What the Eff, Richard Gere?

When a person's spent decades in the public eye, it can feel odd when they disappear from sight for any long stretch of time. Which is why I recently thought to myself "hey, whatever happened to Richard Gere?" He did that Nicholas Sparks death movie with Diane Lane in 2008, but since then he's been flying relatively under the radar. He's been working that whole way through, though; he just hasn't been making that many headlines. For an actor who's been in the game as long as he has, it's probably refreshing. But I really gotta talk about the fact that the most recent pictures I've seen of Gere make him look like one of those wizards in Harry Potter who don't know how muggles actually dress. Or like the Doctor in Doctor Who .

You can see the evidence for yourself below.

So why, you ask, is Richard Gere — star of Pretty Woman, An Officer And A Gentleman, Runaway Bride, Chicago, and friend of the Dalai Lama — dressed like the eccentric uncle who might leave you a few million bucks when he dies but not before he bends your ear about alien conspiracy theories?

Is this just a whim he had, that we should all accept because Richard Gere's earned the right to dress however he damn well pleases?

Nah, it's for a role. Gere is ruining all my fun by not actually dressing like this in real life. No, the scarf and the cane and the... are those velvet slippers? Those are in the service of Franny , in which Gere stars opposite Dakota Fanning and Divergent's Theo James as "a philanthropist [who] meddles in the lives of newly-married couples in an attempt to relive the past."

That's really all I know about this movie so far, but the varying pictures of Gere on the set are enough for me. I'm so there for that.

Keep on keeping on, Richard Gere. And I kinda want you to start dressing like this in real life.