Richard Gere Act as an officer, but not always a gentleman, in a group officer and gentlemanTaylor Hackford’s award-winning 1982 military drama premiered in theaters 40 years ago, on July 28, 1982.
in A 2017 role call an interview With Yahoo Entertainment, Gere said he got into the best shape of his life to play Zack Mayo, the school’s cadet-nominated Navy flight officer who battles his seasoned Marine Corps instructor, Emile Foley (Louis Gosset Jr.).
“We worked. We’d been shooting all day. And then I’d do an hour or two of karate, too, for the karate sequences in it,” Gere told us (watch the video above, or the entirety of it). role call less).
“So I was in incredibly good shape. I was in Navy SEALs form at that.”
Gere may have gotten too tough for his own good – or his good star, anyway. One of the most famous anecdotes from the film’s set includes a moment when Gere Gossett was hit so hard in the stomach that the actor suddenly broke in and didn’t return for two days.
“I love Lou, but Lou hasn’t worked as hard as me to learn karate,” Gere explains. “I got a little frustrated with him once and actually taped him in the gut.
“Lou came out. He said: I’m done. I’m outta here!”
Gere and Josette finally buried the hatchet, and they remain friends to this day.
The latter’s forgiveness also paid off. Gossett won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his intense portrayal of Foley, becoming the first black man to win this category.
In his autobiography Actor and gentlemanJosette wrote that Gere and his co-star Debra Winger (who played Zack’s “Townie” love, Paula) didn’t quite fit in with the situation.
But Gere says they had no problem calling in romantic chemistry.
“We were like little animals, then. It was an attraction to animals. It was an animal physical amongst us.”
Watch the full role-calling interview:
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