It was an appalling sight to see the famed Hollywood legend Richard Gere bent forward towards a trash can! What was more horrifying was a French visitor offering him her pizza, thinking he was a homeless man!
Richard Gere, of Pretty Woman and Shall We Dance fame, was shooting for his new film Time Out of Mind, when he was approached by French woman Karine Gombeau. The bemused actor was calm and composed as he accepted the pizza.
Richard Gere was dressed in a scruffy anorak and beanie hat and was seen rummaging through a bin outside Grand Central Station while filming for Time Out Of Mind, in which he plays a homeless New Yorker who tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
He was in character drinking beer from a brown paper bag when a good natured French tourist approached him with the remains of a family pizza. Karine Gombeau from Paris had just finished dinner in a nearby restaurant when she saw the destitute-looking man scavenging through a bin.
Now this Parisian and her family were unaware of the true identity of Gere, whom they mistook for a beggar while passing through Grand Central station. And Richard, in true blue gentleman style, did not attempt to correct her misperception.
Karine Gombeau got a shock of her life, when her pictures and the story narrating the incident appeared in tabloids around the world. Gombeau said that she and her family were oblivious to the film set and only realised that she had offered one of the world’s most famous actors her leftover pizza days later when she saw pictures of herself online.
Well Karine Gombeau wasn’t the only person to be fooled by Richard Gere’s new guise. Salesman Mizan Rahman told reporters that Gere looked like a natural homeless guy. It didn’t seem like he was acting.
