Homer Gere, photographed by Maddy Rotman.
Homer Gere has the kind of face that makes it difficult to believe he didn’t always intend to become an actor. In fact, the 25-year-old son of Richard Gere and Carey Lowell spent most of his youth insisting he wouldn’t. A self-described nerd, he cycled through 13 majors at Brown before graduating with an art degree, stumbling backward into acting after starring in a friend’s thesis film. A few years later, Hollywood came calling. First, with a small role on Euphoria, and now The Shards, Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel about beautiful, rich, deeply unwell teenagers in 1980s Los Angeles. Gere plays Robert Mallory, the mysterious new student who may or may not be a serial killer (depending on whether you caught last night’s finale). When we met up with the rising star earlier this summer, we got to talking about nepotism, Fleabag, and his first brush with fame.
TUESDAY 8:45 AM JULY 28, 2026 NEW YORK CITY
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EMILY SANDSTROM: Did you read The Shards when it came out?
HOMER GERE: No, I read it after I got the audition in my inbox, as they all come. Have you read the book?
SANDSTROM: Yes.
GERE: I originally read for Tom, and then I sent it in, and they were like, “This is great. Can you read for Robert?” After that, I read the whole book. It’s truly upsetting—really haunting.
SANDSTROM: Did you read a lot of his books growing up?
GERE: I was always aware of him, but I hadn’t read anything. I was much more of a non-fiction guy, honestly. I was a science-y guy in high school.
SANDSTROM: So, you’re, like, a nerd?
GERE: I was kind of a nerd.
SANDSTROM: Did you grow up here or in L.A.?
GERE: I was in the city until I was in first grade, and then we moved to Westchester.
SANDSTROM: Cool. So, you’re an East Coast kid?
GERE: I’m an East Coast guy, for sure. I spent maybe three or four nights in L.A. in my life before we started shooting The Shards. Or, actually, Euphoria. I was there for Euphoria a couple weeks before Shards.
SANDSTROM: I don’t know why I thought you were such a West Coast kid.
GERE: I seem like it, right?
SANDSTROM: 100%. I mean, I’m also an East Coast kid, but I was so influenced by ’80s shows like Melrose Place and 90210. When I read The Shards, I loved it so much because it reminded me of them.
GERE: Did you see Euphoria?
SANDSTROM: Yeah.
GERE: For the show within the show that my character was on, Sam Levinson was like, “This is Melrose Place.”
SANDSTROM: Nice. It’s kind of a forever reference. Do you have a favorite ‘80s show?
GERE: No, it was really a blind spot for me, honestly. I mean, I was very aware of the music. I’ve been heavy into The Cure, and Joy Division, and The Clash, and R.E.M., and the whole college rock scene out of Athens, Georgia.
SANDSTROM: Did you always want to act?
GERE: No, I didn’t. My entire childhood, everyone around me would meet my dad’s friends, and they’d be like, “You’re such a little actor, aren’t you?” Or, “Of course, you’re going to be an actor.” And I was like, “No, I’m a smart enough guy. I could do whatever I want to do.” But my junior year of college, I had a friend who was casting his thesis film, and he said, “I have a part that I think would be really good for you.” So I did it, and it was the most gratifying thing I’d ever done. It was the first time I felt like I could do something for 12 hours straight, and not get bored or tired.
SANDSTROM: Wow.
GERE: And I was like, “Maybe this is a sign.”
SANDSTROM: What were you studying for?
GERE: I graduated with an art degree. I was doing a lot of sculpture.
SANDSTROM: Amazing.
GERE: And furniture. I liked designing lighting and lamps. But there was a lot of psychology too. I worked at a neuroscience lab doing meditation research on how meditation affects the brain. What I loved about Brown was being able to do a bunch of different classes. I went through 13 majors in my four years.
SANDSTROM: Wait, that’s awesome.
GERE: It was crazy. I think colleges in general make you choose too soon.
SANDSTROM: For sure, but you have such a striking face. You were never like, “I’m so clearly going to be famous”?
GERE: Be famous?
SANDSTROM: Yeah.
GERE: Nah. But I mean, I got the superlative for most likely to be famous in high school. The other person who got it is now on Star Trek, so I guess that says something.
SANDSTROM: How did you get approached for Euphoria? Was your name circling around somewhere, or did you know Sam?
GERE: As all things happened, I got an email in my inbox, and I immediately thought it was something that I could do. I liked the character. It was kind of comedic relief, in some ways, that season. There was also a lot of cigarette smoking in the audition, and I was miming it apparently very believably.
SANDSTROM: That’s funny.
GERE: I got the audition in March, taped for it, and I was like, “Okay, that was good. Even if I don’t get it, I’m proud.” And I didn’t hear anything for four months. And then I get a call at 8 PM one night, and they’re like, “Euphoria wants you. You need to fly out first thing in the morning.” That’s just how they operated.
SANDSTROM: What was your reaction?
GERE: It was a lot to come to terms with all in a second because it was my first thing. Well, I’d already gotten The Shards at that point, but we weren’t going to start filming until October. This was last summer.
SANDSTROM: And you’re like, “I’m doing Hollywood, I guess.”
GERE: It was like, “I guess I’m going all the way in.” But it ended up being good that it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, because I didn’t have the time to freak out about it. And it was totally freak out-able. I mean, the next day, I’m on set with Jacob Elordi, and the first scene was supposed to be this easy thing with no lines. Then, Sam Levinson was like, “I think we’re going to add some lines here. What do you think your character would say?” It was my first day on a set, but I think in some ways that kind of creative license set the tone for the Robert Mallory character.
SANDSTROM: So how did you approach that character?
GERE: Well, I think Bret did a really good job of making him an object of curiosity. It was really fun to not make decisions about who he was while I was filming because it allowed different things to come up that didn’t necessarily fit together. Ryan was very clear about doing scenes in almost an American Psycho way of cutting together seemingly opposite things to create this guy who doesn’t really make sense. But it was this thing where we didn’t need to have continuity on a scene-to-scene basis. As a young actor taking on their first major role, it was really scary to have that kind of freedom. Each scene can almost be a vignette or its own thing. There didn’t have to be this kind of linear character arc, which was scary to be relying on my instincts at such an early point. But it was ultimately really freeing, to have that kind of control.
SANDSTROM: Also makes you think maybe acting is for smart people in some ways. You do have to think about it a little bit.
GERE: I think there’s a lot of different ways into the same room. There’s a million different ways to be good at anything.
SANDSTROM: You’ve done these two roles that are kind of teen psychological dramas. What do you want to do now? What’s your dream?
GERE: I just want to work with really great directors. It doesn’t really matter what the role is or what the movie is. The whole game is working with filmmakers who are single-minded about making great art. Besides acting being a really special job, I think that’s why people do it: They want to collaborate with someone of that kind of intellect and creativity.
SANDSTROM: What are your favorite shows and movies?
GERE: I just watched Fleabag for the first time.
SANDSTROM: Really, really good.
GERE: It immediately catapulted into my top three things I’ve ever seen. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is so genius and Andrew Scott—everyone is a genius in that. I mean, Olivia Colman gives me chills in that show. I so rarely have an issue separating the actor from the character, but Olivia Colman in that show is insane.
SANDSTROM: She’s fantastic. She can do so much. That’s one of those shows that makes me feel less lonely.
GERE: Yeah. It’s not that long of a show. You could do it in six hours. That’s a sick-day binge.
SANDSTROM: What about movie-wise? Have you seen any recent releases?
GERE: I just saw Maddie’s Secret, the John Early show.
SANDSTROM: Did you like it?
GERE: I thought it was really fun. It’s such a specific brand of comedy.
SANDSTROM: Yes.
GERE: But it hit me really hard. There was some part of me where I was like, “Should I be mad at a guy playing a woman with bulimia?” And somehow I wasn’t. And Kate Berlant is great in that. I was at the IFC Center, there was a great crowd. I saw The Invite in theaters. I thought that was really good.
SANDSTROM: I saw it last night, and I didn’t like it.
GERE: You didn’t like it?
SANDSTROM: I thought it was really bad.
GERE: What about it?
SANDSTROM: I was like, “Oh, this is just a cheugy millennial sex movie.” I was bored.
GERE: Did you say cheugy?
SANDSTROM: Cheugy.
GERE: Nice.
SANDSTROM: But Penélope Cruz stole the show.
GERE: She’s great. I thought Ed Norton was really unsettling.
SANDSTROM: He’s funny.
GERE: The funny thing about it was the floor plan of the apartment makes no fucking sense.
SANDSTROM: I did notice that as well. The set felt shambolic, and I felt quite claustrophobic in there. It wasn’t building tension in a good way.
GERE: It did make me think of how many plays started as movies, because that could totally be adapted into a play.
SANDSTROM: Do you write?
GERE: I did comedy sketches in college.
SANDSTROM: Nice.
GERE: I was friends with all the improv people, but I never had the gall to get up there. Writing is hard, but the more that I’m in this world and reading scripts, I think writing is really the job that is the most appealing. You get the most creative freedom.
SANDSTROM: Do you think you’d do that?
GERE: I think I would, but I think it’s also the most vulnerable. I have this argument with writer friends sometimes where it’s like, what’s more vulnerable? Putting yourself on camera or sending someone your writing? For me, sending someone my writing is so much more intimate, in some way, than being naked on camera.
SANDSTROM: 100%. You don’t have a very public-facing persona, but are you getting recognized?
GERE: I’ve gotten recognized three times. It’s fun. One of them was the guy who owns my local cafe, which was a great first guy to get recognized by.
SANDSTROM: What did he say?
GERE: “Hey, you were in Euphoria, right?” It was super normal. And then one of the waitresses was like, “Sorry, I don’t want to be weird, but me and my friends are all so excited for The Shards.”
SANDSTROM: That’s really sweet.
GERE: It was really sweet. And I was like, “I’m playing Robert Mallory.” She goes, “Yeah, I know.” And then the last one was a woman in her car stopping in traffic going, “Hey, you were in Euphoria, right?”
SANDSTROM: You’re like, “This is so scary.”
GERE: She goes, “You were great.”
SANDSTROM: Do people bring up the nepotism thing? Do they needle you about that?
GERE: Do they needle? Who? People in general?
SANDSTROM: The public, friends?
GERE: There’s no way for people to interact with me. Purposefully, I don’t want to have that kind of relationship with the public. I get why that’s a topic of discussion. I mean, my dad is who he is. My mom is who she is, and it’s not going to be a reason why I don’t pursue something that I really like doing. But also, I get it.
SANDSTROM: Cool. My last question is, what are you going to do this summer?
GERE: We’re on day two right now of this press tour. We’re going to London tomorrow, and then Berlin, and then L.A. It’s a whole thing.
SANDSTROM: That’s a real tour.
GERE: It’s fucking crazy. And then I have a wedding. I’m going up to Boston to go to a Red Sox game, even though I’m a Yankees fan. I want that on the record. I’m not going to wear a Boston hat.
SANDSTROM: Fuck the Red Sox.
GERE: Fuck the Red Sox.
SANDSTROM: Do you have other roles on the horizon?
GERE: On the books right now, no. But I’m auditioning and everything.
SANDSTROM: You should go really indie and niche after this.
GERE: Well, I did an Oliver Stone movie recently, which scratched that itch for sure.
SANDSTROM: That’s awesome.
GERE: It was cool to work with him. And Josh Hartnett, who played my dad. He’s so fucking cool.
SANDSTROM: He’s so hot. Trap is amazing. Did you watch that movie?
GERE: I haven’t seen Trap yet.
SANDSTROM: You need to go watch it. Anyway, it was so nice to meet you.
GERE: You too. This was lovely.