Frazer Harrison/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — Oscar winner Mel Gibson happily surprised fans — both famous and not — with an unannounced visit to the Hollywood premiere of Mad Max: Fury Road on Thursday evening.
Gibson, 59 played cop-turned post-apocalyptic scavenger-hero Max Rockatansky in the 1979 Mad Max, as well as 1981’s The Road Warrior, and 1985’s Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome — all for Fury Road‘s director George Miller.
To the delight of the assembled crowd — and many walking the carpet — Gibson symbolically passed the torch by posing with Miller and the reboot’s Max, Tom Hardy.
Hardy reportedly met with Gibson before shooting the reboot, but insisted, “We sat around and talked for a couple hours about stuff but nothing about Mad Max. Just chewed the fat that’s it.”
Hardy admitted he gave Gibson a bracelet after their meeting.
“It just felt like the right thing to do, you know, to give him something. George and Mel go back so long,” the actor explained. “And they have three films — It’s like being a stepmom. I came in to take Max, right, you know, I’m the new wife, as it were so it’s only right to say, you know, hello to the old wife, and I’m gonna look after the kids as best I can…Obviously he’s [Gibson’s] a great mom, and those are his kids with George. Does that make sense?”
“Dude! I’ve never met him before!,” Fury Road star Zoe Kravitz enthused about seeing the Braveheart star and director on the red carpet. “I just turned around and was like, ‘Oh my God: O.G. Max is here.’ It’s really cool. It’s pretty cool!”
Likewise, star Nicholas Hoult was starstruck about seeing Mel. “I think it’s amazing…I’ve never met him you know,” Hoult said, adding he was hoping to gin up the courage to speak with him. “I try not to harass people and annoy them but I certainly want to say hello.”
Mad Max: Fury Road, which also stars Oscar winner Charlize Theron, opens May 15.
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