Mel Gibson UK Interview

[Music] i thank you now my special guest tonight is a hollywood superstar dynamic versatile and gold dust at the box office he was recently voted in the top three of america's most popular stars of all time along with john wayne and harrison ford welcome please mel gibson [Applause] oh shall we quit while we're ahead yeah uh just mentioned that i mean it's just it's amazing and wonderful the top three in the top three of of hollywood stars of all time i haven't heard that you've not heard that no i'm there with the duke that's all right the duke did you he was my boyhood hero wasn't it yeah absolutely good man but was that the part of your childhood did you ever imagine perhaps when you were young and growing up that you'd be a film style you'd be this huge star no no at all um you know i i was an avid fan of that and i caught most of my uh uh old movies on black and white television you know because there was a bunch of us and we couldn't even afford a color tv but we used to crowd in front of the black and white and uh that's how we got it a bunch of us being the family yeah it was a big family indeed yeah how many i got uh 10 brothers and sisters yeah crowd of and what was it like growing up in that big farm we're now in america aren't we that's where you were born that's where you you grew up new york state new york city i'm not in town i never even went to the city until i was 12 years old you know but it must have been tough for your parents because it's not a rich family was it no but uh they did well enough to keep us all fed and roofed and shot and everything else so that you know hard-working people they didn't really have a lot of time for themselves uh you know they wouldn't just go out and go to dinner or you know kick up their heels go dancing my dad couldn't dance anyway cause um uh but they uh uh we're certainly very generous with us so hey but your mom didn't have any help i mean what kind of pressure was that having 10 kids to wash for and feed and look after she actually had four hands uh she needed four hands it was um but of course uh she was fortunate in that uh uh most of my sisters were born early and uh and they were kind of like surrogate mothers you know there was there was three of them and they uh and the youngest of those three was nine years older than i was so that uh by the time i came along and then uh right behind me there's a year behind me there's a set of twins and a year behind them was another brother so there were four little kids all in diapers or nappies or whatever you call them here nappies nappies yeah yeah um all at the same time so it was it was chaos it was bedlam so she had these uh able-bodied young women to sort of help her so they're all like mothers feeding us taking care of us there's a lovely story in in in the research i read about your mother one day actually cracking under the pressure oh yeah what was that yeah she just uh i was with my dad because he he uh he's a bit of a a book guy he likes he's got all these reference books and he's at the typewriter banging away um i'm in there asking him what he's doing he's explaining something to me working out is the sun room in australia and uh i saw her wander out of the laundry room with a bundle full of clothes and she just put him on the footpath very calm she wasn't she went back in and got another bunch and put it on she she went back three or four times and i said what what's she doing out there and he said well oh i don't know and then she came very calmly back out with a can of lighter fluid and squirted it all over and she had some matches and then she like just lit it watched it burn and there was like a sense of satisfaction for i guess she was you know so many years inundated with the laundry for uh you know like you know 12 other people it was like uh it she cracked one day and said i've had enough what about was it about your dad because he was a plainly a remarkable man i mean he he was he watched the brakeman on the railway yeah had an injury yep and then well you know he uh he was unable to work because of a uh an injury he slipped over and and it wasn't his fault it was through neglect so he um he had an accident really hurt his back so you know for a while you know he was he was on his back and it was hard to get by but uh you know he eventually got a settlement from the railway and um took us off on a trip around the world but in the meantime because for a guy who's a railway breakman and who has a knowledge of like almost fluent latin and a pretty good knowledge of greek classical greek um and a smart guy i mean photographic memory almost um uh so he said well you know since i'm not throwing switches on railway trains he said i think i'll uh he went on a game show over in america and he kept winning this is jeopardy again yeah yeah and uh he uh he cleaned up and then they made him get off because there's a finite kind of thing he didn't get off and then they brought him back at the end of the year so he could compete with all the other guys that won and he beat all of them as well so he did all right he's a smart guy and then he took you all away they uplifted the family and the way you went and toured the world a bit yeah yeah we came over here you know all of you yeah all of us everybody it was a real train you know yeah like uh when you came here to england yeah it was like genghis khan's troops moving in but um yeah and i was always getting lost in airports and i got lost in blackpool i got i got lost in glasgow i kept getting lost because i was a dreamer i'd sit there and be looking at something and they don't wander off and catch a plane without me and then you went to australia you settled there yeah just outside of sydney you know 20 miles what was it like because now how old were you when you moved to australia from america 12 12. so i mean it's an entirely different culture isn't it so what was it a culture shock for you moving from america to to australia um it took a little adjusting i think uh um but it's not so different i mean if you think about it i mean the united states and and australia are both sort of like dumping grounds for here you know they were sort of like they were oh that's true they were like they were like penal settlements you know they used to uh get rid of all their undesirables and send them over there but uh one place had a revolution and the other place is still part of the commonwealth but but quite separate really um by virtue of geography but what about the the kid growing up in australia i mean i mean where you were were you a problem child were you at school did you like school do you have any ambition for school i mean i hated school yeah um yeah i mean i i i really didn't understand why i needed to be there it was a tremendous drudgery for me all 12 years of high you know school and high school it was like uh and i was with the christian brothers you know that'd be nice yeah rough bunch very strict aren't they very strict yes yeah you get beaten regularly you used to get whacked around a fair bit yeah and uh that you know that was before they brought in laws that's right um and some of them were great men really great men and others were just like power mad fiends i mean it's as you know good or bad it depends on their personalities you know yeah some of them are great mentors but but there's so there's this kid who doesn't like school doesn't see the sense of it but but but but what does he see the sense of what does he want to be ah did you know yes i did you did you knew what you wanted you wanted to do this on the age of 12 wow yeah not this because it wasn't invented all right but you know i wanted to be a journalist i wanted to write you know all right okay yeah well i did actually have um uh you know the journalist idea was kind of exciting to me really yeah well i developed a love for travel early on you know just by traveling to europe and around the world and so forth um and i that to me was exciting i love the smell of airports i hate them now i mean it's i've totally outgrown that one you know when they want to do cavity searches and things in these days so now it's the smell of airports is hateful but uh the the uh um so i had this ambition to sort of like trot the globe and and look at interesting things and put myself in harrowing situations but uh i found that uh this is good enough what sort of jobs did you do that you went in a bottling factory you have fruit fat before oh no yeah fruit juices yeah fruit juices uh i did uh um military service i i uh i worked under the colonel at the kfc you know 11 secret herbs and spices you know ah yes i remember the colonel well yeah you know the cook and the kentucky fried chicken and working in fruit juice factories get know pretty manual boring labor um but you know i think it's important to to do those kinds of things they it certainly inspired me you know to say well i don't want to get stuck here i want to do something else and also too i mean it gives you i would imagine a sense of proportion doesn't it indeed yeah i mean that's you would look back from where you are now to where you were and and you you see the tap routine you learn from it which is i mean again it's a problem of having children isn't it from your position that you are now you wonder what their perspective is but that's something we'll talk about in in in a moment well yeah okay okay but um but but that this time of course the tour guides you're growing up there vietnam was was happening um there's a story that that your father took him need to australia to avoid being drafted from vietnam is that is that true no not wholly i we wouldn't have avoided it no it's as simple as that yeah well you couldn't uh uh you could go to australia you could be a permanent resident down there you didn't even have to be a citizen they could still draft you yes um the only um good thing you got from it was that uh the only concession was that you got drafted a year later yes in your life yes so that uh i think you were 20 before you got drafted there but whereas you could get 18 or 19 in the united states so it wasn't really an escape it was just a stall and uh he went to world war ii of course he went to walla canal and uh you know didn't like it much why would he no sane person would i don't think that's right and he certainly didn't want it for his children as i wouldn't want it for mine i mean who wants to send their kids off to war but uh um um clearly didn't like the idea of that particular conflict it's interesting now looking at your latest movie of course which is about vietnam it's about the start of the war in vietnam it's about the time before the conscripts got involved it's it's the i think i'm writing saying was it was the it was the last regular or first and last regular encounter a big battle by american troops on the on the on the viet cong yeah uh tell me about the the man who you play in this hal moore well he's a uh he's a retired general his name is harold moore and uh he's quite a remarkable man i mean uh when i read the book i thought well this guy's kind of hard to believe you know um i um i had the good fortune to meet him and not only meet him but sit down and and pick his brains for hours and days and weeks and really get to know him on a pretty intimate level which is like uh he helped me to um to view that whole conflict and his experience of it because i've never been to a in a situation like that thank god but uh he he uh he allowed me to view it and see it in a very so that became a very profound experience for me as it was for him um but wow i mean uh wow uh what courage what what uh he's in charge of the seventh cavalry which is custer yeah and it's it's frankly almost an unbelievable story when i mean it's based on facts so it's true but when you see i mean they were lured into a valley against overwhelming odds they fought their way out of it yeah what's it what's it like and he's still alive but you said homer i mean you're playing a real live hero um did you see the film he did he did and what when you were with him and yeah yeah he was very proud of it i i was uh the first time he saw it i i was it was a rough cut i was sitting behind him and i saw him like moving around and checking it out squirming in his chair and a lot of the guys had to leave you know they were getting flashbacks and things but these guys have actually been in the in the in the battle oh yeah they were all right and hal's um he was old to be there at that time he was 43 44 years old when he was in vietnam um but i you know just as the lights were coming up i thought i'm going to make a hasty retreat and i bolted out the back of the theater and i went to the men's room thinking that heat would blow over and maybe you wouldn't notice me i was really concerned that he wouldn't be pleased with it i i really so didn't want to disappoint him and uh you know i'm having a nervous twinkle in there wasting time you know and he's throwing away the paper towel and i'm just about to exit figuring the heat is gone and he walks in he's the only other guy in the men's room and we're sort started facing each other like hey hal how are you doing i put my hand out and she said you wash your hands i said uh yeah and he he he's tough because he sort of he he could see my my nervousness so he uh he kind of let it sit there for a while and then he told me he dug it you know so if he gives a thumbs up you know it's okay with me let's let's go back to the uh that's time when you're working the fruit juice factory and all that sort of stuff in australia um did you ever have the ambition to be an actor i mean was it your ambition well in fact i i was uh i was already at drama school and we got cut loose for four months so that that was the job i had to have in order to sort of pay for the second year to survive um i wouldn't have ever gone there otherwise it was just inhuman it was like four in the morning until eight at night and i was living on swiss cheese sandwiches and corn flakes you know you start to get scurvy like i that i know orange juice but i couldn't stand the smell of this stuff you know um uh it's certainly it really and the first year i was uh at that institution that i went to to learn that craft was uh um i was ambivalent about it i wasn't sure quite but after a four months in the juice factory i loved it you did it alternative oh yeah yeah and what about what about then the i mean the big break that you had was of course when you when you got mad max that was the that was the thing that started all off you know you don't have films before that sure but how do you get how why do you laugh nothing are they buried have you bought them up and buried every copy no i haven't bought them up and buried them but uh you wish you had yeah all right but what about mad max because the the the audition you you attended in less than the perfect condition i understand that's true well i i didn't even go to the i wasn't called the audition i was going north of the bridge and i hopped a ride with a guy who was going to the audition and he went in and i just went up to the waiting room and just waited for him and i was talking to the girls at the desk in the casting office and they said what happened to you because about three days before i'd gotten into a terrible brawl and and i came out the worst for it i was i was a mess i mean my eyes were shut jaw knocked off the hinge nose broken everything i was just i was like you know 28 pounds of hamburger meat it was just uh not a nice sight and they were like they were staring at me in horror so much so that they had to have polaroids with me and they were like pumpkin head here you know they uh they tanked it up on the board and they said hey we need freaks for this movie coming in about three weeks and we'll see after you heal up we'll see you and i go okay all right and uh so i did i went back three weeks later and they were still auditioning so hey they gave they handed me the prime part like in five minutes it was kind of an astounding occurrence but and that was then you know again you want to know that that was the position it was a huge hit i mean it was extraordinary wasn't it yeah it was it was uh done on a shoestring by guys who were really kind of ingenious uh none of us really knew wholly what we were doing but it was uh it was kind of the new wave of australian cinema it was uh guys a doctor was directing it miller yeah he'd gotten his money from a chemist uh he was working with acting students with uh you know and it was um yeah it was it was a fun experience it was nine weeks like fast and furious and it struck a chord somewhere in the uh in the far east and other places but but then off the rails you went when you started a film career and then you you almost blew it the very early stage sure i mean it said what happened well when you're a young fella and you're out there and you know um there's a lot of people who want to get around you and they all got a bunch of interesting new games to play you know and uh it's the devil knocking at your door you know it's like yeah and of course you think well you know hey i was a you know what what are you gonna do not do it uh i suppose you could not do it but i wasn't that kind of person you know i have a i have an alter ego in me called bjorn you're bjorn oh yeah yeah and um who is beyond bjorn is just uh the kind of like you know pillaging sort of viking in him i think he's in you too you have an son on the end of your name yeah he's way back in the dark ages somewhere i mean the sins of the father visited on i know that something is wrong there but uh bjorn is a um you know he's he's an axe murderer he gets off a boat chops up convents you know that's you know and that that's that's there that's in all of us you know the wild man kind of especially in your 20s i mean my gosh you got so much energy and i found recently the cause of the energy well i had this manic energy when i was younger and i couldn't i thought i used to have to sedate it with anything i could find it sounds like an excuse doesn't it but um i had an mri one time for an appendix and they go whoa like that and i'm going yeah impressive isn't it but what they were talking about what they're actually talking about was my kidney kidneys and i have a very rare thing it's like one in a thousand people or something and it's called a horseshoe kidney and most people's kidneys are like you know you got a kidney here and a kidney here but i got these kidneys that are so large that they join up like this and these are your energy organs man it's just like rocket fuel so um yeah so so bjorn's still there bjorn's there but i've done a lot of damage to him not only that but i've managed to subdue him uh dig a shallow grave in my imagination insert him in the grave and every now and then you just gotta go out the backyard get a few shovels full of dirt throw it on top and tamp it down just to keep it because i tell you i don't want to be bjorn again [Laughter] but how how what was it was the one incident one person who brought you back to heal to sit to sanity who said look this is silly oh yeah i mean my wife was telling me for 10 years why do you drink so much you know and it's like you know that kind of thing and it's uh and she said i think you might have a problem and i'm kind of you're out of your mind i just like a drink [Applause] and um and she was right you know it's something that you have to mature and just think well you know i got to get over that and it's and i did and i feel you know it's better it's just you don't drink it all now no you don't how long since you had it oh gosh years years and years but it's uh and it's just better that way i mean it's you enjoy your life and and you get to live your life you know because if you're uh anesthetized all the time you're sort of missing out on things you're not really growing you're just kind of you know shutting it out all the time it's cowardly have you ever contemplated because you have a large family you have seven children yeah and a very stable relationship with with your wife you've been worried about 20 odd years now 22 20 yeah 22. quite obviously it's that that that holds you together isn't it in a situation that you're in i mean it's a family against if you left your own device in other words you should have that oh i had to pull the pin years ago you know not not not suicidal but it's it's not that but there is certainly a uh a self-destructive uh kind of thing than some of the vaguely scandinavian irish lowland scott kind of weirdness going on there and a bad celtic mix with a little bjorn to thrown in just a moment of course there's also a story too about that um your co-star in one of the mad max movie the thunder dome uh one uh tina turner she also pulled you on one side did she know oh yeah oh she saw it firsthand of course i mean she lived a life of she stayed with a man who was horrible to her that's right and uh she'd seen it you know and and she saw me and she handed me a photograph of myself one day and um um she'd written on it you know with a eyebrow pencil or something she said don't f this up on the picture and i'm like oh what does she mean it wasn't too long after that i figured out what she meant you did yeah okay well happy endings with all codes because the next movie you made you had two years off in fact didn't you recovering your place in australia sure i'd had a gut full of the whole industry i mean it's a very strange place holly weird wood but it's um it's an odd place and you you imagine all these horror stories there that you think boy it seems as if i'm being sacrificed over here no that couldn't be true and then you realize that it is true and and you have to i just left for a while and um took a couple years off bought a place down in australia and started digging holes and putting up fences and birthing cattle and all this kind of stuff and it was it was fun you know it was fun it was it was great and it was a good breather you know yeah and then of course the the comeback what a combat lethal weapon yeah yeah it wasn't bad was it because it was all right it was it was fun what was nice and what grew up throughout the the movies that you did the the lethal weapons series was a wonderful sense of slapstick developed as well wasn't there i mean there was you and pesky and lover i mean it was it was it was it was it was slapstick it was vulnerable in a sense absolutely like the three stooges i mean pesci is like he's a razor wit and uh danny is always one beat behind and uh and i'm just i just had too much energy so i was in the middle so it was uh but uh you know it was fun it was fun working with those guys and in truth some of the scripts were not that great so the idea that we all three of us came up with was just talk over the top of one another maybe no one will notice uh just keep the action moving along it'll seem at least natural and you might get some yucks out of it if uh so it was a very practiced art what about the the uh reputation that you gained on that on that series of films and throughout your career about being a practical joker i mean what's the strength of this and what kind of practical jokes did you play in that series oh my god huh oh i remember one with pesci where we uh chris rock and i oh yeah this is heinous uh well heinous is almost the word for it i we uh well we polaroided our posteriors with uh with very fine cuban cigars protruding from them and then um we went and gave pesci a cigar and he was like a cigar fishing and he's going wow these are like he's like lights it up and then we showed him the polaroid it's it's sophomoric uh crude silly stuff but like it amused us you know i guess we got way too much time on our hands there on this side are you sending julia roberts dead rats and things like that oh yeah but they were well they were actually it was quite sanitary it wasn't like i didn't go out to the alley and get it myself or anything there's a place in um in greenwich village called evolution where you can get freeze-dried brown norwegian rats and they're perfectly intact and they look so real they're they're even in different poses you know they're like like barbie you know they're sort of like there's ones where they're then there's other ones like mama the cigarette you know it's it's pretty awful so i got this really nasty rat and she just like the reaction from her every time because it was the same rat coming back every time first it was just an outright gift and she was touched and she opened it i left the room i just you could hear the screams in denver you know but uh and then i kept resending it in different packaging you always knew when she got it because you could hear it what about the office that you had around this time too to do james bond i mean were you ever tempted to do that no i wasn't oddly i was uh that was when i was about 26 and i was i was working with peter weir on the year of living dangerously in australia at the time and we were there and uh i got the phone call from cubby broccoli and i'm like yeah yeah sure they um called me up they thought hey there's this australian kid you'd probably get him for cheap and uh and i i just i thought i just didn't want to go that way then no and uh i mean i didn't know where the next job was coming from but i i still didn't want to go that way because nobody can outdo sean in those things come on he's uh you know he sort of he he put it on the map and he it would be you could not do it no it's it's the imprint's there all the time the voice and everything else it's just okay um now after lethal weapon you you did a curious thing many thought a suicidal thing you did hamlet oh hamster yeah um now it it it would seem to be i suppose to many people are kind of a perverse choice i mean going the way that your career was going and i'm sure that your agent and people advised around you didn't say to hey that's a great idea doing hamlet how did how did it come about well my agent is uh this guy called ed lamato and he also he's a friend of franco zepharellis and i said yeah i think i want to do this well i don't know uh i don't know if you should do this uh hamlet i mean shakespeare for god's sake uh you know i mean this is this is a town where you know they do films of like brandeis henry v you know they'll send it out there and they'll be trying to sell it in the market and some executive will get on the phone and say well what did henry the four do that's right you know it's like scream 15 or something but um he didn't know whether it was a good idea but you know he went with it but it was didn't it it on at a certain level yes i mean uh it i i think the best thing you can say about it is that it's very accessible it's certainly short it's about it's about two and a quarter hours instead of you know four and a half yes which it should be if you do it in complete uh form and it's it's very visually nice but franco is really good with that stuff yes no you you in fact got plans i think to direct uh hamlet haven't you yourself yeah i see because i feel i didn't do it but i wanted to to direct it with robert downey jr in it because i think that's just such a great idea i mean this guy is he would he's i don't know he's a he's a brilliant guy i mean he's a kind of a genius i think he's close to a genius and um he's a troubled guy but uh uh and has he's doing tremendously well i know he's got a lot of bad press for being the bad boy and stuff but i've known him for years and he's got he is such a great person and a great spirit he's got such a huge heart um he just has a weakness he's got a bjorn inside him isn't it wait we all got bjorn he's got he's got more bjorn than i do yeah um but uh uh yeah i'd love to do that one day with him maybe we'll both get a little older and do it but he's still young enough to do it you know now what about the the direction because you uh directed the it wasn't the first one you directed but the most successful me director was was braveheart yeah now it was immense success it got you an oscar i got an oscar for best picture as well but what about the the pressure on you of directing and starring in the movie directing starring and producing it's if you're going to wear three hats it's advisable to grow another two heads um it was a pretty heavy workload i i got some grays out of it gray hairs sorry [Laughter] i mean they're there but how authentic was it in the in the sense of the the castles that you build and the the kind of weapons and that sort of thing oh i think the the the set design was amazing and the weapons were amazingly accurate as was the set designer the blue faces is totally like that was just kind of some earlier woad period uh you know when the romans found the celts here they were all blue and druidic so there was a i just liked that idea it was more savage somehow to me oh yeah well it was american indian warfare yeah but it has this wonderful conversation this guy sort of like football fans yeah yeah yeah and that's how i conceived that battle was like very much like a sporting event so that everybody knew what side everybody would you know different colored uniforms would you be tempted to do that again too to actually produce and direct and then star in a film or is that having done that is that too much that's that's the wow i'm running out of kidneys you know it's uh not to that degree perhaps i'd do it again but not on something as huge as that it was it was very uh taxing now what about all this this position you're at now where you know your box office is a huge box of his star you can pick and choose what you want to do and you have all these wonderful labels hung around your neck so sexiest man in the world yeah now that one's in here that's a good one isn't it it's a nice one i just just you know it's a you know when i was i think i was like 25 or 26 when they you know hung that one on me and i resented i thought oh no now i got to live up to that um which of course you can't the whole notion is ridiculous and i realize of course now that it's just put out there to sell publications you know uh but there's a dark corner of bjorn that's sort of like the flattery yes he'd winter in a convent [Applause] the thing is i mean what you managed to do he's not taking it seriously and all that kind of no you can't i mean if you if you began to take that seriously what kind of creature would it become yes it would be you'd i'd yeah i couldn't even wake up in the morning and look at myself mind you if you took it seriously it wouldn't bother you i suppose no i i read a story too that in your office in your product of your production company you've got all the stills from the movies but you've put moustaches on all of them i just whip around and draw a mustache on everyone but everyone you know anyone's photograph has a mustache on it i don't know why it's just i suppose i guess i just haven't got enough to do but i suppose it's part of this thing about keep keeping sane in in hollywood because you're saying earlier that it is an extraordinary place i mean it is not like anywhere else on this planet sure and different rules uh uh relate and and it will be very easy to actually be absorbed by it and become that thing indeed it is um yeah very odd place but if you if you become knowledgeable about it you can navigate your way through it and do all right it just takes a little while my partner and i went in there maybe 13 14 years ago now and we we kicked off a production company and has it's grown over the years it's become you know very very we've got um it's here in the uk it's down in australia it's fantastic he's done a great job with it and uh we were so badly brutalized by deals and studios and other operators i mean the woods are full of wolves and it's like but we used to get ripped off all the time and we just look at each other and go school fees and move on and uh that's truly what it is but that it's that kind of town yes what about your your family you mentioned that you've got three seven children in your family a very close-knit family again the problems there are bringing up your family in this very very unreal world sure well um of course for a good deal of their lives they were raised in australia on a farm i mean they were trying to figure out hey what's that long black thing with a red belly on it get away from it you know um and you know just quite a simple existence and they enjoyed it and so that uh the whole sort of los angeles experience is different from their hybrids which is good um they have the sophistication that they can glean from sort of looking around them and there's there's the there's the bad aspects of it too um but i've always tried to foster in them a sense of um you know if they want some extra pocket money you know i'll kick them out the door and they can go and work for it you know but is that possible sure it is is it sure go up to the local restaurant see if you can get a job as a busboy um go and do this go into you know and and uh and they i think they appreciate that so you're a very old-fashioned father from that point of view well i we tend i guess to teach what we were taught and um that's the way i got it i mean nobody gave me a big old handout and it was um i mean if they're in trouble i'm there you know and uh but it's it's certainly i don't think it doesn't much good to to coddle them too much you have to throw them out into it a little bit it hurts but there you go do you refer back to your old childhood as well all the time to my own yes oh of course you do yeah yeah you you think about well that's yes that's that's a touchstone your dad recently got married he did it yeah he's 83 years old he got married because he got a big kidney too [Laughter] i would imagine that he has a very large kidney and and uh he um uh you know my mother passed away like 12 years ago and he you know he's lonely and and you know he's 83 years old he cradle snatched a woman who's 68 years old um swept her off on his white horse and they're as happy as they just laugh like a couple of kids it's so fantastic i just can't so both your parents lived to see you make a success so that's good i mean that's that's that must be give you great satisfaction it did yeah and them too i imagine and they they were able to enjoy the fruits of yeah you know my son in the dentist my son they act and all that stuff all that stuff yeah now um going back to bringing up children there's the theme of one of your films what women want was part of this a subplot was your relationship with your with your daughter in the film um what about this relationship in real life i mean what happens when teenage daughters come to you and you know they've got i don't know studs in their nose or uh yeah yeah um it's uh yeah it's an interesting dilemma i mean there's a friend of mine who his daughter came back and i don't know she's 15 or 16 and she had like a tattoo just at the top of the of her buttocks uh of a flower or something and he took her straight out and he dragged her into a place and made her get it lasered off which was like pretty extreme i don't know if i could do that but um but she know he means business now uh when he tells her something um you know she said can i get a belly button ring and all that and i said no your daughter yeah of course you're gonna say no and uh she did it anyway you know one day she's reaching up to grab something i said uh what's that and she's like oh you know but she's 21 now she threw it away two years ago yeah are you very comfortable in the company of of women i become more so i think but but uh i certainly didn't kick off that way and everyone says well you had a lot of sisters and a mother and all that which of course i did everyone has a mother i guess but um uh it's still i was terrible with women i was incredibly shy oh yeah i couldn't uh i had to get half sloshed before i could even talk to one you know so it was uh um which is unfortunate yes yeah too bad certainly very limiting so when you were this this teenager growing up then you were just you're the wallflower you're sitting here a little bit i sort of had a couple of sweethearts you know but uh i wasn't like a you know raging around kind of lady killer or anything and um um i just didn't really know how to talk to him at all it's interesting and when did you learn how to do that i'm still working on it you are right uh yeah i've i've been practicing for 22 years like man what is the combination here it's not always as obvious as one might think it's very it's very uh yeah there's some there's some very tricky waters to navigate there but you must i mean there must have there will come a time when you you understood that you're very attractive to women that women were attracted to you well other people would tell me that but i'd be like i don't know i still couldn't kind of like i don't know it was a i would never ask anyone out on a date ever it was like uh you know just you know porridge by yourself on saturday night oh no milk no sugar no shoes no no it's getting in here i'm taking too much of this no i really can't you know what that is well that's the smallest violin in the world so i'll believe it yeah i don't know that or a booger okay well then so what what's what's in the pipeline you've got another film haven't you have you finished the film about the corn circles yeah i did a film with uh m night shyamalan um he did that the sixth dance and and uh and break unbreakable but he did this one called signs and it's kind of a wow it's the only time i've ever read a script and called a guy up in five minutes and said hire me uh fortunately he sent it to me um so that was i had an inroad there so then what what's what's what about you the actor i mean as you as an actor as you grow into more maturity and you get a few more gray hairs like i've got i mean what do you think about spencer tracy parts perhaps yeah maybe maybe i i that it's interesting it did it doesn't um and i still love it i've always loved it i love being in action but i really enjoyed the directing thing and it's like uh i'm really thinking about slowing down on the you know face out front stuff and maybe going behind the camera and and uh urging younger fitter fellas to sort of get out there and do it and be a part of it that way because it's the story pro uh telling process that i really love um and and i just don't take the falls as well as i used to could do intellectual stuff but what's the fun in that um but isn't the i mean wouldn't you miss that that wonderful adrenaline that there is in performing i mean that's the reason why you continued why anybody performs in the end there's you can't replace replicate that that that buzz it's kind of hard to get lost in it on film because they do it in such piecemeal fashion but um i'd i'd like to crawl on the boards again one time oh well i'm going to ask you about that i mean have you thought i mean lots of of stars a few stars come to london and gone into a theater 235 quid a week yeah you find that tempting wouldn't you yeah no no i would you would you yeah there's a real thrill to that i mean that was my first love and that's how i was trained for the stage in fact uh the last time i was on stage i think uh was in 1984 it was with warren mitchell in that i saw it oh yes yes yeah um death of a salesman yeah and then you played beth yeah that's the last time i saw you in sydney it was good i mean warren was marvelous and you were too it was great was like 17 years ago it's just like what happens to the time well my children are taller than i am now not hard and i'd like to hey come on i'd like to clear up a rumor go on go come on we're about the same size uh-huh here stand up okay maybe [Music] now either he's a runt like me well they're lying about both of us that's right they've always had this short thing i think they have me down at five foot seven five six or something five six seven eight because i must say that before i met you yeah i read this and i thought well you know really uh but you won't but when i met you i could see that you were you and there are no lists [Laughter] uh so i mean wonder why that got around i mean why would that be i don't know it just makes a good copy i suppose they had this article one time the incredible shrinking bond and they had sean and then they had roger and then they had timothy and they were all going down on the height chart you know until he got to me and i was like little bigger than you know grumpy and it was like hey come on guys hey i want to i mean but some people some film stars are very cautious about their size aren't they because yeah i won't mention those but i was actually once instructed when this star took a star wars on i was not allowed to stand up and even sitting down i was taller than him [Laughter] [Applause] well devito's like that he's touching sure well i'm glad you cleared that up yeah me too that'll be i mean that's probably the reason why i did the the program just some say this is it okay so we're gonna measure tape measurements yeah well all the best uh in in the future all the best with the with your movie yeah it's been uh thank you been great talking much enjoyed it ladies and gentlemen mel gibson well thanks to the very tall mel gibson until then from all of us here a very good night good night [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: That's Entertainment

Views: 570,299

Keywords: Mel Gibson, Braveheart, Air America, Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 2, Lethal Weapon 3, Passion of the Christ, Mad Max, Mad Max 2, Mad Max 3, signs, what women want, man without a face, hamlet, maverick, get the gringo, edge of darkness, force of nature, the bounty, the beaver, tim, hacksaw ridge, ransom, conspiracy theory, payback, dragged across concrete, we were soldiers, chicken run, daddy's home 2, the expendables 3, the million dollar hotel, boss level, parkinson

Id: muE-O7zKEkI

Length: 42min 24sec (2544 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 23 2020