Richard Gere speaks out on nearly 20-year Oscars absence for controversial Tibet comments

Actor Richard Gere offered a rare remark about his nearly 20-year absence from the Oscars during an interview with Variety on Wednesday, telling the outlet that he was rather unfazed by the Academy's decision.

Gere disappeared from the show after he went off-script while presenting at the 1993 Academy Awards, denouncing China's "horrendous, horrendous human rights issue" in Tibet.

"I didn’t take it particularly personally," Gere told Variety. "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."

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The actor continued, "I mean to harm human rights abuses, but I try to stay as close to where His Holiness comes from… 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."

During the interview, Gere said his activism was inspired by his longtime friend, the Dalai Lama, who is the subject of "Wisdom of Happiness," a 2025 documentary he executive produced.

Although Gere told Variety that his absence "never came up" in his conversations with the Dalai Lama, he recalled reacting strongly when he was pitched a script for a biopic about the spiritual leader.

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"It was the silliest script I’d ever read," he told the outlet. "It was the CIA literally carrying him out of the Potala Palace [in Tibet] in the middle of the night. They were trying to honor the invasion of Tibet and the escape of His Holiness after he’d been threatened by the Chinese, but it was just a ridiculous, silly story. It was like Rambo coming and getting him out."

As noted by People, "Gere didn't return to the Oscars stage until Feb. 24, 2013 — nearly 20 years after he made his unscripted remarks."

People added, "Gil Cates, the then-show's producer [in 1993], was quoted as saying, ‘Does anyone care about Richard Gere’s comments about China? It’s arrogant.’"

Fox News Digital reached out to the press office of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for comment. 

The "Pretty Woman" actor also commented on the state of the country and President Donald Trump, suggesting that even the Dalai Lama couldn't change the president or the "astonishing" effect he's had on the country.

Gere said that hearing the Dalai Lama speak made him reflect on how the United States was on the "very wrong track," but he doubted the Tibetan spiritual leader could influence Trump.

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"I don’t know that it would touch him," Gere said. "I would hope that it would. I would pray that it would. But boy, I don’t know how you explain what he has done to this country, what it feels like to be an American now, 10 or 11 months in. It’s just astonishing. It’s beyond what anyone could ever imagine."

He encouraged Americans to take responsibility for the leaders they elect and instead support people who can create a better world.

"If we want a world a certain way, then we have to elect leaders who have a similar vision to us and will lead us towards this higher level of possibility — who we are as individuals and how we can create a world, a society where people can live with each other rather than this battlefield every day, all day long, with the craziness," Gere said. "Especially, as I say, coming from this very crude mentality that is now in our leadership."

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

Fox News' Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.