Mel Gibson says acting is therapy for him

Mel Gibson says acting is like therapy for his “basically mad personality”.
“My insanity doesn’t come out very often because to exist in society you have to work on that and keep it in check”, Gibson said in an interview.

As a youngster, he revealed, he stapled his sister’s head, knocked out a younger brother and three days before his audition for Mad Max, the movie that would make his name, he was involved in a bar-room brawl with a rugby team over a woman, the bruised results of which, got him the part.

Gibson, 45, calls his ‘bestial side’ Bjorn: “He’s got Viking horns and I imagine myself trying to bury him.”

He wanted to be a war reporter before he went to drama school. “I wanted to be a journalist, to get on a helicopter and fly into war zones, but then this other thing (drama school) came, and it was more immediate.”

“Acting blind-sided me and became therapy for the madness. Being a journalist would have fed it. I’d be in Upper Slovovia, or somewhere, out of my mind, dodging bullets and thinking it was fun. I’d have been dead by now — or maybe not. God takes care of the worst idiots, and he’s certainly taken care of me.”

In his latest film, the comedy What Women Want Gibson plays a character who, after being electrocuted in the bath, discovers he can hear what women think.

His views on women have gained him a reputation of being a misogynist. “Why is it that people define me as a right-wing misogynist? It’s baffling. I’m not like that at all.”

“I guess it’s because I’m Catholic, have ideas on birth control, and used to joke about keeping women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, so it seems that I’m some sort of brute, but, hey, I haven’t stayed married for 20 years by being a caveman.”

Feminism is not one of his favorites though.

“The feminist thing is a manufactured idea that was put out to make a lot of women dissatisfied with stuff. Of course, they should be paid equal pay for equal work, but there’s a difference between the sexes, no matter what you say.”


European movie renaissance helps Hollywood most
The number of Europeans going to the cinema is on the rise, but most of them are flocking to see American films, the EU statistics office.

Movie attendance in the European Union grew 40 percent between 1990 and 1998 after declining steadily over the previous four decades, Eurostat said.
It attributed the cinematic renaissance to the attraction of smart new multiplex theaters and a series of blockbuster film releases, but said the success of U.S. films like Titanicr, which topped the charts in every EU country in 1998, means the rise in ticket sales has been of greatest benefit to Hollywood.

Three-quarters of EU cinema-goers watch U.S releases, a figure which rises to 82 percent in Britain and 90 percent in the Netherlands. Even in France, renowned for its pride in its own movies, 64 percent of box office receipts come from U.S. films.

In contrast, 95 percent of films seen in U.S. movie theaters are home-grown.
Despite the rising number of EU movie tickets sold — almost 800 million in 1998 — Europeans see less than half as many films as Americans, making an average of 2.1 cinema visits a year compared with 5.5 in the United States.
The biggest EU cinema market is France, where 170 million tickets a year are sold, but in terms of per capita movie-going, Ireland tops the board with 3.4 visits per person, compared with 2.9 in France and just 1.2 in Finland and Greece.

Man pleads innocent to attacking actor David Spade
A former personal assistant to comic actor David Spade pleaded innocent to charges of attacking the Just Shoot Me star with an electric stun-gun while allegedly trying to rob his Beverly Hills home.

David Skippy Malloy, 30, entered not guilty pleas to one count each of assault with a stun gun and burglary stemming from the Nov. 29 incident during a brief hearing in Beverly Hills Superior Court.

Beverly Hills Superior Court Judge Elden Fox ordered Malloy, who was released without bail after the altercation, to return for a preliminary hearing in the case on March 15.

Fox also ordered Malloy, who allegedly shocked Spade with the electric stun-gun during a struggle, to stay at least 100 yards away from the Emmy-nominated actor and undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

Malloy, who was later described by Spade as a good friend who was “obviously mentally troubled”, faces six years in prison if convicted on both charges.

Spade, who made his television debut on Saturday Night Live and co-starred with late comedian Chris Farley in several films, was not seriously injured in the attack and returned to work on his hit NBC-TV comedy Just Shoot Me hours later.

Wife of Robert Downey Jr. files for divorce
The wife of Robert Downey Jr. filed for divorce from the troubled actor six years after they separated, and sought custody of their seven-year-old son.
Deborah Falconer, a 35-year-old model and actress who married Downey in 1992 and separated from him in 1996, cited irreconcilable differences in her Los Angeles Superior Court petition and asked for custody of their son, Indio.
The divorce filing came two days after Downey won a Golden Globe for his role on the popular Fox-TV show Ally McBeal and less than a week before Downey is due in a California courtroom to face drug possession charges that could land him back in prison.

Falconer sought unspecified spousal support payments from Downey, 35, whose drug and legal problems have recently earned him as much media attention as his acting career. She asked that Downey be granted supervised visits with Indio.

A publicist for Downey had no comment on the divorce filing.

Downey, who was released in August from a year-long stretch in state prison for a prior drug conviction, was arrested in the resort city of Palm Springs on Nov. 25 for drug possession charges and faces a hearing in that case.
But Downey won a Golden Globe award for his recurring role this season on McBeal, where he played the love interest of star Calista Flockhart’s title character.

Downey, who was nominated for an Oscar for the 1992 film Chaplin, told Details magazine in a recent interview that the break-up of his marriage to Falconer was “all my fault.