Gere finds 'The Hoax' transforming

LOS ANGELES -- The man beneath the mop of white hair is instantly recognizable as Richard Gere, actor and activist. He's got the lithe build of a former lothario, and the patter of someone attuned to serious political debate. In other words, he's nothing like his latest onscreen incarnation.

Gere plays Clifford Irving, the real-life writer who fabricated the autobiography of oddball billionaire Howard Hughes, as a classic New York mensch. He dyed his hair dark, got a perm, and shaved back his hairline to boot. He added a little piece of something to his nose. He developed a bit of a whine.

"I thought he looked the way he was, that his physicality was a reflection of his interior: professorial high forehead, darker curly hair," Gere said the other day, back to looking like himself in casual black. "It was a manifestation of his interior mood."

In "The Hoax," which opens Friday, the mood goes from playful to paranoid, from buddy picture to presidential thriller, as it traces how Irving kept his scam going. The accompanying notes describe it as a "truth-inspired tale." Settings have been changed, people added or omitted. But both Gere and director Lasse Hallström ("Cider House Rules," "Chocolat") insist the bones of the event are intact, that the major beats of the movie are true.

Still, neither man has yet met Irving, whom Hallström says signed on as a consultant to the movie and then withdrew without explanation. But they did speak on the telephone.

"Richard and I didn't really want to meet him, not that we actively avoided it," Hallström said. "But we were afraid, I think, to be swayed or charmed by him in some kind of direction. He could obviously charm people into believing what he wanted them to believe."

Back in 1971, Irving of course wanted his publisher to believe that the illusive Howard Hughes had chosen him, a struggling, little-known writer, to pen Hughes's memoir. To that end, Irving forged documents, made what in retrospect were clearly outlandish claims, and enlisted both his friend Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina) and his wife, Edith Irving (Marcia Gay Harden) , in a scheme destined to spiral out of control. All three ultimately served time in prison.

Along the way, the movie also hints that Irving helped bring down the Nixon administration. Richard Nixon, according to this theory, was worried that unsavory information about his dealings with Hughes would emerge in the autobiography. That paranoia, in turn, is what led him to authorize the Watergate break-in and start his presidency down the path to self-destruction. Or so "The Hoax" implies.

The political aspect of the movie is what really gets Gere going. A long time Buddhist who has testified before Congress about China's policies in Tibet, he's never been shy about his liberal leanings or his activism on issues such as AIDS awareness and prevention. Once he gets going, it's hard to shut him down (or up). He's a bit of a lecturer, actually, assuming he's right and that his audience has to be in agreement with him.

Then again, he probably knows that most women don't mind listening to Richard Gere, who -- even at 57, married to actress Carey Lowell ("Law & Order") and a father -- still has that "American Gigolo" thing going for him.

"It's about the lies -- the big lies and the smaller lies and our government and how this story resonates much larger," Gere said, gathering steam. "This story is about Iraq and Afghanistan and the attorney general and people lying to us. . . . These people who we elect to be the best of us in many respects end up being the worst of us. Lies permeate our psychology, permeate our whole country."

Later, asked whether any movie producer has ever complained about his outspokenness, Gere shakes his head no and adds, "This is a good one, though, because you can talk about politics around this movie." And then he launches into a story about his parents, who were Eisenhower Republicans, and it's several minutes before the movie he's starring in wanders back into his mind.

For his part, Hallström says he never considered anyone other than Gere for the role. The two are neighbors in upstate New York and have wanted to find a way to work together for some time. When Hallström sent Gere the script for "The Hoax," which had been around for awhile, Gere says he realized he had read it before, loved it, and dismissed himself as wrong for the part. The second time around, "I was reading it and already had a thing how to do it," Gere said, snapping his fingers for emphasis. "I can't remember now why I didn't think it was right for me. I thought it was for a goofier actor. I'm not sure why."

"I really saw him as it," Hallström said. "Richard has the charm and the energy. He really got into it, and he really enjoyed the way I like to work. We were very much in synch on being open to last-minute situations. He kind of thrives in that chaos that I thrive in. . . . Spontaneity is really the key for both of us."

That spontaneity led in part to a movie that isn't easily described. "The Hoax" has comedic elements. It's a political thriller. It's a plain thriller. There's a buddy picture and a romance in there, too, not to mention documentary footage. As Hallström puts it, "I think it's more playful with the medium of film than anything I've done so far. . . . It's lighter. It also feels closer to my temperament, my true self."

The same goes for Gere, although it's the politics he emphasizes. He does, however, also seem fascinated by the scam itself, and why someone would even attempt it. Gere describes it as partly a lark, partly a happening, in the 1970s Andy Warhol sense of the word. At the time, Irving lived in the expatriate community of Ibiza, Spain, then a hotbed of political this and art that, which Gere says probably fueled his imagination. (The movie has him living in upstate New York.)

"He had to do something that had some flair to it," Gere said of Irving. "I don't think it was malicious. I think, too, he had real authority issues. I think he hated the fact that he had to go to people to get a book deal, to a publishing world that didn't really respect him, not that he earned it. I think ringing in his ears was that his teachers told him he was the next Hemingway, that he had that kind of possibility."

Gere had hoped to do a press conference or two with Irving, and says he would still like to chat up the man he spent months interpreting. He's already had several encounters with another character he just finished playing, Bob Dylan. In "I'm Not There," seven actors and actresses give life to Dylan at various times over the years. Gere says he obviously plays an older Dylan and that Cate Blanchett is maybe the most Dylan-like of all of the movie's Dylans. The singer cooperated with the biopic, even providing previously unreleased recordings. Gere is such a fan that he actually, briefly, gushes.

"I don't think there's anybody in my lifetime that's had more impact on the world we live in than him," Gere said. "You have to see the movie. Anything I have to say . . . Go see the movie."

Of course he means both movies.

Lynda Gorov can be reached at lgorov@aol.com.