The two actors Mel Gibson was never allowed in the same room with
The acting community has always had its pariahs, and one of the most controversial is Mad Max star Mel Gibson. While the American actor has made a career out of playing men troubled by their inner demons, this actor has long had a problem keeping a lid on the fire within.
While writer and director Shane Black, who worked with Gibson on the Lethal Weapon series, likened his acting dramatic approach to a “violent demon”, this was also an ominously apt description for the man behind famous on-screen characters such as Max Rockatansky, Martin Riggs, and of course, Scottish freedom fighter, William Wallace.
The wheels started to fall off for Gibson in 2006 after he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and unleashed a vitriolic, horrendous tirade of antisemitic abuse at one of the arresting officers. Rightly so, this cast him out of Hollywood’s inner sanctum, where he had long resided, a status bolstered by directorial moments such as Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ.
Then, only four years later, his decline was exacerbated when he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanour battery charge after partner Oksana Grigorieva imposed a restraining order against him. Given the nature of the man, though, these two incidents were just the tip of the iceberg, and before and after them, allegations about his character were lodged, ranging from homophobia to further anti-semitism, as Winona Ryder has repeatedly claimed.
Naturally, high-profile roles have been hard to come by since then. However, Gibson has made something of a comeback on both the acting and directorial fronts due to his performance in Edge of Darkness and his Academy Award-winning war drama Hacksaw Ridge. The latter even earned nominations for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’.
It must be said, though, that despite these green shoots, Gibson has ostracised himself beyond return, and his recent comments backing Trump aren’t likely to sit well within an industry known for its liberal tendencies. These days, he has something of a Steven Seagal-esque, oddball vibe about him, bar the allegiance to Russia, and a much greater amount of talent.
While Gibson has lived a wildly oscillating life, with many truly gobsmacking moments, he’s experienced some oddities that weren’t his own doing. They represent the peculiar nature of Hollywood, of which he was a lauded part for so long. One of these was that when he was at the peak of his fame as an actor in the 1980s and 1990s, he wasn’t allowed to be in the same room as two other sought-after leading men, Richard Gere and Denzel Washington.
Gibson has spoken about the positive impact his longtime agent, Ed Limato – a renowned talent agent – had on his success. However, a few years after his 2010 death, he revealed the strange rules Limato would put in place, wherein he wanted to restrict him from interacting with his other famous clients, including Gere and Washington.
Speaking to Access Hollywood, Gibson revealed how Limato banned him from being in the same room as the abovementioned pair. “[Washington] and Richard Gere and I had the same agent, and the agent would never let us all be in the same room at the same time,” Gibson recalled. “It had something to do with [Limato’s] business … When you’d come over his house, he’d change the picture frames from the back to the front to make it look like you were the most important.”
Gibson also states that the trio of actors often competed for roles, although he never revealed which ones. In a moment of rare tenderness, he explained that after Limato finally gave in to his battle with emphysema, the three of them sat down together for the first time. They toasted to their late agent and had a great time.
