“Happy, Healthy” Mel Gibson Putting Dark Days Behind Him

Gregg DeGuire/WireImage(LOS ANGELES) — In an interview with Variety podcaster Kristopher Tapley, a “healthy, happy” Mel Gibson talked in depth about his acclaimed new film Hacksaw Ridge — which many are calling a career comeback.

The movie, about Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to ever receive a Congressional Medal of Honor, stars Andrew Garfield as the real-life hero.  Doss volunteered to be deployed without a weapon, and went on to save 75 soldiers single-handedly.

Oscar-winner Gibson also talked at length about the controversies that derailed his career.

“I’m feeling good. I’m sober…and for me it’s a dim thing in the past,” he said. “But others bring it up, which kind of I find annoying, because I don’t understand why, after 10 years, it’s any kind of issue.”

“Surely, if I was really what they say I was, some kind of hater, there’d be evidence of actions somewhere,” the actor and director says about anti-Semitic comments he allegedly made during his highly publicized DUI arrest. “There never has been. I’ve never discriminated against anyone or done anything that…supports that reputation.”

“And for one episode in the back of a police car on eight double tequilas to sort of dictate all the work, life’s work and beliefs and everything else that I have and maintain for my life is really unfair.”

On a lighter note, Gibson said he hasn’t seen the Lethal Weapon TV reboot, but he’s heard about an informal pitch for a Lethal Weapon 5 from screenwriter Shane Black.  It would have Gibson’s Martin Riggs and Danny Glover’s Roger Murtaugh in a new adventure set in a blizzard-swept New York City.

“I think it’s a cool idea,” he enthuses. “…But I wonder about [Richard] Donner! He directed all of these things. We need to get that guy back behind the camera.”

Hacksaw Ridge opens Friday. 

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