing.”
Please remember that Gere was not undercover as a homeless man in an experiment and that he was playing a role!
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