Richard Gere's Opposition to Capital Punishment

The PRETTY WOMAN star thinks everyone should be given the chance to atone for their sins. Richard Gere has recently declared he is against capital punishment.

"The reality is I'm 56 years old and I've never been anywhere on this planet where I didn't find people who also didn't have that urge or yearning for transcendence - universal wisdom and compassion, spiritual insight, and enlightenment", the actor said.

"I never met an animal that didn't respond to love unless it was damaged; it's the same with people. You find damaged people that you just can't get to. They're just so locked off, like serial killers", Gere added.

"The yearning has been so cut and so buried that maybe in one lifetime it's never going to emerge. But, then again, you never know. That's why I'm so against capital punishment because there's always a possibility of redemption. (�) There's always a possibility that the lifetime of horrible deeds will mean something in a transformation to spiritual enlightenment", the actor concluded.

Richard Gere is well-known for his devotion to Vajrayana Buddhism, a faith he's been practicing for decades.
Apparently, his religion, which has more in common with the mystical Jewish oral law of Kabbalah than one might imagine, makes the actor's pre-production research for "Bee Season" easier.

Gere portrays Saul Naumann, a religious studies professor who deflects his troubles by helping his daughter Eliza (Flora Cross) study for a spelling bee in "Bee Season", a movie based on the novel by Myla Goldberg.

"In the film we talk very much about Tikkun Olam [a Hebrew phrase that means "to repair the world"], that the world has been fragmented, it's shattered. Our job is to put the shards back together, the broken pieces", Gere said.

"Buddhism talks about Buddha nature, and it's less about fragmenting and more about ignorance. You can remove the ignorance, then that Buddha-hood or expansive quality, total openness, freedom, liberation, can be experienced", the 56-year-old actor added.