Mel Gibson has been a pillar of show business for several decades. The Hollywood star has nine children, one of whom, Milo Gibson, is now starting his own film career.
Milo Gibson has appeared in several films, sometimes even working alongside his father. And at 32, he is the spitting image of his father, the Hollywood icon.
Few actors have played such iconic roles as Mel Gibson. Braveheart (1995) and Conspiracy Theory (1997) are two of his most beloved roles, but Mel Gibson has actually done much more.
Mel Gibson
During his years in the spotlight, Mel had a wife, whom he divorced, and since 2014, he has had a new partner. Somehow, as an action star travelling the world to make films as an actor, director and producer, Gibson found time to raise nine wonderful children.
Some of them chose to live away from the public eye, while others wanted to pursue a career in film. One of them, Mel’s son, Milo Gibson, is now on his way to becoming a real Hollywood star.
And he looks just like his father!
Mel Gibson was born in New York in January 1956. When he was 12, his father won a ‘small fortune’ on the television quiz show Jeopardy! and decided that his family should move to Australia.
Mel Gibson – Career
They settled in New South Wales, and after graduating from high school, Mel Gibson entered the world of acting. His sister enrolled him in the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney without his knowledge. He decided to go there and soon became a full-fledged actor.
In 1977, Mel landed his first role in the film Summer City. Film director George Miller took notice of him, and that changed everything. Gibson was cast in Miller’s first low-budget futuristic thriller, Mad Max (1979), and soon became a star in Europe and Australia thanks to the film’s success.
Gibson starred in several other films and won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor. By 1981, he had made a huge leap into the world of Hollywood.
Mel Gibson starred in the sequel to Mad Max, titled The Road Warrior/Mad Max 2, in 1981, and American audiences were won over. Mel found himself in the same category as action stars such as Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger, although he was capable of much more than just action films.
Directing
First, his stunning interpretation of Hamlet in 1990 showed everyone that he could play more subtle roles. Three years later, he made his directorial debut with the film ‘The Man Without a Face.’ But in 1996, Mel Gibson achieved Hollywood fame and attained a whole new level of status.
When Mel Gibson received the script for Braveheart, he knew almost immediately that he wanted to be involved in the project, and not just as an actor.
‘It’s just a funny episode in history that I’d never heard of before. And the script was a very memorable piece of work,’ he said.
“I put it aside and thought, “This is a pretty good script.” And then I couldn’t stop thinking about it; it was clearly stuck in my head. I was given it to participate as an actor, but I just felt like I had to tell this story, I kept replaying the scenes and episodes in my head. So that’s a pretty good sign that you should probably become a director.”
Mel Gibson, whose mother was Irish, knew nothing about this dialect.
‘It was difficult, but I was there and immersed in an environment where everyone needed subtitles,’ he said on Graham Norton’s show. ‘I would ask people, “What did you say?”, and they would have to repeat it, so eventually it somehow entered my vocabulary.’
Mel Gibson — Braveheart
Mel needed someone who could teach him the dialect, and Sean Connery turned out to be the perfect candidate. Not only was he a true Scotsman, but he had also played roles such as James Bond and the King of England, and in all of them he used his magnificent and charming Edinburgh dialect.
‘We were at Andy Vaina’s house, he’s Hungarian, so he made goulash. Now imagine Sean Connery saying that word,’ Gibson explained. “Hearing Sean say “goulash” is a lesson in itself. You just pick up the accent from the people you talk to and listen to, and he helped me hone my Scottish accent.”
Well, Mel Gibson’s work on the film was indeed a success. Braveheart was a mega-hit with both critics and audiences, winning a total of five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. The film was also criticised for some inaccuracies regarding the real story, but nevertheless, Braveheart was a magnificent film that was even compared to such masterpieces as Spartacus and Lawrence of Arabia.
Oscar-winning actor
Mel Gibson continued to star in and produce several films. In 2017, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director for his film Hacksaw Ridge, about the Battle of Okinawa during World War II.