Mel Gibson - Nev Pierce

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Mel Gibson:
A Life On Set
WORDS nev pierce
Braveheart is back,
with his first starring
role in eight years:
Edge Of Darkness.
In an exclusive
interview, the Oscarwinning director
and A-list actor
recalls the agony
and ecstasy of three
decades in film...
main picture: Michael O’Neill/CORBIS OUTLINE. kobal (2), photofest (1)
T
MAD MAX
1979, George Miller
“Those films were heart-stoppers.
They were R-rated. They were
something,” says Gibson. “Some films
hold up and some don’t. I think if you keep it
simpler, maybe keep a purity about it, it’s going
to stand up for a long time.” Max has certainly
stood time’s test, but Gibson didn’t feel at all
sure of himself as the rough-hewn, biker-battling
cop. “Confidence? I had none. I was still in
drama school. We had a lot of Brits there; very
good people, really good teachers. Some of them
just leave their mark on you — still. And many
of them are gone. Going from there, where
you’re allowed to fail a whole bunch of times,
and then falling into the real world of hard facts,
he best part of a decade
has passed since Mel
Gibson carried a picture.
Now a generation knows
him as a director, rather than
as Mad Max or Martin Riggs. But he’s still got
it. In revenge thriller Edge Of Darkness, the
danger and charisma of the lethal weapon is still
there — there are just a few more miles on the
clock. “I didn’t realise I looked so old,” Gibson
says. “Man, look at them wrinkles! Holy shit!”
He laughs. “Acting again has been refreshing,
because of the break. You’re making choices
now you wouldn’t have ever made eight years
ago. Hopefully, God willing, if I’m still alive
in ten years, I’ll be making still more varied
choices.” Today, we’re at his Santa Monica
offices, to discuss not just his return, but 30
years of a life in film. We’ve brought pictures
and everything. “Good,” he says. “They might
jog my memory...”
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of performance, cameras and being at the mercy
of the personalities of people you’ve never met
before... Confidence? Not even in my lexicon.
“I was just like a lamb in the woods looking
around like, ‘What’s that?’ and asking a lot
of questions. I ate it up like a sponge. I was
at George Miller’s elbow, harassing him with
questions. ‘What’s that?’ ‘Well, that’s a tracking
shot...’ He was very generous. He’s what you’d
call one of my mentors... More mentor, less
tormentor. I was fortunate to land on my feet
next to a guy like that, who was innovative and
talented and this odd kind of genius. To have
him on one side and then bounce off him into
Peter Weir — how lucky can a guy get?”
gallipoli
1981, Peter Weir
A poignant account of wasted youth
and military disaster. Gibson won
his second Australian Film Institute
gong for his portrayal of a young runner
exposed to the bureaucracy and brutality
of World War I. “Peter took an abstract
approach, of feelings and mood, and he was
really encouraging not to think too much,
but just be. He was good for a young actor;
he could talk you down from doing too
much! It was a different approach from
George, who’s like a mathematician, an
Einstein kind of calculus guy in his process.
It makes sense to him, as he’s a scientist, he’s
a doctor — that’s where he started. Peter
would give credence to the things that are
intangible and weigh those into the balance,
too. So it was a different approach.
“It’s really comforting to know that
there’s no right way to do anything. Lots
of wrong ways... But it’s really nice to see that
both can achieve excellence with completely
different methods. I think when you’re
young, you take little pieces of that with you.
So, you know, in Apocalypto, for instance,
I think I borrowed little pieces from both
of those guys. And they see it. I know when
they watch it they see it, and that’s good.
That’s an homage to those guys. I think
that everyone you work with along the
way completes your puzzle somehow.”
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a
THE YEAR
OF LIVING
DANGEROUSLY
THE MAN
WITHOUT
A FACE
Having reprised Mad Max in The Road
Warrior, Gibson returned to work with
Weir, playing a foreign correspondent
For his directorial debut, Gibson
chose the intimate story of a facially
scarred man who becomes tutor to
in ’60s Jakarta during a time of extreme political
unrest. The Philippines doubled for Indonesia,
but the production received terrorist threats and
finished shooting in Australia. “It was like, ‘Stop
what you are doing or we will stop you!’” says
Gibson. “It could have just been a prankster.” The
death threats aren’t what stick in his mind, though.
“Peter is a magnetic, pleasant, funny guy. And
then you can see when he detaches into another
kind of realm of... I don’t know, kind of a dreamtime thing. He accesses ideas, visuals, music on
a level that’s been filtered through his brain, but
it’s really coming from his heart. He’d give you
concepts of things and you’d be like, ‘Woah!’ He’d
say things like, ‘For this scene, I want you to listen
to this opera,’ and he’d give you some Puccini and it
would do something to you. It becomes part of it.”
a young boy, despite the disapproval of the
community. Casting the child was key, and
Gibson became close with the young Nick Stahl.
“We had to get tight. I really respected him.
And I really liked what he was doing. He was
only 12 years old, but somebody had taught him
something really good — to let the lines emanate
from emotions and feelings, not to parrot them
out. He was operating from a deeper, more
profound level. To be able to be open to that and
be smart enough to get a gauge on that part of
himself was extraordinary in someone so young.
It took me forever to figure that stuff out!”
1982, Peter Weir
O N·SE T
1993, Mel Gibson
LETHAL WEAPON
Maverick
1987, Richard Donner
“At the time, Lethal Weapon was
different. Now it’s a genre, the
buddy cop movie,” says Gibson,
kobal (2), corbis (1), rex (1)
The Rest Of Mel
Every other
Gibson big-screen
appearance,
from the biggest
starring roles
to the teeny-tiniest
cameos...
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recalling the first film beyond Mad Max that
proved he could deliver a box-office smash.
“It was 1986. I was 30. I’d just had a hiatus.
I was like, ‘I’m tired of this. I’m going to
grow vegetables, milk a cow...’ So I didn’t
work for a long time. I had this tribe of kids
and was busy taking care of stuff. Then
the script came under my door and it was
different. It came from a young writer called
Shane Black, and I remember reading it and
thinking, ‘Wow, this is one of those whambam action films, but the characters in it are
not the two-dimensional guys that we’ve been
used to seeing for the last five, six years...’
They weren’t those Sly and Arnold guys
that were ruling the market at that time.”
Martin Riggs certainly wasn’t a Sly or
summer city (1977) tim (1979)
Following an uncredited
turn as ‘Baseball Player’ in
1977’s I Never Promised
You A Rose Garden, Mel
bagged a supporting part
in this so-so coming-of-age
story. Also features John
‘Wolf Creek’ Jarratt.
FEB rU A R Y 2 0 1 0 EMPIRE l i f e
Gibson won an Aussie
Oscar for playing the
simple-minded Tim, who
falls for an older woman in
this melodramatic weepie.
Quite a contrast to Mad
Max, it’s worth watching
for his performance.
1994, Richard
Donner
Arnold kind of guy. He was a Vietnam veteranturned-livewire cop, grieving the death of his
wife. He was human. “Riggs had vulnerabilities,
he was losing his grip. He was flawed, he was
insane... and he was desperately trying to sort of
channel it into something worthwhile. I thought,
from that aspect, you have to look at why is the
guy like that? What formed that guy? In the first
Lethal film, it was there in spades: his dilemma,
his avoidance of things with humour, the
military way... I met guys who had come back
from Vietnam. They shared their experiences —
special forces guys. Some hair-raising stories.
I mean, yeah they needed therapy! They couldn’t
even sleep at night, you know? So you try and
investigate that side of it, who the real guy is,
where did he come from, and what formed him?
So, at that time it was different — it brought
another dimension to that character. Maybe
only one more dimension, but it was enough...”
the chain
reaction (1980)
The China Syndrome
meets Mad Max in this
nuclear thriller — not as
good as it sounds. Gibson
pops up uncredited as
‘Bearded Mechanic’. Only
completists need bother.
MAD MAX 2: the
road warrior
(1981)
Miller’s post-apocalyptic
actioner is the strongest
of the series, with Gibson
magnetic as the Road
Warrior saving a colony
from a psychotic gang.
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Gibson’s shot six films with Richard
Donner, of which this TV Western
adaptation was the fourth. It isn’t one
of his best, but it’s his fondest on-set memory.
“I was living in Page, Arizona, in a cottage
overlooking an orange canyon. I was living
alone, going home at weekends, and during the
week you’d watch the sun go down, wake up
at 5.30am, go for a run and then go to work.
Except going to work was stepping onto a boat
and going across Lake Powell, as the sun was
coming up. It was a nice time of year and there
was a bunch of people who were also affected
by the environment. It was a happy production,
because it was Dick Donner. He didn’t deal
stress to people. I remember riding to work on
that sort of glass lake... It was just a breeze.” ››
attack force z
(1982)
A World War II men-on-amission movie, shot before
Gallipoli but released later
to general indifference.
The shoot in Taiwan saw
original director Phillip
Noyce replaced.
the bounty (1984)
the river (1984)
mrs. soffel (1984)
An uneven but evocative
retelling of the legendary
mutiny. Fine performances
from Anthony Hopkins,
as a sympathetic Captain
Bligh, and Gibson as
Fletcher Christian, but the
scenery steals the show.
Always at home outside,
Gibson is heartfelt and
effective as a farmer
battling the elements —
and Scott Glenn’s ruthless
businessman — as he tries
to keep his family together.
Minor, but affecting.
A bleak love story, of sorts,
with Gibson as a convicted
killer on Death Row who
seduces the wife of the
prison governor (Diane
Keaton). Gibson supported
helmer Gillian Armstrong’s
dark vision. Nobody saw it.
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mad max: beyond
thunderdome
(1985)
The one with Tina Turner’s
hair. And bungee-action
riffs in a gladiatorial arena,
all performed by Gibson.
A huge hit, the proceeds
allowed him to buy a farm.
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braveheart 1995, Mel Gibson
“I’ve never worked so hard in my life,
before or since,” recalls Gibson of his
second feature. After The Man Without
A Face, he decided he wouldn’t direct and act at
the same time again. But the only way to secure
Braveheart’s budget was for him to star as
Scottish revolutionary William Wallace. “I just
remember the 18-hour days and the massive
crew and all the characters. Just the grandness
of some of those battle scenes... I hadn’t seen
a good battle pic, with a cast of thousands, since
the ’60s, so you’re stepping back into a genre
that they kind of left with Charlton Heston. El
Cid, or Spartacus — Stanley Kubrick. It was
a big story. There was a lot to shoot. And
I wasn’t exactly secure in my... I don’t think
anyone is really secure in their vision. You have
a vision, but is anyone else gonna like it?”
They did, of course, with the movie winning
five Academy Awards, including Best Director
and Best Picture. But it appears that Gibson
remembers the pain more than the plaudits.
“To be truthful, when I came back it was very
difficult to even communicate verbally with
people, because I had gone way beyond my
reserves. Gosh, I weighed around 165 lb,
wringing wet. I was eating like a horse, but just
the sheer effort and energy involved, from 5.30
in the morning to 11 at night. It over-taxes you.”
Still, he insists, he did enjoy the process. “Oh,
I did — I honestly did. And I was very fortunate
to work with the people I worked with. My
goodness. I still work with some of those people!
They were amazing. I had wonderful help from,
I think, one of the greats, John Toll (see right),
as DP. The guy’s amazing. I’ve worked with the
set designer lots — Tom Sanders. He’s good. He
did Apocalypto with me. I really enjoyed the
editing process a great deal; I really love being in
that room, where you’ve got all your toys in
front of you and you just start playing in the
sandbox. As my editor, Steve Rosenblum, told
me, “This is the final rewrite, let’s go!” I ended
up dropping, like, 45 minutes on the floor and
you go, ‘Why did I shoot that?’ After that,
I learned the lesson is to make sure your script
isn’t longer than 100 pages, because that’s all
you’re gonna end up with anyway. Just get it
down to 100 pages. So I’ve done that ever since.
It was a juggernaut, for my second outing.”
we were
soldiers
2002, Randall
Wallace
More John Wayne than John Wayne,
Gibson is all guts and glory in this
underrated adaptation of Lt. Gen. Hal
photofest (2), moviestore (1), kobal (1)
Moore’s Vietnam War memoir. Braveheart
screenwriter Randall Wallace took the director’s
chair, and Gibson says he had no problem
stepping back from the megaphone and doing
his duty. “You have to trust your director. Just
do it,” he says. “Because all you’re going to do is
waste time, energy, effort, and create unneeded
tension and be a barrier to doing anything good,
if you’re fighting or if you’re at odds. You have
tequila sunrise
(1988)
lethal weapon 2
(1989)
bird on a wire
(1990)
Chinatown scripter Robert
Towne wrote and directed.
Gibson played a retired
drug dealer lured back for
a last score. Audiences
flocked to it... but couldn’t
tell you what was going on.
Riggs returns in a killer
sequel. Gibson tried one
of his practical jokes on
co-star Joe Pesci. “But you
can’t get to him. He’s seen
every gag — and pulled
most of them himself.”
Another drug dealer,
another action comedy —
except this one feels a lot
like being screeched at
by Goldie Hawn for 110
minutes. Gibson coasts it,
with effortless charm.
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signs
2002, M. Night
Shyamalan
“It’s important you have some level
of communication, particularly with
kids. They need that. We all need that.
We’re all kids.” Gibson’s last starring role before
Edge Of Darkness saw him in Pennsylvania,
playing a man trying to shield his family from an
alien invasion. “Night was really good,” he says
of director Shyamalan. “He was able to see bad
habits that I may have fallen into and indicate
what they might be. I was like, ‘Really?’ And he’d
go, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ One does tend to go for the
easy fix. He was asking me to look at the whole
thing again and do it another way. I appreciated
the simplicity of that, and his perception about
qualities that I possessed and how they needed
to be modified to fit his vision.”
The experience meant that, despite Signs’
box-office success, Gibson decided it was time
for a break. “It was an interesting process, to
drop a lot of the handy things I’d built up over
the years and realise, ‘I gotta walk away from
this and just retweak it.’ In the frenzy of career,
you can fall into bad habits. You can never
stand still or it starts to suffer. You have to keep
moving. Night was a reminder of that for me.” ››
to pledge your fealty to the king, go in there
and say, ‘How can I help you accomplish your
vision?’ You’re not going to be 100 per cent
with everything. You may have suggestions
that he likes, but if he doesn’t like them, forget
them. Just follow orders, you know, pretty
much, and bring what you can to it.
“Not that you’re passive, not that you’re
some kind of robot...” He adopts a voice
reminiscent of Arnie in The Terminator,
“‘Yes, I will do it!’ It’s not that. It’s an
accomplishment that you achieve together
and you’re a team player and you want
the best. You know, even if you don’t have
a 100 per cent understanding of what his
vision might be, there’s nothing to say that
it’s not complete. And if he can communicate
it real well, no problem. It’s like with Randy...
These guys are all very decisive and very clear.
I’ve had very few bad experiences on set.”
air america (1990)
hamlet (1990)
A scattershot comedy
partnering Gibson with
Robert Downey Jr. as CIA
drug-runners... Both were
known to run wild, but
survived the Thailandbased shoot intact. Sadly,
for viewers, so did the film.
“Mad Max To Play Crazy
Dane!” ran a sceptical
headline, but people
forget Gibson is classically
trained, and he’s electric
as Shakespeare’s lost
prince in Franco Zeffirelli’s
impressive adaptation.
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lethal weapon 3
(1992)
forever young
(1992)
Starts with the City Hall of
Orlando, Florida, blowing
up — for real (it was due
to be demolished). Gibson,
Danny Glover and Joe
Pesci clown around and
subsequently coin it in.
J. J. Abrams scripted this
time-spanning romance
about a man frozen in the
’50s who wakes up in the
‘90s to find his true love.
Abrams won’t thank you
for reminding him, though.
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pocahontas (1995)
ransom (1996)
Gibson’s first foray into
animation, and a Disney
musical no less, in which
he sang on the soundtrack
but couldn’t significantly
enliven a somewhat
po-faced historical
cartoon adventure.
In the role of an
outspoken, flawed family
man who turns the tables
on the kidnappers of
his child, Gibson acts
as a surprisingly dark,
compelling centre to this
Ron Howard thriller.
fathers’ day
(1997)
If you’re an obsessive
Mel Gibson fan, you may
be tempted to seek out his
brief cameo as ‘Scott The
Body Piercer’ in this Billy
Crystal/Robin Williams
‘comedy’. Don’t do it!
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the passion
of the christ
2004, Mel Gibson
“Excoriation” is the first word Gibson
says about his controversial drama
concerning the final hours of Jesus’ life.
photofest (1), moviestore (1), kobal (1)
It seems he means it on a few levels. “It was
a gruelling shoot. You had to get into that zone
and hang in there. If you’re going to take on
that subject-matter, there’s a huge onus on you
to deliver the very best you can. So we did. Jim
(Caviezel, who plays Jesus) certainly did. His
whole thing was, ‘Okay, I’m taking my hands
off it. I just want to be an instrument.’ And he
just was. The stuff he did was, in my opinion,
tremendous. He totally got it and it was really
marvellous to watch.”
The self-financed film wasn’t all hard work
— “There were a lot of laughs. I mean, you’re in
Italy, you’re going to have fun. The Italians
love life” — and it went on to gross more than
$600 million worldwide. One story that has
passed into Hollywood lore is that Gibson, a
Catholic, hammered the nails into the cross
himself, but he says it’s been given rather too
much significance. “Everyone thinks, ‘That’s to
show his own complicity!’ But that’s not it. It’s
that the extra doing it couldn’t get it right. So I was
like, ‘Give me that thing! He should do it just like
this...’ And they filmed it. It was just a practical
matter, really. We weren’t acting all airy-fairy.”
apocalypto 2006, Mel Gibson
“You have no idea what it took to do
that,” says Gibson, seeing the photo
below with not-so-fond remembrance.
“To walk across that, it’s just mind-boggling
what has to happen to make that happen — and
to have a camera follow them all. It was a tough
shoot. One of the toughest, I’d say.”
For his fourth feature, shot on location in
Mexico, he utilised an almost entirely amateur
cast and battled extreme elements... and animals.
“At one point it got bloody chilly and I recall we
had all these extras going by, representing a tribe
Martin Campbell decided to adapt his own
1985 BBC TV series about a cop investigating
his daughter’s murder. Written by The Departed’s
William Monahan, it’s a thriller with an
emotional pull. “From the abbreviated concept,
the trailer version, it’s like a Charlie Bronson
movie,” says Gibson. “But it’s deeper than that.
The human element comes in. All of us know
about that — anybody who has kids or family.”
He laughs. “Who doesn’t have a mother?”
Themes of family and vengeance have long
appeared in Gibson’s work, from Mad Max
through Payback, but he feels it’s particularly
relevant today. “We’re in a time when people
know more than ever what it means to lose
a child. I mean, you talk about some of the
conflagrations in the world. I’m not just talking
about the US Army, I’m talking about anybody
who has lost anyone, with wars going on. This
is a casualty of another sort, but it asks, ‘What
does it do to those people left behind?’”
Gibson remembers the TV series, for good
reason. “I love the soundtrack. We were doing
Lethal Weapon at the same time, and Richard
Donner watched an episode and heard [the
score] — it was by Eric Clapton and Michael
Kamen — and he said, ‘I want those guys to
do the Lethal soundtrack.’ And they did.”
He enjoyed being back in front of the lens.
“There was a lot less to do!” he laughs. “I had
my moments. Having knife fights with 25 yearold guys. Even if you’re faking it, it gives you
a work-out. They think you’re made of rubber!”
The action quotient is fulfilled, then, but the
subject, of dealing with the loss of a child, is
what gives the film its substance. “When I read
the script, it hit me on that level. ‘How does it
feel?’ It’s a question asked twice in the film.” He
points at the photo where he holds a gun to the
head of Danny Huston. “Right here, ‘What does
it feel like?’ He’s wrestling with stuff and he’s
not really balanced. Maybe his wires have come
loose a bit and he’s trying to cope with that, in
his very locked-down — sort of Boston police,
trying not to be too emotionally expressive —
way. It’s more than just a revenge movie.”
will be reviewed in the next issue.
fairytale: a
true story (1997)
lethal weapon 4
(1998)
Gibson gives free rein to
his manic tendencies as
a paranoid taxi driver who
goes on the run with Julia
Roberts when it turns out
they really are out to get
him. So were the critics.
A children’s film about two
young girls who claim to
have photographed fairies.
Financed by Icon, the
production company of
Gibson, who has a blinkand-you’ll-miss-it cameo.
Everyone really is too
old for this shit in part IV,
aka The One With Jet Li.
Actually rather fun if
you’re feeling indulgent,
as Gibson and Glover
spar affectionately.
FEB rU A R Y 2 0 1 0 EMPIRE Throughout his hiatus from above-thetitle status, Gibson was never short on
offers. Little caught his attention until
›› Edge Of Darkness is out on January 29 and
conspiracy
theory (1997)
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that had been beat up. This four year-old kid
was tugging on his mother’s skirt and he points
down to his leg and there’s a fer-de-lance
wrapped around it — a deadly snake. The jungle
was full of that crap. It had wrapped around
this child’s leg, for warmth. Everybody was like,
‘STOP!’ and the wrangler went in and pulled
the snake off. Nobody got bit, but everyone had
parasites... I wanted to make the cast live through
[the characters], to see their humanity. I was
trying to make a comment, about now, about the
close of the civilisation, which I believe we’re in.”
edge of darkness 2010, Martin Campbell
payback (1999)
The idea of remaking
Point Blank appalled many
and there was wrangling
over the final cut, but as
a straight-ahead action
film this has its strengths,
not least Gibson relishing
his ruthless character.
the million
dollar hotel
(2000)
Wim Wenders’ drama
was described by co-star
Gibson as being “as
boring as a dog’s ass”.
He later apologised. But,
you know, he was right.
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Chicken run (2000)
the patriot (2000)
As an, um, cocky rooster
in a chicken POW camp,
Gibson gives tremendous
vocal verve to Aardman’s
first claymation feature.
Right up there with Tom
Hanks and Tim Allen’s
work in the Toy Storys.
A lot of people hated
Roland Emmerich’s US
independence picture
because it makes the
British soldiers Gibson
fights seem like vicious,
war criminals. We hated it
because it’s not very good.
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what women
want (2000)
The singing
detective (2003)
A rare foray into romantic
comedy for Gibson, who
plays both the caddish ad
exec’s glee, then his moral
awakening, after he finds
out he has the power to
read women’s minds.
A key film on Robert
Downey Jr.’s comeback
trail. Gibson opted for
a supporting part — on
screen and off, having
secured the rights so his
friend could take the role.
Paparazzi (2004)
Gibson produced this
wishfulfilment fantasy, as
a movie star (Cole Hauser)
murders the evil paparazzi
who harmed his family.
A real dud, but his cameo,
as an anger management
patient, is funny. For a bit.
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