‘Best experience of my life’: Dean Semler on working with Mel Gibson on Apocalypto

I know it's really hard to put into words but what for you is so special about making movies um they remain like uh it's like working with a family you know I did Apocalypto with with Mel in Mexico we were there for eight months believe it or not eight months in the jungle best experience of my life ever forget Mel was the man he was in charge and he had to save from day to day and um I remember coming back to my home here after 8 months being away and my wife Annie said you're walking around bumping into bloody walls what are you doing I said look I've I've lived with a family for eight months seven days a week waking up every day and seeing them all seeing them having dinner at night working all day it's hard to get away from that it's hard to forget that you know and uh she said go and see your friends out at Panavision go and have a bloody talk to them it's a wonderful career God knows I envy anybody who could be lucky enough to do what I did uh what I'm hopefully going to do a little bit more of I don't know for sure but we'll see Dances with Wolves is of course your most decorated film you won the Academy Award for it it of course was directed by Kevin cner the sweeping Landscapes of America remain Sumptuous images to this very day after You' made the film you'd hoped maybe that this was going to be Awards worthy but when did you start to realize this might be the one no it's I was actually shooting a film with Billy Crystal called City Slickers in uh New Mexico arizota somewhere and it was like just prior to the Academy Awards coming out and Billy said you know they're talking about just dances with walls film you did that that might get a few nominations so there was a there was a seed planted there and I was back in Sydney when I got a call like at 1:00 in the morning from the producer Jim Wilson who said mate you're one of 12 we got 12 nominations congratulations and I pinched myself and woke up Annie and my daughter and we realized it was true and then from then on well the ball started rolling and you know the Americans really know how to celebrate success boy what a time that was for a few weeks or a few months after the nominations for the awards Etc was just uh cost a lot of money but it was good and I hoped um when when the announcement came from Glenn Close who announced it I was up against four or five of the greatest cinematographers in the world the go The Godfather Dick Tracy some Avalon these are the top guys at all one Academy Awards and it was me and the name came up and the Oscar goes to Dean samler dances with wol and I leapt out of my seat which Annie has never forgiven me for because I didn't kiss her and let the camera see her and went up and I was just hoping that hoping that my fly was done up and that my voice would work you know but it was it was it was a wonderful evening it was just a fabulous evening and it was the one of many and it meant a lot to me then but it meant more to me when I got on a Quant to come home I didn't realize how important it was to Australia I got on a quad flight flying home and the steart the hostess came up and said Mr simler do you have it with you and I said she said the Oscar and I said yes I've got it and some other Awards she said you mind showing it to the captain and to the to the passengers and I said oh I then I got was somebody waking him up after 7 hours fly they're all cranky showing them a trophy she said I think you'll find they'll like it and they did it was like uh it was Goosebumps when I walked down uh it meant so much to my fellow Australians it really did

Channel: Sky News Australia

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Length: 4min 17sec (257 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 28 2024