Gibson got his breakthrough role as the leather-clad post-apocalyptic survivor in George Miller's Mad Max. The film was independently financed and had a reported budget of $300,000 AUD — of which $15,000 was paid to Mel Gibson for his performance. The film achieved incredible success, earning $100 million world wide. It held a record in Guinness Book of Records as the highest profit-to-cost Read more...

Gibson played a naïve but ambitious journalist opposite Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt in Peter Weir’s atmospheric 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously, based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Koch. The movie was both a critical and commercial success, and the upcoming Australian actor was heavily marketed by MGM studio. In his review of the film, Vincent Canby of the New Read more...

Gibson followed the footsteps of Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, and Marlon Brando by starring as Fletcher Christian in a cinematic retelling of the mutiny on the Bounty. The resulting 1984 film The Bounty is considered to be the most historically accurate version. However, Gibson does not believe that the film went far enough in correcting the historical record.

Gibson considers the performance Read more...