Richard Gere has still got it. Putting his face on the big screen almost guarantees a box office blockbuster.

His latest film, Brooklyn’s Finest, is a crime drama about three conflicted New York City police officers whose lives are transformed by a massive drug operation.

Based on a screenplay by an unemployed former New York City transit worker, Michael C. Martin, whose first work became a major motion picture; the film follows the cops as they work one of the most volatile and dangerous precincts.

Gere’s character, Eddie Dugan, is just days away from retirement. He envisions collecting his pension and retiring to a fishing cabin in Connecticut. His buddies are Sal (Ethan Hawke), a narcotics officer who yearns to provide his wife and seven kids with a better life; and Tango, (Don Cheadle), an undercover cop whose loyalties are shifting toward his prison buddy Caz (Wesley Snipes), an infamous drug dealer.

The movie’s action takes place during Operation Clean Up and the target of a notoriously drug-ridden housing project. All three officers find themselves swept away by the violence and corruption of Brooklyn’s gritty 85th Precinct and its most treacherous criminals. During seven fateful days, the three men find themselves hurling toward the same fatal crime scene and a shattering collision with destiny.

At age 60, Gere is as multifaceted as his character: He's easily juggled the multiple titles of Sexiest Man Alive, humanitarian, activist, and quite possibly the West's most famous Buddhist.

His body of work has also been eclectic: Pretty Woman, Days of Heaven, Unfaithful, Chicago, American Gigolo, and An Officer and a Gentleman, Runaway Bride, The Hoax, The Hunting party, Nights at Rodanthe, and most recently Amelia co-starring Hillary Swank.

He defies easy pigeon-holing, and likes it that way. While he's proud of his acting career, he has adamantly refused to let it define him.

In recent years, he has focused his efforts on bettering humanity. His Gere Foundation is a non-profit organization focusing on international humanitarian issues, especially the preservation of the Tibetan culture. For many years he has been an active supporter of Survival International, a worldwide organization supporting tribal people, their right to self-determination, land ownership and human rights.

Richard remains happily married to actress Carey Lowell. They have a 10-year-old son, Homer James Jigme, (meaning fearless in Tibetan).

During a recent chat on a chilly winter day in Manhattan, it's apparent that Gere is as magnetic as ever. He wore brown Hush Puppies and a Buddha bracelet. His formerly thick black hair is now a blow-dried shock of silvery white, and spectacles frame those famously limpid eyes. He eagerly discussed the film, its inspirations and his co-stars, steamy scenes with a hooker, as well as his personal life.

Where do you go inside yourself to play a character?

RICHARD GERE: Well, you feel those things. You know, things that come up. We don't know exactly where they come from. But it's our inner selves talking to us.

DCM: Do you feel you've changed over the years?

RICHARD GERE : I don't think we morph into totally different people. But I also think that we don't lose who we were.

DCM:What resonates for you in a character?

RICHARD GERE: I think about -- what is intimacy? What is a relationship? How do you keep relationships alive and honest? Are relationships like sharks, do they have to keep in motion? You know, do you have to keep getting in deeper and deeper water all the time, to keep them alive? I think you do. But for any of us to break through, it takes work and a lot of courage. And unfortunately, there is pain in growth.

DCM: To what extent are the characters that you choose to play a reflection of you?

RICHARD GERE: Certainly when you read something, that thing either resonates with you or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, you walk away. So if it doesn't have that resonance to begin with, you have a non-starter. You know, there's no way to get the motor going, to do the work.

DCM: Tell me more.

RICHARD GERE: I am interested in the issue of whether we can we ever know another human being. God knows if we can even ever know ourselves. You know, is that possible? Or are there always secrets? Not only to ourselves, but between people who have made vows to not have any secrets. You know, how honest can one be? So that's certainly fertile territory.

DCM: Honesty may be a great thing in relationships, but shouldn't there be a part of you that you keep just for yourself?

RICHARD GERE: What is the self? We throw that around pretty easily. It may be that it's just a convention, or a designation of something that doesn't exist. And ultimately, the biggest courage may well be to destroy that false sense, or designation of the self.

DCM: Well, I would think that sometimes there is a need to protect yourself.

RICHARD GERE: That's the point. If you start protecting yourself, immediately you're going to start lying – to yourself, whatever that is, and everything around you. It's not easy to get to that point. Jesus, Buddha, Martin Luther King, they were not about protecting themselves. But these were the most open, fulfilled creatures that we've had. The self makes us smaller. Now obviously, you have to take care of the self in a way, or you die. You have to nourish the body and the mind, and love yourself. But you have to see it in the perspective of reality, in which this idea of a separate self is an illusion. And that gets us into a lot of trouble.

DCM: How do you feel interviews like this affect you? One actress said recently that she feels press interviews rob her of her soul. Is that an extreme answer?

RICHARD GERE: Well, not for her. If you go into this process of making movies, you can't be naive about it. This is a mass media. The instinct may be to not be out there, but the fact is once you open that door, you're out there. I've seen that with a lot of young actors I've worked with. I've seen them go through the same process that I went through. So once you're out there, you've got to assume that you're going to be asked questions. What you can change is your motivation.

DCM: Is that how you stay on top of the media, and not allow it to take control of you?

RICHARD GERE There is nothing in life that is not part of the process. Nothing. There isn't. And ultimately, the gig is not to be a movie star. The gig is to be free. It's about liberation. And we all do it in our ways. You know, the job of being a movie star is a good job. It has its issues, it has its problems; it's a good gig. But it isn’t my life!

DCM: What do you mean by that?

RICHARD GERE: In that sense, my life is liberation. So I can use this, the way you can use it. We can all use it to some positive end, where every meeting, every question and answer has a kernel of good motivation to it. And that there's a possibility of becoming bigger after the communication, instead of smaller.

DCM: So why play a cop in a movie? What got you excited about that?

RICHARD GERE You know, he's seen so much. So he doesn't judge anybody anymore. He only judges himself. And that's an interesting character to me. You know, that he isn't a gun happy guy. And in his career, he's been a ghost. He's really different from the other action-oriented stories in the movie. He's really a literary character, and not an action character. And we highlight moments of his interior life, without saying it. You know, he's essentially a silent character.

DCM: He falls in love with a hooker.

RICHARD GERE: I like his relationship with the hooker. I thought that was unusual. And there's so much more that you'll never see in our relationship, that Shannon [Kane] and I did, that was wonderful.

DCM: Like what? What didn't make it into the movie?

RICHARD GERE: Hah! There was a lot more stuff between us. You know, an even more unusual relationship. It wasn't just physical. There was this other stuff going on....I don't know, whatever you think it is, that's what it is!

DCM: Go on, please.

RG: And I think from her point of view, it's interesting. You know, when he says to her, when you look at me, what do you see? And she doesn't respond. But clearly, she sees something dark. Self-loathing is what she sees. And in the deepest possible sense. And instead of talking about it, she goes and gets a pillow, and sits down and starts 'servicing' him. That's her way of communicating. And I don't judge that, any more than my character does. I don't judge that at all.

DCM: Okay, I can see that.

RICHARD GERE: And I don't find that exploitive in any way. In one way or the other, it's how people express themselves. But he was actually saying to this woman, I want you the way you are. You don't have to be anything else. And she says, no.

DCM: How did you figure out the sex scenes, the difference between hooker sex and the kind you have in a genuine relationship?

RICHARD GERE: Well, he's real about it. He thinks it's a genuine relationship!

DCM: What common thread do you feel that these cop character's all have?

RICHARD GERE: These characters have a high degree of self-loathing in them. And they find ways of masking that. And I think a prostitute certainly has a lot of self-loathing: Not wanting to succeed, not wanting to be happy on some level. And I think it's the same with my character. Not wanting it, and wanting to fail, in some way. He just doesn't want to get involved. And the closest he gets is wanting to kill himself.

DCM: Do you think police get a bad rap?

RICHARD GERE: A bad rap...What bad rap?

DCM: You play one in this movie so I was wondering if you think they're misunderstood?

RICHARD GERE: Their life is misunderstood. I think it's a rough life. And there is a lot of self-loathing. A lot of broken marriages. But on the positive side, when we're in trouble, we call a cop. I remember that from, I think it was Serpico. Someone was calling cops “pigs” and all that. And I think Pacino got in somebody's face and said, “Look,when you're in trouble, you call Daddy, don't you? And that's me!” And that's what we all do.

DCM: How about what you think?

RICHARD GERE: Well, when you see them on the road you think, uh-oh! But these are guys, they're just guys doing a job and helping a lot, and having a sense about things and being connected to their environment in a way that we really aren't. And I really admire that.

DCM: Does a piece of this guy still live in you? Like if you saw a bad situation on the street, would you try to help?

RICHARD GERE: If guys have guns, you don't jump in the middle of that. That's insane. I'm not foolish, man! But hey, I would rather cops and teachers got the money than bankers and CEOs. Let that be their perk, that they get to be in nice, clean offices all day. And let's give the money to our teachers and cops.

DCM: Have you ever thought of working with your wife, the actress, on something together?

RICHARD GERE: We’ve talked about it, and she does go back and forth.

DCM: What about your son, Homer?

RICHARD GERE: He’ll do what he wants, but that is so far in the future. He doesn’t know what he wants yet.

DCM: Tell us about fatherhood? RICHARD GERE: The biggest thing that this kid is teaching me, is that you can’t take anything personally. When he gets in my face and says, “No,” I have to keep remembering that it’s not about me.

DCM: Does fatherhood make you feel like a kid again?

RICHARD GERE: Definitely. I do things like drawing in the mist on the glass of the shower enclosure. And I start thinking; this is really fun! And that was one thing I never did as a kid, was really explore that territory. So, maybe that’s my next incarnation.