Costner, Gere, Demi Moore: Hollywood Icons on Cannes Comeback Trail 

Demi Moore. (Getty Images North America/AFP) 
Demi Moore. (Getty Images North America/AFP) 
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Costner, Gere, Demi Moore: Hollywood Icons on Cannes Comeback Trail 

Demi Moore. (Getty Images North America/AFP) 
Demi Moore. (Getty Images North America/AFP) 

This year's Cannes Film Festival hosts a trio of heartthrobs from the back end of the 20th century, making their comeback on the red carpet: Demi Moore, Kevin Costner and Richard Gere.

From "Ghost" to "Pretty Woman" to "Dances with Wolves", they are responsible for some of Generation X's favorite movie moments.

AFP looks at what they've been up to since.

- Demi Moore: ghost girl -

On the Croisette, 61-year-old Moore will be making her unexpected return in slasher-horror "The Substance", competing for the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or.

It has been a long time since Moore came anywhere near a Cannes red carpet, having appeared mostly in small TV roles and forgettable films since the early 2000s.

In her heyday, Moore was a global star after the weepie "Ghost" co-starring the late Patrick Swayze as a murdered businessman who watches over his grieving ceramicist girlfriend from beyond the grave.

Her baggy, androgynous look in that movie -- the dungarees and boyish crop -- helped define 1990s style, and she had other era-defining hits with steamy dramas "Indecent Proposal" and "Disclosure".

An Annie Leibovitz photoshoot -- showing off her pregnant belly on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991 -- was a stunning move at the time, since copied by Beyonce, Rihanna and others.

She proved her acting chops in meatier 1990s movies such as blockbuster courtroom drama "A Few Good Men" opposite Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.

But since the turn of the century, Moore, who has a life-long passion for collecting dolls and bought an entire house to store her 2,000-strong collection, was in the headlines more for her tumultuous love life than her acting.

She formed two Hollywood power couples, first in the 1980s with "Die Hard" star Bruce Willis, father of her three daughters, and then with Ashton Kutcher, the latter union ending acrimoniously in 2013.

- Kevin Costner: forever West -

The soft-spoken 69-year-old is back in Cannes in his favorite genre, the Western, with the epic "Horizon: An American Saga".

Fans are hoping his fourth feature as director -- which is out of competition at Cannes -- will mark a return to form after a series of expensive duds in the 1990s trashed his Oscar-gilded career.

His directorial debut "Dances With Wolves", despite being a three-hour Western, was a global hit and in 1991 won the double Oscar whammy of best picture and director.

As an actor he captured hearts in smash hits "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (1991) and as Whitney Houston's protector in "The Bodyguard" (1992).

Teaming up with big-gun directors also proved a winning formula, from Oliver Stone's "JFK" (1991) to Clint Eastwood's "A Perfect World" (1993).

But then a string of ultra-expensive and hubristic flops -- especially "Waterworld" (1995) and "The Postman" (1997) made him into something of a laughing stock.

He continued to work in smaller roles, but invested more in music with his nostalgic country band "Kevin Costner & Modern West".

There has been a late resurgence in his 60s, however, thanks to the long-running hit neo-Western series, "Yellowstone".

- Richard Gere: zen charm -

Gere was the world's sexiest man according to People Magazine in 1999, when he was 50.

By then he had charmed audiences with his quiet seduction in "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982) and, of course, "Pretty Woman" opposite Julia Roberts.

He and supermodel Cindy Crawford were also the ultimate It-couple.

But progressively he gave up glamour for meditation.

Gere had been a Buddhist since he was 25, and increasingly used his fame to speak out, in particular against China's control of Tibet.

He developed a close friendship with the Dalai Lama and gave a fiery speech against China at the 1993 Oscars that got him barred from future ceremonies.

It also cost him movie roles in the 2000s as Hollywood sought to tap the vast Chinese market.

For his Cannes comeback, the 74-year-old has reunited with Paul Schrader -- who directed him in dark cult favorite "American Gigolo" (1980) -- for "Oh, Canada", playing a Vietnam War draft-evader haunted by his past.



At Venice Film Festival, Jude Law Debuts ‘The Order’ about FBI Manhunt for Domestic Terrorist

Jude Law poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'The Order' during the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)
Jude Law poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'The Order' during the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)
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At Venice Film Festival, Jude Law Debuts ‘The Order’ about FBI Manhunt for Domestic Terrorist

Jude Law poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'The Order' during the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)
Jude Law poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'The Order' during the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Jude Law plays an FBI agent investigating the violent crimes of a white supremacist group in “The Order,” which premieres Saturday at the Venice Film Festival.

An adaptation of Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s nonfiction book “The Silent Brotherhood,” Nicolas Hoult was cast as Robert Jay Mathews, the charismatic leader of the group which was considered the most radical hate group since the Ku Klux Klan. Their crimes, including bank robberies and armored car heists that the group was using to fund an armed revolution, led to one of the largest manhunts in FBI history, in 1983, according to The AP.

“What amazed me was it was a story I hadn’t heard about before,” said Law, who also produced. “It like a piece of work that needed to be made now.”

He added: “It’s always interesting finding a piece from the relative past that has some relationship to the present day.”

Law made the trip to Italy with his director, Justin Kurzel, and co-stars Hoult, Jurnee Smollett and Tye Sheridan for the premiere.

His character, called Agent Huss, is an amalgam FBI agent and not based on a specific person. This, they said, was important for positioning him within this story.

“He represents an awful lot of us,” Law said. “He felt his hardest work was behind him and in fact he had his biggest battle ahead of him.”

Kurzel, an Australian filmmaker known for the 2015 adaptation of “Macbeth” with Michael Fassbender, said he’d always wanted to make an American film in the vein of dramatic thrillers from the 1970s like “The French Connection,” “Mississippi Burning” and “All the Presidents’ Men.” He tried to make this film with the classic simplicity he admired in those classics.

Hoult felt it was a “difficult story to tell and difficult characters to inhabit,” but praised his director for helping to create a safe and creative environment as they explored the darkness of Mathews. He’d just recently learned, on the boat over to the Lido, that Kurzel had told Law to actually follow him around one day to get into character.

“The first time we spoke was in the first scene we interact,” Hoult said. “It gave a great energy.”

And all were struck by the parallels to today. Though no one wanted to comment directly on the upcoming U.S. presidential election, the film, they hope, speaks for itself.

“The history of America is very complex,” Smollett said. “This level of bigotry is not new and it has existed in our nation since it was founded. As artists we get to hold a mirror up to society....explore the very complex sides of humanity, the ugliness, the darkness in order for us to learn from it and hopefully not repeat it.”

“The Order” is playing in competition at Venice, alongside “ Maria,” “ Babygirl,” “The Room Next Door," “Queer” and “Joker: Folie à Deux.”

Vertical Entertainment will release the film in theaters later this year.