Sunday Times Magazine -Interview: Mel Gibson

The Interview:Mel Gibson

“Every parent screws up. Hopefully I’ve screwed up less than most” — Mel Gibson: Hollywood legend, soon-to-be father of nine

PHOTOGRAPH BY ARMANDO GALLO




I first met Mel Gibson 16 years ago at a party on the Sony lot for the movie The Patriot. He came up behind me, grabbed me, turned me upside down and carried me around the room. I was hysterical with a mixture of shock, fear and laughter. Meeting Mel was like being on a scary fairground ride — but this was just one of his party tricks. He crackled with charisma. This was Mel the maverick: wild, funny, unpredictable, once voted the sexiest man alive.

Chrissy Iley

November 6 2016The Sunday Times

Not much appears to have changed in him since then, but of course everything has. At 60, he is still wild in his heart, but he’s had to rein it in because of the periods when he was completely out of control. He is also about to become a father again — for the ninth time. This is a rare one-on-one interview for Mel. While there will be no hoisting me around the room today, he at last feels ready to sit down and talk about himself, his meltdown and what might just be his resurrection.

He arrives flustered at his office in West Hollywood, announcing that he needs a coffee and some food. It’s lunchtime, he explains, and he hasn’t eaten anything since last night’s veal chop and spinach. He’s wearing dark jeans, a navy pullover and a giant beard grown for an upcoming movie, The Professor and the Madman, with Sean Penn. “Sean and I are going to look like ZZ Top,” he says. He likes to twiddle this beard quite a bit. He combs it and strokes it unconsciously. I wonder if it’s nervousness or a new habit. His eyes stare out, not so much at me as all around. Darting, distracted eyes.

Everyone has an opinion about Gibson, especially after his much reported anti-semitic drunken rant on the Pacific Coast Highway when he was stopped for driving under the influence of alcohol in 2006, in which he raged, “Fucking Jews … The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Then, in 2010, there were leaked recordings of searing rows between the actor and his (now ex-) girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, a Russian-born model and musician, and the mother of his eighth child, Lucia, now 7, in which he roared racist, misogynistic abuse at Oksana and said she deserved a “bat to the side of the head”. The following year Gibson pleaded no contest to a charge of misdemeanour battery, after Grigorieva accused him of punching her at his Malibu home. He admitted he slapped her, but denied that a punch was thrown. He avoided jail, but was put on three years’ probation and a year-long domestic abuse counselling programme, which he completed.

How could he come back from all of this — ever? Of course, he said sorry for his drunken rants — he believes he was going through what he calls the “andropause”, the male menopause, and has commented, “You get barking mad in your fifties” — but it was going to take more than a namby-pamby apology to achieve redemption. He worked on himself. He had to get the booze issue under control. He did a 12-step programme with all its moral inventory. “I’ve had to do that stuff, otherwise you don’t survive,” he has said. “They call it the spiritual path for the psychopath. They say there’s only three options: you go insane, you die or you quit.”

“His rock”: Gibson with Robyn Moore, the mother of seven of his children. They were married for 28 years — during which time, she has said, he was never abusive

Both the drink-driving and misdemeanour battery convictions have since been expunged from his record by the California courts — a process open to anyone who successfully completes probation following a misdemeanour under state law. But Hollywood is slow to forgive, and his directing genius remained quiet for a decade. Nevertheless, a gang of Hollywood A-listers stood by him. Jodie Foster cast him in her 2011 movie The Beaver in a show of friendship and support. Gary Oldman showed his love in a Playboy interview in 2014 (“He got drunk and said a few things,” Oldman said, “but we’ve all said those things. We’re all fucking hypocrites”), and in 2011 Robert Downey Jr, when presenting Gibson with an award, asked the audience “to join me in forgiving my friend his trespasses and offering him the same clean slate that you have me …”

The only real redemption in Hollywood, however, is making a great movie. His new film, Hacksaw Ridge, might just be that movie. The Oscar buzz has begun.

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In pictures: Mel Gibson’s films

Mad Max 2, The Road Warrior, 1981

Gallipoli, 1981

Braveheart, 1995

Lethal Weapon, 1987

The Beaver, 2011

Blood Father, 2016

What Women Want, 2000

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Born in upstate New York, Gibson moved to Australia with his family when he was 12. He grew up in Sydney and had a Catholic education. It is tempting to think that his anti-semitic outburst was somehow linked to his Catholicism, but I believe it was simply born of rage and alcohol and being in a very bad place. His marriage of three decades had broken up, he didn’t know how to process pain.

Gibson made his first real impact as an actor in Mad Max (1979), an Australian thriller set in a grim future. After that, Gallipoli (1981), Peter Weir’s unflinching Australian First World War drama, turned him into a star worldwide. For many, Gibson will always be Braveheart (1995), the roaring, blue-faced hero of the 13th-century Scottish epic in which Gibson the movie star and Gibson the film-maker collaborated in a perfect reel. The film won him Oscars for best director and best picture. The last film he directed was Apocalypto (2006), about the decline and savagery of the Mayan kingdom. It was received well, but Hacksaw, which was released last week in the US, is being spectacularly embraced.

Hacksaw is the story of Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to win the Congressional Medal of Honor for valour in the Second World War. Doss was a Seventh Day Adventist whose religious beliefs meant he couldn’t carry a gun, but as a medic he could save lives — while constantly endangering his own.

This kind of shining bravery is just what Gibson loves. The film is powerful, spectacular, emotional, gripping. I sat through it hardly able to breathe. It’s not just me. At the Venice Film Festival, where it debuted, it received a 10-minute ovation.

“Nine minutes 52 seconds,” Gibson says. How did that make him feel? Happy? Relieved? Back? “Absolutely. It’s like being a chef. If people eat it and go, ‘Yum, yum,’ it’s gratifying. If you’re a storyteller, it tells you that somewhere in your quiver you’ve got a bunch of bolts that are aimed true. It’s affirmation for the work you do and that your storytelling ideas correspond with humanity at large.”
Is he admitting it was hard for him to be a Hollywood outcast and that he feels accepted again?

“Well, it’s not like I stopped working,” he says.

It’s true, there have been movies — notably The Beaver, in which he played a man having a breakdown, who is only able to speak through his beaver glove puppet. It struck a chord with me because it seemed to echo Gibson himself, in pain and unable to speak except through rage. And earlier this year there was Blood Father, in which he played — equally fittingly — a reformed alcoholic attempting to be a better man.

“There have been many projects … but this is my first as a director for 10 years.”

If it was painful not to be directing, he’s not admitting it. He points out that it’s not unusual for directors to take decade-long breaks between films. “I am discerning and I’m not sure that I want to reach into my own pocket any more because it can pay huge dividends or you can get totally killed.”

By this he means he doesn’t want to risk financing his own movie, despite one of his largely self-funded projects, The Passion of the Christ (2004), being the most successful independent film of all time.

“Yes, so that was an excellent bet,” he says.

Passion is a very Catholic film. It polarised audiences — evangelicals adored it; some critics abhorred its bloodlust, others called it anti-semitic. I have read that there’s going to be a sequel. “Not a sequel, but a continuation,” says Gibson. “There’s resurrection, there’s stuff before, stuff after, stuff in other realms, but it’s a very big subject, deep and profound, so it will require a good deal of thought. It has to be enlightening and work on a lot of different levels that all have to dovetail, so it will be tricky.”

Blood features heavily in his films, and Hacksaw Ridge is no exception. “Yes,” he says enthusiastically. “I really like blood.” I’m not sure if he sees it as the symbolic blood of Christ or just the most vivid metaphor for sacrifice, but he makes the best cinematic use of it.

The ultimate battle scene of Hacksaw is in Okinawa, where Doss pulls men from carnage — it’s Gibson at his best. Blood, gore, salvation. “Okinawa was the worst place in the Pacific — 350,000 dead in a 10-week period,” he says. “There were rivers of blood. I didn’t go too far, believe me … The hard combat and the violent aspects are not gratuitous. They are justified in the context of the story and it is emotionally engaging. It’s not just a bucket of blood being thrown down. It has a point. One of the points being the understanding of the kind of sacrifice someone makes in the conditions that they are operating under. You hear the expression war is hell. I wanted to show you just a little peek of hell.”

There’s a guy in it who gets his legs blown off, played by a soldier who lost his limbs in Afghanistan. He had to re-enact losing his own legs. Was that not traumatic for him? “Yes, it was. He approached the scene with trepidation, but he’s a courageous guy and he found it cathartic.” Gibson cast him personally and they talked a lot about post-traumatic stress disorder and what it was like to relive the moment that ripped his life apart.

His stories are often about survival, sacrifice and redemption. “Yes, sure. These are all primals. I think if you stick with themes that show us who we are and find situations that accentuate who we could be or shouldn’t be, those are the interesting stories.”

Gibson never met Doss, who died aged 87 in 2006. He was first handed his life story 10 years ago. Is he happy he made Hacksaw now rather than earlier? He nods enthusiastically, saying they wouldn’t have had the film’s leading actor, the 33-year-old Andrew Garfield (Boy A and The Amazing Spider-Man), a decade ago. Garfield’s portrayal of Doss is remarkable. So weedy, yet brave. Handsome but awkward. “He’s got a very soulful quality. He wasn’t like some muscle guy. He’s just a guy. Good-looking, but not like a pretty boy, and that’s who Desmond was. An ordinary guy.”

Hacksaw was shot in Australia, so that, too, has a feeling of renaissance for Gibson. It was also a family affair. His sixth child, Milo, 26, has a part in it. “I’m not helping him. He’s doing all right on his own. I have another son who worked on the film as a Steadicam operator.” Was it good to work with family? “Yes.” There’s a twiddle of the beard. “Yes, it was good.”

Andrew Garfield in Hacksaw Ridge, the first film Gibson has directed in 10 years

Gibson is a guy’s guy. He doesn’t like talking about soft stuff. He doesn’t care about sagging skin and wrinkles. He doesn’t care about cosmetic surgery. But he’s happy to discuss his children, raving about their talents. He says: “I have a little one [Lucia] and several big ones … and grandkids.” He talks about his son Louie, 28, also a film director, with excitement: Louie recently got married and has just made a movie called Happy Hunting. Gibson raves about it. He’s a proud dad and thinks of himself as a good, hands-on father, but knows he’s far from perfect.Of Gibson’s eight children, seven were with his ex-wife, Robyn Moore. 

They got together in 1977, when he was virtually unknown and she was a dental nurse. They married in June 1980, and were still together when I first met him; he described her as his rock, more organised than him, a nurturing figure. His drinking led to problems in the marriage; the 2006 drink-driving charge appears to have been the final straw for Robyn. They separated that year, and finally divorced in 2009. Word is he was devastated when Robyn left him, but even when they were at their happiest, he found it difficult to talk about love. Way too girly for him.

“As a parent, everybody screws up. There’s no such thing as a perfect parent and it’s so easy to mess up. But hopefully I’ve screwed up less than most,” he says.

In September it was announced that he is expecting another child, with his girlfriend of two years, Rosalind Ross, a 26-year-old former equestrian vaulting champion, now a screenwriter. While much has been made of their 34-year age difference, the relationship seems both steady and steadying. How does he feel about having a ninth child? “Delighted. Things are really good and the last two years have been some of the best.”

Renaissance man: Mel Gibson, 60, with his girlfriend, Rosalind Ross, 26, who is expecting his bab

He says that turning 60 comes with various aches and pains, waking at 5am and crawling across the floor to the bathroom. But it also comes with a profound mellowing — even contentment. He’s glad to be over his challenging early fifties and he has said that around 58 or 59 you get an inkling that this is the “third act”. He acknowledges that act three has been a long one for his 98-year-old father, Hutton. “I don’t know if I want a long third act, but I’d like a full one. I enjoy working. I really love it. I hope my mind stays attuned.”

Eventually someone brings him a croissant. He tears into it like a caveman into an animal. “I need carbs. Every now and again you have to snort some pasta.”

Bits of croissant flake into the bushy beard, which he strokes proudly. He rummages in his bag and gets out a picture of the man he’s going to play in The Professor and the Madman. The beard is even longer. A rabbinical Santa Claus? “Kind of, but he was very scholarly and a Scot and he was the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. The movie is not dry at all. It’s incredible.” Soon, he’s off to Ireland to shoot it.

Sean Penn plays the Madman, but it could have easily been the other way round. “It could,” says Gibson. “We gravitated to those roles. Sean can be just as crazy as me. My theory about great actors — and Sean is a great actor — they have to be a little bit kooky, and he is.”

Hard to say who is king of kooky, but Gibson has certainly reigned supreme as the practical joker. He once surprised his friend Julia Roberts with a gift of a dead rat. “I love her and I love to hear her scream. I put a Norwegian freeze-dried rat that comes from a store in New York City in a parcel and when she unwrapped it she screamed.” We might forgive him that, but does he worry that there are people out there who will never forgive him for that dark decade? “Really? Are there? I’m not aware of it.” I suppose he feels he’s done the work on himself and apologised, so hopes it’s all going to end there — or at least end in an Oscar nomination.

On a previous occasion, Gibson had given me a gift — a Catholic talisman to protect me from my fear of flying. This time, I give him something in return — handcarved rosary beads with a Celtic cross and a star of David, made for him by an enclosed order of Welsh nuns I once interviewed, the Poor Clare Colettine Community in Flintshire. The nuns, some of whom had converted from Judaism and some of whom had worked with alcoholics and drug addicts, gave it to me to pass on to him, because they’re all about forgiveness and they didn’t believe he was truly anti-semitic.

He looks mystified, bewildered, but he likes the idea of these nuns. He’s relaxed now, laughing — I think the croissant might have kicked in — so I ask him whether he might be more in touch with his feminine side, now that he has something worn only by nuns.

“Oh sure, yes. I remember I was in a film years ago where I was getting in touch with my female side … The dialogue went like this, ‘Last night I cried in bed.’ ‘Were you with a woman?’ ‘No, that’s why I was crying.’ That was the B-grade dialogue from Lethal Weapon 1!” Oh, I was expecting him to quote a line from What Women Want (2000), for which he had to wax his legs. “I feel we should do another movie, What Women Don’t Want.”

There’s the old Mel Gibson: happy in his own skin, laughing. A man’s man, a storyteller. He reckons he’s done his penance, and he’s ready for his resurrection.

Hacksaw Ridge (2016 - Movie) Official Trailer

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