Mel Gibson by Wensley Clarkson

Author:Wensley Clarkson [Wensley Clarkson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784184759
Publisher: John Blake
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

HOLLYWOOD IS A FACTORY. YOU HAVE TO REALISE THAT YOU’RE WORKING IN A FACTORY AND YOU’RE PART OF THE MECHANISM. IF YOU BREAK DOWN, YOU’LL BE REPLACED.

Mel had just walked in from castrating a bull at his farm in the Kiewa Valley when the screenplay that would change his life arrived by courier from Los Angeles. He had spent 18 months seriously reconsidering his entire future. He wondered if movies were worth all the emotional upheavals he had been through during the previous five years. He had already decided that, unless the right sort of projects were offered, he might as well stay on the farm with Robyn and the children. He had the resources to do it. Why return to brutal pressure and risk going off the rails again?

But within minutes of picking up that script – entitled Lethal Weapon – Mel recovered his appetite for work. He was hooked by the project after the first five pages. It had action, humour and a leading character strikingly similar to Mel. In many ways, it was Mel. The more he read, the surer he was that this was the movie to revive his career.

LA cop Martin Riggs – Vietnam vet, suicidal following the death of his wife, on a fuse so short it would take a split-second to ignite – this was Mel’s world, all right. Riggs was merciless in his pursuit of the bad guys but able to weep at the memory of his dead wife. He was a hero given extra dimensions of pathos and tragedy.

Within days, Mel was bound for Los Angeles, a city he continually cursed and swore he would never live in, the city that was the key to his success whether he liked it or not. On arrival at LAX airport, Mel went straight to the impressive Hollywood Hills home of director Richard Donner, already attached to Lethal Weapon. A film-maker whose best-known project to date had been Superman, starring Christopher Reeve, Donner had had Gibson and Danny Glover recommended to him as the unlikely pair of hero cops by casting director Marion Dougherty.

At Donner’s house, Mel was introduced to Glover. Contrary to popular opinion, the two stars had a few creative problems to begin with. They came from completely different schools of acting.

Glover – the quietly spoken, San Francisco-born, one-time economics student – had not even decided to become an actor until he was 30. He also had a partial affliction from the learning disability dyslexia. But, once the decision had been made, he threw himself into studying every aspect of the art and a steady stream of very respectable movie roles followed. Now – fresh from his success as Mister in The Color Purple – he was being offered a buddy-buddy role in a cop film.

But Glover saw a great deal more in the role. ‘I jumped at the chance to play the intricate relationships and subtle humour that exist in every close family group. It was an intriguing challenge,’ he said.

Glover was a Method actor and, for Mel, that took some getting used to.

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