Although perhaps best known for his action roles in the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series, which defined his popularity, Mel Gibson is also a gifted actor, as proved by his rendering of Hamlet for Franco Zeffirelli in 1990, and has also proved himself as a director, with such films as Man without a Face (1993) and the blockbuster Braveheart (1995), which earned him an Oscar for Best Director.
Mel Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, and moved with his family to Sydney, Australia, in 1963. He graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in 1977, the same year he made his screen debut in Summer City. Following his graduation, he appeared in many stage productions, including Romeo and Juliet, Oedipus, and Waiting for Godot.
In 1980 he was cast as the lead in Mad Max, which became a cult classic and was followed in 1982 by a sequel, The Road Warrior, which made him a star. Other notable films of the 1980s were Gallipoli (1981) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1983), both made for the gifted Australian director Peter Weir. After appearing with Anthony Hopkins in The Bounty (1984, a reworking of the Captain Bligh story), Mel Gibson had his first screen role as an American in The River (1984).
In 1987 Mel Gibson was cast with Danny Glover in the first of four Lethal Weapon movies, all of them directed by Richard Donner and all of them very successful. This was one of the best police buddy movies of the decade, involving an older, more wary detective (Glover) and reckless younger partner (Mel Gibson). Mel Gibson would later play similar roles in such movies as Conspiracy Theory (1997).
Three years later he would cast himself against type by playing a melancholy, disfigured protagonist in The Man without a Face, which he also directed. All the while, he retained his popular base by appearing in less-serious films such as Maverick and the historical epic Braveheart (1995), which was proclaimed Best Picture by the Motion Picture Academy.
His appeal is considerable and cuts through many levels. To cast Mel Gibson in a film is to assure a mass audience, even for Hamlet. In 2004 Mel Gibson released The Passion of the Christ, a controversial movie account of the last days of Jesus Christ, which he directed and produced. It became a blockbuster hit.
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