Shifting Gere

Richard Gere’s latest turn is as a truly nasty cop in “Internal Affairs.” And he’ll be seen, come March, in director Garry Marshall’s “Pretty Woman,” as a wealthy New York businessman who attempts a Pygmalion-like transformation of an L.A. woman of the streets. But the role he would really like to play is a far cry from either.

“There hasn’t been a movie made in English about the Buddha,” says the actor who is a devotee of Buddhism. “This is amazing, for he’s one of the two most widely revered religious leaders ever. I’ve discussed the possibility of a film about the Buddha with the Dalai Lama (Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader).”

Gere says that Christopher Isherwood wrote a script for such a film before his death in 1986, adding, “I’m scouting around to find out if there is sufficient interest, financially speaking. . . . ‘Gandhi’ proved that Westerners are interested in world figures from other cultures who have eternal messages to give us, messages urgently needed today.”

And who might play Buddha?

“I’m the right age,” Gere says. “He began his ministry at about 30 and lived to be about 80. Besides, the Buddha (born Siddhartha Gautama, an Indian prince) was Caucasian. Everyone thinks, from the statues, that he was Oriental, but he wasn’t.”