Pelosi attends screening of Richard Gere’s new film

Lawmakers took a break Wednesday night to attend a special screening of Richard Gere’s new film, “Time Out of Mind.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a longtime friend of Gere, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. (D-Pa.) joined advocates for the homeless to view the poignant drama at the E Street Cinema.

In the film, Gere plays a homeless man on the bustling streets of New York City.

{mosads}“I’m distracted because there are three teenage girls sitting in the front row,” Gere joked at the beginning of a panel discussion, pointing to Pelosi, Lowey and Mary Brosnahan, the President for the Coalition for the Homeless. “Those are three of my girlfriends. They’re close, close people to me.”

Shot in only 21 days, the low-budget film captures the isolating and difficult lives of the homeless. Director Oren Moverman used long-range lenses for many of the shots to place Gere in the chaos of the Big Apple.

Clad in a tattered dress shirt, windbreaker and winter beanie, the Golden Globe winner panhandled in the heart of the East Village.

“I was scared doing this. I walked into Astor Place and stood on a corner, and I didn’t know what was going to happen because in my real life I could never have done this,” explained Gere. “We shot 45 minutes and nobody paid any attention to me. Nobody. I mean nobody.”

The actor called the experience profound and appalling.

“If I had a tuxedo and had a red carpet, everyone would want to be with me. They want to be part of the success. I personally am closer to the guy on the street corner. But one is championed and one is hated. Now where’s the reality in that? How can we function in a world where it’s only the surface that’s being noted and reacted to?”

Pelosi spoke about her experience working in New York homeless shelters alongside Lowey.

“While the movie was on, we were saying, I slept in that shelter, I served those meals, I washed down that place, I painted those rooms,” Pelosi said.

“How can we all go to church with people of great faith and say that we’re all God’s children and still ignore the homeless’ needs?” she asked.

Gere told the audience he hoped the film would spur more action.

“If this movie is as good as I think it is, I want it to be part of social change and social action. We are here to give this movie for you guys to use in your shelters and communities in any positive way you want.

“If you can create situations where we bundled this together, I’ll do my best to be there,” he pledged to the homeless advocates at the screening.