Richard Gere makes rare comment about being banned from the Oscars for 20 years

And the Oscar goes to…

In an interview with Variety published Dec. 3, Richard Gere spoke out about his feelings about his 20-year ban from the Academy Awards. 

“I didn’t take it particularly personally,” the “Pretty Woman” actor, 76, said. 

He added, “I didn’t think there were any bad guys in the situation. I do what I do and I certainly don’t mean anyone any harm. I mean to harm anger. I mean to harm exclusion. I mean to harm human rights abuses, but I try to stay as close to where His Holiness comes from,” he said, referring to the Dalai Lama, who he’s been friends with for 45 years. 

The “An Officer and a Gentleman” star explained that he tries to embrace the Dalai Lama’s beliefs, “that everyone is redeemable, and in the end, everyone has to be redeemed or none of us [are]. So in that sense, I don’t take it personally.”

Gere’s 20 year ban from the Oscars began in 1993, when he was presenting at the ceremony and made off-script remarks to to denounce China’s “Horrendous, horrendous human rights issue” in Tibet.

That year, he was supposed to list the nominees for Best Art Direction. “Howard’s End” ultimately won. 

But, he took a detour in his speech to say,  “…if something miraculous, really kind of movie-like, could happen here, where we could all kind of send love and truth and a kind of sanity to Deng Xiaoping right now in Beijing, that he will take his troops and take the Chinese away from Tibet and allow people to live as free independent people again.” 

The “Primal Fear” actor didn’t return to present at the Academy Awards until 20 years later, in 2013.

Gere executive produced the 2025 documentary about the Dalai Lama, “Wisdom of Happiness.” He’s spoken up several times on behalf of Tibet, and also called for a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 

The actor is banned from China. 

He said he hasn’t talked about his Oscars controversy with the Buddhist leader. 

“It never came up,” Gere explained. “They’ll tell him once in a while if I get an award or something and he sends a note, congratulating me, that he’s happy for me. But that’s about as close as it gets to actually talking about movies.”