“Runaway Bride” Turns 25! Inside Julia Roberts and Richard Gere's Sweet Friendship Over the Years

"We loved each other immediately," Gere said of his former costar in a 2015 interview

Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are more than just onscreen lovers — they’re good friends!

The two actors starred as romantic interests in the '90s romantic comedies Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride — both directed by the late Garry Marshall — and have stayed in touch over the years.

Now, on Tuesday, July 30, Runaway Bride, which sees Gere portraying a reporter writing a story about a woman, played by Roberts, who has left three grooms at the altar, celebrates its 25th anniversary.

The beloved comedy would have never come to be if it wasn’t for the success of its predecessor, which featured Roberts, now 56, in her breakthrough role and saw her scoring an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

In a 2015 interview with Today surrounding the 25th anniversary of Pretty Woman, Gere, 74, remembered first meeting Roberts. He said that Marshall brought Roberts to his apartment, which doubled as his office at the time, and left them alone to converse.

"I was so mesmerized," he said of his soon-to-be costar.

Marshall recalled seeing the sparks fly after he excused himself to go to the restroom to let the actors warm up to one another. "I came out and I saw the two of them at the end of a hall just looking at each other, and right there, I said, look at that chemistry. They don't know each other, and they're doing great," the director shared.

"Yeah, we loved each other immediately. So it was a nice thing," Gere added.

The actor reminisced on their first interaction again in a 2024 interview with E! News while promoting his latest movie Oh, Canada at the Cannes Film Festival. "When I met her the first time, she just glowed," he said. "She hadn't become Julia Roberts. She was just this delightful person."

Meanwhile, Roberts spoke about her first impression of Gere while chatting with SiriusXM in 2017. "He's a very serious actor and he had very specific thoughts about the movie and the part and what worked and didn’t work for him,” she said. "I think I just nodded and smiled a lot and agreed with everything he said. I said, 'You have to do this movie, if you don't do this movie and it falls apart and I lose this job it'll just be terrible.' I kind of pleaded with him in a very real way."

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Eventually, Roberts was the one who convinced Gere to star in Pretty Woman.

Beyond their professional relationship, the two remain close friends. Gere told Entertainment Tonight in 2017 that he speaks with Roberts "all the time," noting that in the past, he "spoke to her three or four times a day."

However, don’t expect them to share the screen anytime soon.

While chatting with Deadline in 2024, Gere said that Marshall, who died in 2016, was a pivotal part of their collaborations.

"Garry was the glue of all of that. It couldn’t be done without Garry," he said. "That was lightning in a bottle; you can’t make that happen again. If that was easy and you can do it again, the computer would do it. It was a moment in all of our lives. She can’t be in that same place then, I can’t be in that place. We don’t have Garry to hold it all together, his lightness, sense of humor and romanticism."

Marshall’s final movie was the 2016 romantic comedy Mother’s Day, which starred Roberts alongside Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson.

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Roberts thinks optimistically of the onscreen romance she shared with Gere in Runaway Bride, telling CBS Mornings in 2023 that she imagines their characters are still together after the credits roll.

"They stay together. He doesn't die in this one. They're going to stay together," the actress said, after previously proclaiming that Gere’s character in Pretty Woman “passed away peacefully in his sleep from a heart attack.”

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