FASHION

August Release: Lara Stone

Model Lara Stone Breaks Industry Mold with "Healthy" Body, Richard Gere Openns A-List Bed & Breakfast, and Aussie Actor Eric Bana's Booming Career


Highlights from the August issue of W magazine are below:

LARA STONE, MODEL:

ON FUTURE JOB PLANS WHEN HER SUCCESSFUL MODELING CAREER FADES…“When I think about my job now, it’s so easy. Because you get so much free time, you get to travel, everywhere. The people are nice and fun and easy and relaxed. You get to smoke at work. You make lots of money. Where are you ever going to find another job where you don’t have a boss or responsibilities, really, except to get on an airplane and just show up? It’s a bit worrying.”

ON HAVING A VOLUPTUOUS BODY TYPE IN AN INDUSTRY FILLED WITH PAPER-THIN MODELS…“A lot of people say it’s nice to see someone who won’t break in half when you touch them. But I am still a woman and a person, and if you’re compared and confronted with your colleagues, and they’re all half your size, you think, F—, I’m really fat! And then on other days, I’m like, Oh, I’m not that bad.”

RICHARD GERE’S NEW ADVENTURE: OPENING A BED & BREAKFAST IN BEDFORD, NY

“Over the course of his 30-plus-year career, Richard Gere has been called many things: American Gigolo, Mr. Cindy Crawford, Sexiest Man Alive, and world’s second most famous Buddhist. But his latest moniker is surely his unlikeliest: inn-keeper. This summer Gere and his wife, Carey Lowell, will welcome their first overnight guests to the Bedford Post, an 18th-century house and barn in Bedford, New York, that they have turned into a small luxury hotel, restaurant, bistro and yoga loft.” – Diane Solway, W’s Senior Editor

ON ENVISIONING THE INN AS A PLACE A-LIST NEIGHBORS, LIKE MARTHA STEWART, COULD RIDE TO, TIE UP THEIR HORSE, GET SOMETHING TO EAT AND RIDE HOME…“There are a lot of really effective people who live up here, and I saw this on one level as a clubhouse for these people to engage on levels that might be of benefit to the world. I see us generating ideas and networking on a very high level.” &ndash Richard Gere

ERIC BANA, AUSTRALIAN ACTOR:

ON CELEBRITY CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES VS. AUSTRALIA…“It’s not as crazy as here [Australia]; it’s more sporting-based than based on the arts, fortunately for me. Once the footy [football] season is under way, it wouldn’t matter who you are. Trust me.”

ON BEING A STAND-UP COMEDIAN IN HIS EARLY CAREER INSTEAD OF GOING TO DRAMA SCHOOL…“To me, going to drama school would have been like going to NASA… Stand-up came out of three things. Frustration, necessity, and arrogance. I didn’t have a great career ahead of me in anything. Someone literally said to me, ‘You should try stand-up,’ and took me to a venue. One guy onstage was pretty good, and the other three just sucked. I was like, ‘They’re getting paid? I think I want to give this a try.'”

ON TRANSITIONING FROM STAND-UP COMEDY TO ACTING IN SERIOUS ROLES SUCH AS HIS CHARACTER IN MUNICH…“If you can jump up onstage and make people laugh, shouldn’t you also be able to inhabit a character? To me it wasn’t like there was a Grand Canyon between the two. I never saw any reason why you wouldn’t attempt that next step.”

Please credit the August issue of W for the above. For additional information or to schedule an interview with a W editor, please contact Engelman & Co. at 212.645.9222. Thank you.