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.



Alfonso Cuarón, Cate Blanchett Bring Series ‘Disclaimer’ to Venice Film Festival 

Cast member Cate Blanchett poses on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the mini-series "Disclaimer", out of competition, at the 81st Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy August 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Cast member Cate Blanchett poses on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the mini-series "Disclaimer", out of competition, at the 81st Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy August 29, 2024. (Reuters)
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Alfonso Cuarón, Cate Blanchett Bring Series ‘Disclaimer’ to Venice Film Festival 

Cast member Cate Blanchett poses on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the mini-series "Disclaimer", out of competition, at the 81st Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy August 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Cast member Cate Blanchett poses on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the mini-series "Disclaimer", out of competition, at the 81st Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy August 29, 2024. (Reuters)

Alfonso Cuarón is the first to admit that he does not know how to make a television series. He might even be too old to learn how, he said.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker has technically now made a series, the seven-part AppleTV+ show “Disclaimer,” four episodes of which premiered Thursday at the Venice Film Festival. But he did it his way: Like a film.

Based on Renée Knight’s 2015 book of the same name, “Disclaimer” is a psychological thriller about a documentarian and journalist, Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett), who discovers she’s a character in a novel that reveals her darkest secret.

Cuarón, Blanchett and Kevin Kline all made the journey to the Italian film festival to debut and speak about the show before it begins streaming on Oct. 11.

“I read the book and immediately in my mind I saw a film, but I didn’t know how to make that film,” Cuarón, the director of films including “Gravity” and “Roma,” said in a news conference Thursday. “It was way too long. I could not shape it as such.”

It was only later, he said, that he thought it might work in longer form, inspired by predecessors like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, David Lynch and Krzysztof Kieślowski.

“I was intrigued and that was the point of departure,” Cuarón said.

He started writing with one name in mind for Catherine: Blanchett, terrified that she might say no. Not only did she not say no, she also was the one who suggested Kline for a British character. Sacha Baron Cohen plays her husband in the show and Kodi Smit-McPhee plays her son.

All soon realized that approaching it as a film, and shooting it as a film, would take much longer than a normal series. He even enlisted two cinematographers, Emmanuel Lubezki and Bruno Delbonnel, to add a distinct visual language to the different perspectives in the story. All told, it took about a year.

“It was a really long process,” Cuarón said. “And I really feel for the actors because they were stuck with the characters for way too long.”

Blanchett laughed that they were “still recovering.”

The final three episodes will screen Friday at the festival. Though the festival is most known for its feature film premieres, it does play host to select series as well. This year those also include Joe Wright’s Mussolini biopic “M: Son of the Century,” Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The New Years” and Thomas Vinterberg’s “Families Like Ours.”