Source: CBS
Posted: July 1998

In Lethal Weapon 4, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are still running after the bad guys - even if they can't run as fast as they used to, reports CBS 'This Morning' Co-Anchor Mark McEwen.

Of his Lethal Weapon character, Martin Riggs, Gibson says, "He's mellowing. He's not as emotionally disturbed as he once was. It's been a gradual sort of therapy process for him. The more people he kills, the better he gets.".

And Gibson has found some success playing other "damaged" characters in such films as Conspiracy Theory (1997) and The Man Without a Face (1993).

"I think they're more interesting," says Gibson, 42. "There isn't anyone that isn't damaged in some way… It's the way you deal with it that is important, you know?"

The bad guys in Lethal Weapon 4 are Asian slave traders. When one of the Asian actors told Gibson a politically incorrect joke about fried rice, the quip ended up in the script. Is the actor concerned about political correctness?

"You know, I never understood that stuff," says Gibson. "I've had people call me all sorts of things…derogatory terms. It bounces off. I don't understand it. With my good friends, I give them heaps on every level, and they understand it. It's just horsing around. I think it shows…that you love them. It's endearing, in some way."

Gibson's home base is a ranch in Australia, where he lives with his wife, Robyn, and their six children, Hannah, Edward, Christian, William, Louis, and Milo. How does he maintain his marriage in the midst of the madness of Hollywood?

"It's just work, I think," says Gibson. "And you have to give a few things away. I mean, you can't be away all the time… [It's] damage control, maintenance… You have to make lots of preemptive strikes if you don't want to strike out."

In 1995, Gibson starred in and directed the movie Braveheart, which won two Oscars, for best director and best movie. His other acting credits include all four Lethal Weapon films, Ransom (1996), Maverick (1994), Hamlet (1990), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), The Year of Living Dangerously (1983), The Road Warrior (1981), and Mad Max (1979).