His company, Icon Productions, employs 15 people who actively develop numerous projects for Gibson to produce, direct and act in. The recent Immortal Beloved, starring Gary Oldman as Beethoven, was an Icon production, as were five of Gibson's last six films (Hamlet, Forever Young, The Man Without a Face, Maverick and Braveheart).
To break through Gibson's protective wall, Playboy sent Contributing Editor Lawrence Grobel (who last interviewed Jean-Claude Van Damme) to visit with the star at his offices on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. Grobel's report:
"When I got this assignment I called some of the actresses who have worked with Mel, and they all told me the same thing: He's handsome, easy to work with and has a weird sense of humor. In person, Gibson seemed like a nice, cheery fellow, a one-of-the-guys type who just happened to appear in a few big films and became a star who could command many millions for a couple months' work.
"For journalists, Gibson has long been a challenge, claiming that he wants to keep his life as private as possible. We arranged to talk for two hours the first day and two more the next. We wound up talking for eight hours over those two days and had another session after that. He kept saying how much he disliked being interviewed, but only once did he ask to go off the record.
"The result is a surprisingly no-holds-barred conversation with a man who has not revealed himself in quite this way before. Gibson is full of controversial opinions and loves raunchy humor. And despite the fact that such attitudes can get you into trouble in these politically correct times, he proved to be refreshingly fearless."
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PLAYBOY: Here are some of the things we've heard about you: You can be weird. Off-the-wall. Irreverent. Unpredictable. Insecure. Fearful. Inarticulate.
GIBSON: All of the above are true. And that's not the half of it.
PLAYBOY: You mean we're going to get into some interesting stuff here?
GIBSON: We're all a strange bunch of different and contradictory bits. I'm no closer to explaining who I am than anyone else is.
PLAYBOY: The director of Maverick and Lethal Weapon, Richard Donner, has said that you have a lot of anger and hostility and that underneath, you're a tough son of a bitch.
GIBSON: I don't know. I get pretty dark sometimes, pretty bleak. But that passes. I rarely lose my temper anymore.
PLAYBOY: Which means you have lost it in the past.
GIBSON: You've got to get it out. I used to just hang on to it and then some little thing would set it off, which was stupid. You behave like an asshole when you lose it, and you feel like an asshole afterward. It's not healthy.
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PLAYBOY: Has it angered you over the years to be accused of promoting violence with the Lethal Weapon and Mad Max films?
GIBSON: I'm sorry, I don't go with the argument there. These things have been around forever. Just look at the Roman circus. They used to put people out there and have wild donkeys dance on them. Look at some of the Jacobean tragedies. And Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth—these are fairly violent plays. No one has ever accused them of being responsible for our social evils. But, boy, if they're saying that about my earlier films, they ain't seen nothing yet.
PLAYBOY: In other words, wait until they see Braveheart?
GIBSON: Oh yeah. It's rough. Some of it's very hard to watch. One battle is about 20 minutes long—we shot 100,000 feet of film. Before we shot it I watched every battle movie I could lay my hands on—and noticed they all get muddy and murky, but who cares? I wanted to show what it was like to be in the middle of a 13th century slugfest. It was pandemonium. People being whacked by mistake by their own guys, horses falling on people. I've got a scene where a horse just flies over the top of these guys' heads. I've never seen anything like it on film.
PLAYBOY: What drew you to the story of William Wallace's attempt to drive the British out of Scotland?
GIBSON: I read the script in one sitting. I thought, Oh Jesus, I'm too old to do this. I hemmed and hawed and walked around it, but I just couldn't forget it, it was so dynamic. Wallace's legend is alive and well in Scotland. A lot of it is amazing shit. Whether it's true or not I don't know, but it certainly is colorful. He was kind of a monster—his main hobby was killing Englishmen. He just hated them. He started knocking 'em off when he was 27. They caught him, threw him in jail and tried to starve him to death. He was in a prison dungeon for two months without food. He apparently found God in jail and became very religious. When they thought he was dead they threw him out into the moat. A woman found him and nursed him back to health on her breast milk.
PLAYBOY: That should make for an interesting scene in the film.
GIBSON: I would have liked to have filmed that, but it's not in there. But what is there is totally uncompromising: The story is uncompromising, and the way I filmed it is uncompromising. The camera is always moving. I didn't want anything to stand still. It's about as subtle as a sledgehammer in your face.
PLAYBOY: Wallace was not only hanged, but also drawn and quartered. Will that be shown?
GIBSON: Not graphically. For a character to be dispatched in such a manner is pretty hard for an American audience, which prefers hearts and flowers. Americans don't like to see something that isn't a happy, happy, happy ending. Which is OK. The challenge here was to actually have someone hanged, drawn and quartered and still have it be beautiful and uplifting.
PLAYBOY: Your publicist has compared the film to Ben-Hur. How does that sit with you?
GIBSON: He has to—he's being paid. I have heard it compared to David Lean's work.
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