In an exclusive interview with the People magazine, Richard Gere explained how he, dressed as a homeless man, remained ‘invisible’ for a full 45 minute in one of New York’s busiest streets.
The Golden Globe winning actor was filming for his latest release Time Out of Mind, directed by Oren Moverman, which got released in selected theaters last month. Gere plays the role of George Hammond, a homeless man who begs and stays in shelters in the New York city.
There is one particular shot in the movie, taken as an experiment which involved putting a shabbily clad Gere in a knit cap in a live environment. Gere stood amidst the rushing crowd, asking the people for money in a very monotonous way. Across the street, the film crew had put a hidden camera in a Starbucks cafe.
Director Moverman, later while elaborating on the particular scene to the New York Times, told that they had feared people would recognize the famous actor, but no one did, contrary to their expectations, at least for 45 minutes.
Hammond – the character played by Gere, can be seen shouting “we don’t exist” in a scene, and those very words were proven right through the experiment. People seldom listen, or even bother to look at a homeless person in the eye; they remain nameless, faceless, having their identities lost in the crowd.
“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 told the People.
A photo from the scene was later posted on his facebook fan page, detailing about Gere’s experience.
Image courtesy: Facebook
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