Richard Gere has shared a secret about one of his most iconic film roles.
The actor, 75, spoke at a masterclass at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday where they played a clip of his and Julia Roberts’ infamous piano scene in “Pretty Woman,” prompting Gere to joke that the pair had “no chemistry.”
“I haven’t seen that in a long time, too. It was a sexy, sexy scene,” he added, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
According to Gere, the scene in the 1990 film was actually improvised after a conversation between Gere and director Garry Marshall.
“This was never in the script,” he said. “We didn’t know how we would use it later. It ended up being integral to the film.”
In that moment, wealthy businessman Edward Lewis plays a piano at a hotel in the middle of the night when sex worker Vivian Ward (Roberts) enters in a bathrobe. Edward asks the staff to leave them alone, and they start making out on the piano.
“Garry said to me, ‘What do you do late at night in a hotel?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m usually jet lagged, [that] would be the time I’m in a hotel. So I’m up all night and usually there’s a ballroom somewhere or a bar, and I’ll find a piano and I’ll play the piano,’” Gere recalled. “He said: ‘Well, let’s do something with that.’ “
“So we just basically improvised this scene, and he said: ‘Play something moody,’ ” Gere said. “I just started playing something moody that was this character’s interior life.”
“Pretty Woman,” which grossed $463.4 million at the box office, tells the story of Vivian, an LA prostitute, who is hired by a wealthy businessman to accompany him to various events over a weekend. They end up falling in love and staying together.
The film earned Roberts, 56, a Golden Globe win and an Academy Award nomination.
At the festival, Gere — who, unlike Roberts, didn’t receive an Oscar nod for his “Pretty Woman” role — admitted that he thinks his character was “criminally underwritten.”
“It was basically a suit and a good haircut,” he said.
Before the clip of the piano scene was shown in Venice, Gere also joked that “Pretty Woman” was “a very small movie” that had a “wonderful” director.
“But we were having fun making this little, tiny movie,” he said. “We didn’t know if anyone would ever see this little, tiny movie. No one would ever pay attention to this little tiny movie.”
Last year, Roberts, in an interview with “CBS Mornings,” was asked where Edward and Vivian’s romance would be today.
“I think he passed away peacefully in his sleep from a heart attack, smiling,” a cheeky Roberts said. “And now she runs his business.”
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