Richard Gere discusses new film, 'Longing'

Now with Golden Globe winner Richard Gere, who's starring in a new movie called Longing. It's all about the extraordinary twists that life can take. Richard Gere, welcome to GMA. Thank you. And we saw earlier this month, Richard, you walked the red carpet at Cannes with your oldest son. That was a few days ago. A few days ago. You're all over the place. What was that moment like for you to be on the red carpet with your son? Well, you know, he's 24 now and he just graduated from Brown just this weekend. Congratulations. He did. On Sunday. And so that's a milestone. But he, I never took him to anything like this before. He just wasn't, we didn't live in LA. I didn't take him to festivals. I just wanted him to be a kid. And he thanks me now. He said, thank you for not doing this before. Do you think he'll follow in your footsteps though? Oh, I don't know. About a year ago, a year and a half ago, he started acting in little films at school and making films and writing them and directing them and production designing them and doing other things. So he understands how much fun it is and it is kind of addictive. I love making movies. Speaking of making movies, let's go ahead and take a look at your new film here, Longing. Rachel, why are you crying? I'm sorry if I hurt you. I, sometimes in the middle of very busy lives. When I moved back to Canada, after we split up, I found out I was, I was pregnant and I gave birth to Alan. So many twists and turns in this film and something else too that a lot of people might not know. Another one of your talents on display, you play the piano. Something we've seen before in other films, piano, guitar. I'm always dragging the piano into these things. It's true and I should apologize to everyone for doing that. People want more. I just have fun doing it. So any, this, we, we ended up playing around with that in this film too. This was a scene. Tell us a little bit more about the film. Tell us a little bit more. Well, this is an early scene in the movie. One of the first ones actually. And we're seeing this scene, there was this guy and this woman and they had an intense affair 20 years ago. And they haven't spoken since. And she shows up and they're very tentative with each other and she's emotional and he's trying to figure out what's going on. And it turns out she was pregnant before they broke up and she didn't tell him. And she had a 19, 20 year old kid, which was his kid. And then we find out a little more what happened there. And so the whole movie is really this guy coming to terms with the fact that this was his only kid. He didn't even know he had one. And who was this kid? Because we find out the kid passed away. And so it's a bit of a detective story, but it's an emotional one for this guy. Obviously, it's his kid. I think the film deals a lot with how does our world, what we think, what we do, what we touch, how does that resonate in ways that we don't even think about? But later on, 20 years, things come home to roost. There is a cause and effect to everything that we do. All these twists and turns that life throws at us. Can I say, we were, the three of us, we were talking earlier amongst ourselves that it is the, coming up on the 25th anniversary, it is the 25th anniversary of Runaway Bride and coming up on 35 years since Pretty Woman, one of our favorite movies. One of those movies that, it comes on TV, it doesn't matter where. I don't know about that one. Who's in that movie? It doesn't matter where it is you watch it. What's it about? Did you ever, Richard Gere, ever expect it to have, both those films, to have the lasting impact that it's had on folks? No, we made, first of all, Pretty Woman, it's a really charming, wonderful film and I'm proud of it. But when that was given to me originally, I didn't know what to, it wasn't the kind of movie I was making. I was making much more serious, young man, troubled kind of movies. And here was a romantic comedy and there wasn't even a character there. And so Gary Marshall, the director, came to see me and he kind of, I like Gary a lot. And as I recall, we didn't even talk about the movie. We talked about Dostoevsky and we talked about life and we talked about this. I said, well, I like this guy. I can get along with this guy. And then Julia came to New York and she, I think she'd made only one film at that point. And she, I remember her sitting in my office and Gary introduced us and then he left. He went for a walk and he got nervous. And Julia was great. We got along great. She was sitting across from my desk and we were laughing and Gary called up and said, how's it going? Is it all right? What do you think? I said, she's terrific. And I could see she took a piece of paper and wrote a note on it and she passed it across the desk to me and said, please say yes. Well, we're glad that you did. Well, I was too because that's meant a lot to me. I mean, I've done a lot of different kinds of films, but that one seems to have touched people all over the world. Because if you didn't do it, it would have been a big mistake. Big mistake. Huge. Don't hurt your wrist, honey. Don't do that. I know. It'd be worth it. It'd be worth it for this. Well, to add to it, your new movie, Longing, is going to be released in select theaters on June 7th and on demand everywhere June 28th. Richard Gere, everybody.