Mel Gibson INTERVIEW 1998

[Music] [Music] [Music] what were your options are the when I when you're 18 in terms of what you might do with your life well I had absolutely no idea and and my options were you know get some quick fast job probably physical labor to you know to earn the bread and where were you in Australia I had an opportunity going to university had finished high school did average but passed really hated school and I could have gone to journalism more the other option that was open to me was a sort of auditioning for it for a drama school right which which I did I could tell jokes and stories and and make stories up and convince people of things that weren't true you Alaia kind of yeah a great liar yeah yeah a good liar I'm not as good a liar now as I was then yeah because it you know the lying thing is something you have to try and overcome again sure and I try and put it into a framework where I can call it a profession now which is go back then yeah I I can't say that I have a method I don't I don't think I do I mean there is method but I find that it constantly shifts and chain and I think that there's a good thing I'm not sure I think I I was educated in the way of theater crafts and stuff was a very British way allowing things which meant a technique yeah they're all in favor of actually feeling a real emotion and doing that but they just say you're not going to be able to summon that every time and if you even if you could summon that every time you would you would die young yeah so that you have to be able to at least fake it well how do you deal with actors um well you choose the ones who you want to be with for a start I never make them read or anything I just I doubt that you do either I don't like it I I don't understand Derek I get embarrassed and when they cry in a reading I get like a little yeah you want to go in John leave good your food you shouldn't be there well it seems like you're doing something terribly wrong you feel like some kind of it you know I mean you feel as if you're you're committing a crime yeah and it's kind of slimy it's kind of prostitution sure and and it and and but that I think is even beyond it it's just kind of watching someone go through the act of prostituting themselves it is it's there's something that's very unbearable about it I find it what all the actresses I've spoken to that or without prompting come up with the same thing of how detestable is they you casting process not the old casting couch thing just the thing of not having someone good to read with you know and being expected to come in and emote and look sexy and the whole thing in front of a bunch of strangers not fair it's perverse well it's not fair on them either now it's it's it's asking them to do something and you don't find out anything with you from it you find out nothing from it this is the main reason why I really hate it you can get them in there and somebody might do just a slap-up job for that day but that's what they've aimed at that day you're not you have to be able to figure out whether there going to be any good for three months while you're working with them and the best way to do that is to get them in the room sit them down and it may be uncomfortable as is always is getting to know someone to begin with and they think they're going to have to read so you tell them well to begin with I don't want you to read anything and they sort of relax a little and you say nah I'm not making anybody read so they don't feel like they're being outcast and I was a senior and and I don't think it tells you anything except the fact that well hey they can read I was fortunate I only had to do it one time ever an access as an actor when I was starting out on a career I only had to do it once because I was really bad at it I couldn't do it I just couldn't do it what happened was it was I went into this place and it was well the guy said read this can you memorize this in like ten minutes and come back and do it and he gave me this script with the I mean it was like two full pages of like complete like a soliloquy like a dialogue not well written either I said just give me a little hint about who this guy is and why he's saying this stuff so they gave me a like a thumbnail and I thought okay so I went into the next room and you know I tried to comprehend it as best I could and then I just came back they turned the video camera I mean I just sat there and tried to do it I couldn't I didn't do it according to the the page or anything but I just started off and provided the whole thing around it which is all you could do in 10 minutes I mean and called the job got it yeah I was so far away from the technical aspect of reading and doing things within a some parameter that is given in audition processes that I thought it was hopeless anyway so I thought [ __ ] it threw it away and was relaxed and that's the best way to find out whether or not this actor actress will suit your requirement is to have them relaxed and then you can talk about the [ __ ] weather and you'll know within 15 minutes this is the person you want to work with yeah Christopher Walken won never did a casting session in America yeah terrifies me me too I'm Heidi [ __ ] no I can't be the guy they said oh he's flying flying in from God knows where oh yeah but he didn't need a plane right he's it's like Damon doing all the kind of it's cool crazy stuff and I said have you had a chance to read the script he looked at me and he said do you like my face and I went yes he said but that's [ __ ] great because if you don't get De Niro [ __ ] you I'm out of here and we stood up and walked out I never did all that laughing was quite a good meeting no he came to see me on a rooftop in New York I said hey can I talk to you and he said sure he he floated in sideways mm-hmm through a crowd of people he was wearing black and it was like one of those old vampire movies where they don't walk but they glide and he was a dancer you know so he has area he's very graceful yeah and he moves sideways and he just sat down on the chair next to me and it kind of frightened me and he's a very smart guy and we started talking and I didn't you know say much of anything about reading the script nothing I just started talking about the Middle Ages and hmm and he and he began to talk tortures and we swapped tortures because I read this book on torture and and I tried to recall some of the most heinous things I've ever read in this book and and he was like oh oh and he'd try and top it and it got and my sister was there and he left because he he couldn't stand it anymore if the air had turned cold and then he left and I I wanted to leave and because I knew that I didn't want to work with him yeah and he was getting scary yeah and I turned around and was on top of the peninsula hotel I turned around to avoid his steady gaze at one point yeah and I was looking at a building with the top of the sixes on it so there was a huge illuminated triple six in red and I went from that to that to that and he started smiling and I thought oh no Chris Walken is the Antichrist you know - you do those certain trends that seem to kind of flow together which is one of the questions that keeps coming up is why are there no decent parts for women wire actresses why woman's just completely underused in storytelling yeah it within this system is Hollywood yeah any talking right well I think the storytelling has always been a kind of a male medium always in history always yeah from the start they were the guys who did I mean women just think differently to us and that's a good thing and there are things about the way they thinking about the way they look at things that we cannot possibly understand in fact it's far be above us beyond us to try and like get a hook on it because I've tried and I'm you know I'm a little wiser because I can kind of allow for it more now because I understand that it exists but totally understanding it I will never and and I think be that the male of the species is more adept at at at the telling of a story that's why you go to any bar it's not women telling jokes it's guys telling jokes yes women are notoriously bad joke tellers most of them some of them are good some of them have a capacity for it but I think just generally I think men are better at it at telling stories and when they tell a story they have to it has to issue from themselves and their own experience and it's very hard if most of the storytellers around our men to actually have a good story about a woman right I think it's it's done it's done pretty well at times I mean if we go back to say the forties fifties early sixties just a cinema forget literature although the bounds would have been still in the favor of men and I'm just number of roles and so on to a far more I mean there were some very powerful actors who were taken incredible in terms of box office but I can as seriously as men and like Joan Crawford exactly any number of them actually I know but she used to she used to display a male point of view very interesting she was very masculine on screen all right and is it that women are trying they're saying the parts are good percent not masculine I'm never quite sure about that if you look at at the you know the scripts that are floating around right now the movies that are being made there willfully short on uninteresting female parts yes they intend to kind of pop up and sort of endorse man take their clothes off if they're in a good enough shape and leave yeah and one of the actresses bugs actually I came up with I thought which is pretty smart thing which was saying I said at what point you see the decline in women's roles could have the moment women took their clothes off yeah and it became a given then seem to be a lack of respect and a dropping off of interest in other other points of interest about women you know there's a producer I know successful producer I I will not mention names but his whole opinion about women on film from beginning to end very brief he says women on film either naked or dead both is better and it's like whoa whoa the man is has got a spiritual malady for a start me the scary thing is although I think a lot of people think that maybe not to that extreme there are people well-meaning people that and you find that the woman and the woman's role in a film becomes some sort of just appendage to the man and I can see why they're not too fulfilled in doing that you're here basically right you live here Mozilla time yeah yeah really I guess yeah yeah I integrated yeah I mean obviously it's pretty much based on money the system here it is the system is completely based on money yeah the studio system and to a degree I think the way I hook into this system is based on money yeah me you've managed to put your red bird you we still think you is as an actor but in facts such as quite a small part of what you do now isn't it yeah it's the part that I mean Alice when I found one somebody told me out just how many movies you'd produce of I was stunned you turn over don't you quite a few I mean we're pretty prolific for a perceived vanity company right which I think a lot of people start film companies and then age they don't really do anything with it but this is get into the act sometimes not always successfully either I mean we've made some some horrible little pictures but we've made some good ones too yeah and so that that's there's a pride in that and I enjoy doing that yeah and I liked it for you pretty active you've got a good team yeah yeah I mean there's a lot of people here with it with good heads on their shoulders and nobody's immune from making a mistake that's for sure yeah and we make plenty of them we call them school fees yeah school fees every time we get ripped off or yeah or make a big mistake or you know where it's and it costs you yeah anything all it cost you 2 million or 4 million so when you get a project that you're going to that your company is going to do you very awesome ones that you just think should be made as a film or is it pretty much financially based your judgement no it's not solely financially based I think that there's an art in marrying the two so yeah and if you can find that balance and satisfy both requirements then you are successful within the industry right doesn't mean you're not successful yeah if you don't meet one of those requirement you're just successful in this industry [Music] what would you say was the good news about the Hollywood right now being very actively in the middle of it I think what's right about it the best thing about it is that you know I I grew up and I guess you grew up in an industry that happened somewhere else and I should come to the charm of film and filmmaking and and and I love it and I love telling a story and I love everything about it even the crappy things about it I kind of like and it kind of I guess it gets almost to a question of like kind of a religion mecca for filmmakers is this industry here mm-hmm it's where there's the biggest pool it's wherever it's the watering hole where everyone comes to see to measure up to include themselves in the pool their talent and that collective thing is like you go to the smorgasbord to feed your your need to work and your need to tell stories and you need to express yourself whatever your collective ethos or somebody once said my problem was I didn't understand the social contract here I now understand what that means yeah do you understand it the shows to contract I think I do yeah the social contract you can't get mad you can't get mad you can't let it get you because you have to have you have to make a deal with everyone else and it's almost unspoken that you are going to be [ __ ] over at some point by people who you may have done something nice for and it may happen that by circumstance or even very purposefully that you [ __ ] someone over but that shouldn't get in the way of you being able to sit down and have fun with them am I on the right track you can't build a resentment about it you have to still try and love those people yeah because that's the way they are thinking is it very personal no it's not personal they don't really mean to hurt you no not really I don't quite understand well I mean there's a lot of motivations for why it happens as many I mean money will make you do stuff as well on it I mean beyond them yes you know yeah well whoever it was many millions riding on a decision it's hard to be alisoncole yes yeah very very hard very hard to be you know yet you have to choose what level of integrity you're coming in at and okay and I've often felt that I've sat there and I have felt the knife slipped firmly in between my shoulder blades and tried to have it shoved through the other side through my heart and I've actually felt the whole thing and I've gone ah that's where it's all next week you know or I'll thinking [ __ ] and fur and you'll resent it for a little while then you have to let it go otherwise you'll you'll eat yourself alive and I think it takes that kind of cockroach resilience to survive in this town I mean this is a bizarre place and it doesn't take very long if and I'm sure you've experienced this if you stayed here for any length of time you come in your fresh from the outside you're off the boat from the farm still got [ __ ] on your shoes you're in here people are charmed by that and that you've still got [ __ ] on your shoes they're charmed by the fresh approach you bring to it and that's a real thing but they're also stroking the [ __ ] out you know licking you all over and that's kind of good for you to think right but it doesn't take very long before you realize or before it gets to you it's cascading on you all the time you can't get away from certain attitudes from certain modes of behavior that this town in the industry dictate and no matter how strong you are when you come in off the farm with those convictions and those in a certain line of attack no matter how strong you are you are going to be affected by this place mm-hmm no I was going to divert you from where you were going so you're going to be diverted when I came over here I was God I was in my mid-20s right the first time I really came over here you know I had a whole bunch of weird paranoid suspicions about what the hell was going on because there was a lot of stuff I couldn't understand right and nobody was really bothering to explain it to me they dug and it and I formed a bunch of opinions about the town and about the people in it that were like surely that couldn't be because a whole place can't be like you know weird town you know where the stranger wanders in and and all the people are in the bar and they all shut up when he looks at him and they tell you don't go out of the house on the hill and it's like that mm-hmm and then you go away and you think no but I was wrong I mean that's insane thinking I'm paranoid I imagined that stuff that couldn't be the reason for why so-and-so was acting like could it and then you find out later on the track that you are exactly on track with a lot of this stuff not specifically on the wreck but that you could that's some of your worst nightmares we're real at the time anything mm-hmm now this is what I mean by actually starting to swim up or downstream with the rest of the salmon you know eventually if you stay here long enough yeah you'll find yourself doing that and you have to there's a way of doing it without doing mm-hmm that takes time and it takes relaxation hmm not being uncomfortable about not being uncomfortable realizing it for what it is projecting and understanding what it is once you understand it well then you're not afraid of it anymore so you can just walk around it through it and then get on with what you tried to get on with in the first place a place like this can humiliate you and it can be ignited it can humiliate you it can be humbling I mean it does rip your life to pieces if you'll let it yeah and it's always pounding at the wall so yeah these little guys these little heathens with no soul downstairs with horns on their head with a battering ram trying to like beat your walls in yeah but that's your own Devils you know yeah other matter of interest you think it's easier because you're an outsider came in I think so yeah because it was glaring to me because I was an outsider came in but who isn't an outsider getting into this it takes coming to an end oh this one asked you a couple of cheesy questions there's really quick on top of your head give me five movies that you like not the best in the world just five movies I like I hate this question I can never answer okay I'll never be able to do it in the time allotted okay thanks thank you yeah you [Music] [Music]

Channel: WAFFLE COLORED NEGRO

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Keywords: mel gibson, hacksaw ridge, braveheart, oscars, cinema, movies, kubrick, spielberg, tarantino

Id: qiXhwkg6ikI

Length: 24min 17sec (1457 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 04 2017