The first time Mel Gibson went “wacko” making a movie: “I have a self-destructive tendency”
Anyone who’d spent a decent amount of time with Mel Gibson knew that there was always a chance he’d hit the big red button and self-destruct one of Hollywood’s most successful careers, and if anything, it was a surprise that it took him so long.
He rose to fame as the rugged and charismatic face of George Miller’s Mad Max franchise, and quickly conquered America by playing to his strengths and using a distinct brand of star power that was constantly laced with a hint of danger to become an A-lister, box office draw, and leading man.
Throughout it all, though, there were signs that he was only one bad decision away from exile. There had been numerous controversies in the past that made his personal beliefs and opinions on many issues an open secret within the industry, but his arrest and subsequent tirade were what killed him overnight.
For the last two decades, apart from when he was briefly welcomed back into the fold from behind the camera as the director of the awards season favourite Hacksaw Ridge, Gibson has been ostracised and alienated from the mainstream, reduced to starring in straight-to-video genre films and making Passion of the Christ sequels in an attempt to restore himself to former glories.
Will it work? Probably not, regardless of how much money those back-to-back biblical epics make. As far back as the early 1980s, Anthony Hopkins predicted that Gibson would destroy his reputation and self-sabotage his standing if he didn’t keep the lid screwed on, and the Lethal Weapon frontman didn’t disagree.
Roger Donaldson’s The Bounty was one of his first largely international productions, and he was keen to enjoy himself. When asked if Hopkins’ tales of hard-partying antics, bar brawls, and black eyes were true, Gibson confirmed that he’d let himself too far off the leash: “Yeah,” he acknowledged. “I was wacko.”
“We were out there in the trees, in the middle of a volcano, in the middle of French Polynesia, with bad food and an endless supply of alcohol, a bunch of randy young men going to Club Med,” he detailed. “We’d get smashed and go on the Club Med stage and pull down our pants.”
Naturally, that didn’t sit well with the bouncers, who he described as “Polynesian dudes with shoulders four axe handles across, who are there to beat the shit out of you.” How did they react to his rowdy, alcohol-soaked, and disruptive behaviour? They beat the shit out of him, of course.
That posed a problem when he returned to the set the next day, sporting a hefty shiner, with Donaldson forced to capture Gibson’s Fletcher Christian from one side so that his busted-up face wouldn’t disrupt the shooting schedule, a concession the filmmaker would never have had to make had his star not decided to get pissed up, irritate the security, and get his head kicked in.
“I was really stupid,” he acknowledged, before following it up with what turned out to be an understatement of epic proportions with the benefit of hindsight. “I have a self-destructive tendency.” No shit, Mel Gibson, and he’s still paying for it.
