Yahoo Lifestyle Richard Gere Says America Is In “A Very Dark Place” With “Bully And Thug” Donald Trump As President – Goya Awards
Accepting a lifetime achievement honor at Spain’s Goya Awards this weekend, Richard Gere had some choice words about the state of things in the U.S. amid Donald Trump’s second term in office. “We’re in a very dark place in America where we have a bully and a thug who’s the President of the United States,” the actor and producer said from the stage inside Granada’s Palacio de Congresos.
He’d begun his acknowledgements expressing gratitude for being a part of the “world of telling stories” and recognizing the “thousands of people it takes to make a movie.” The Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman and Chicago star then continued, “We’re all part of a universe of overlapping pain and sadness and joy and expectations and dreams and hopes and visions. And I see this world that we’re in now forgetting that, and this kind of very foolish tribalism is starting to take us over, where we think we’re all separate from each other, and we have unfortunately elected officials that don’t inspire us in the way we want to be inspired.”
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But, said Gere, who recently moved to Spain with his Galicia-born wife, “It’s not just in the U.S. It’s everywhere.”
To applause from the audience, he cautioned, “Authoritarianism takes us all over. We have to be vigilant, we have to be alert. We have to be energetic. We have to be brave. We have to be courageous.”
Gere had earlier met with the press, and per RTVE said of Trump, “He’s irresponsible and it’s a real danger that billionaires are controlling America… If you associate money and power, it’s a dark place to be. These clowns dressed as presidents appear immature and narcissistic. That kind of power is killer.”
A longtime humanitarian, Gere recently executive produced a documentary about the Dalai Lama. On Saturday night, he spoke of the need for kindness and understanding among human beings. “Everyone who’s watching this in the Spanish speaking world and elsewhere, we have to be willing to stand up, tell the truth, be honest, and there’s a place in all of our lives for basic kindness, for basic love and understanding and an embrace of each other in a very fundamental and real way.”
Talking about the state of the movie business, Gere told the press that while he watches films at home, “Going to the cinema is a profound experience: leaving your house, you can’t pause the film or leave it for tomorrow. Being with strangers in the dark watching a film… Anything that takes us away from that magic means that we are losing something that is in our basic DNA as human beings.”
Gere is the first male recipient of the International Goya, and on Saturday night mused that a lifetime achievement prize was perhaps premature, “I still have a lot of things to do.”
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