Mel Gibson says Robert Downey Jr. has been a loyal friend to him through thick and thin.
The Braveheart actor-director, 68, spoke with Esquire in a piece published Monday about Downey, 59, who won his first-ever Academy Award last month for playing Lewis Strauss in the summer blockbuster Oppenheimer.
The Lethal Weapon actor told the outlet that Downey remained a firm presence in his corner amid a series of career-crushing scandals, beginning with his infamous July 2006 arrest in Malibu, California.
In the incident, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy said that Gibson made a series of anti-Semitic slurs, such as, ‘F*****g Jews … the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,’ according to TMZ.
‘One time, I got into a bit of a sticky situation where it kind of ended my career,’ The Passion of the Christ filmmaker told Esquire. ‘I was drunk in the back of a police car and I said some stupid s***, and all of a sudden: blacklisted. I’m the poster boy for canceled.’
Mel Gibson, 68, said Robert Downey Jr., 59, has been a loyal friend to him through thick and thin in a new profile on the Oppenheimer Oscar-winner for Esquire. Pictured in LA in 2022
Downey received an honor at the 2011 American Cinematheque Awards in Beverly Hills, where he urged Hollywood to give Gibson another chance after a series of scandals
The career of the Oscar-winning actor-director careened further four years later in 2010, when a series of recordings surfaced in which he used multiple racial slurs and threatened violence against his former girlfriend.
In the wake of the 2010 scandal, Gibson lost a role in The Hangover 2 after the cast and crew protested his presence in the motion picture.
More than a year later, Downey received an honor at the 25th American Cinematheque Awards in Beverly Hills on October 14, 2011, where he urged Hollywood to give Gibson another chance at the event, Variety reported.
Gibson told Esquire said of Downey’s gesture, ‘I was pretty much nonexistent in Hollywood at the time, and he stood up and spoke for me. It was a bold and generous and kind gesture. I loved him for that.’
Downey, who is Jewish on the side of his late father Robert Downey Sr., asked the crowd in 2011 to offer Gibson ‘the same clean slate you have given me, and allowing him to continue his great and ongoing contribution to our collective art without shame.’
He told attendees that ‘unless you are completely without sin, in which case you picked the wrong f***ing industry,’ Gibson should be forgiven and working again.
Gibson said he and Downey, who co-starred in the 1990 motion picture Air America, have often been there to pick one another up amid times of personal crisis.
‘We always had this kind of seesaw thing, where if he was on the wagon, I was falling off, and if I was on the wagon, he was falling off,’ Gibson said.
Gibson said of Downey, ‘I was pretty much nonexistent in Hollywood at the time, and he stood up and spoke for me. It was a bold and generous and kind gesture. I loved him for that’
The venerated actor was pictured backstage at the Oscars in LA in March holding his statuette
In his 2011 speech, Downey praised Gibson for sticking by him amid his troubles with drug addiction and scrapes with the law.
‘When I couldn’t get sober, he told me not to give up hope and encouraged me to find my faith,’ Downey said in his speech, according to Entertainment Weekly . ‘It didn’t have to be his or anyone else’s, as long as it was rooted in forgiveness.
‘And I couldn’t get hired, so he cast me in the lead of a movie that was actually developed for him.’
The motion picture turned out to be the 2003 musical comedy The Singing Detective, which in which Downey headlined an ensemble cast also including Gibson, Robin Wright, Katie Holmes and Adrien Brody.
Gibson, who was also a producer on the film, covered the costs for the insurance bond for Downey on the projects after no company would provide insurance on the actor, EW reported.
Gibson did not perform in any films until the 2010 thriller Edge of Darkness in the wake of his 2006 arrest.
Downey and Gibson co-starred in the 1990 motion picture Air America
Gibson played the role of Gene opposite Downey’s Billy in the motion picture, which was based on the Vietnam war
The Hollywood veteran has made a comeback over the last decade with roles in 2013’s Machete Kills, 2014’s The Expendables 3 and 2017’s Daddy’s Home 2.
Gibson received a Best Director and Best Picture Oscar nominations for his 2017 World War II drama Hacksaw Ridge, which garnered six overall nominations in 2018.
In recent years, Gibson has been seen in movies such as Desperation Road, Confidential Informant, On the Line, Bandit, Hot Seat, Father Stu, Agent Game and Panama.
Gibson is currently working on directing an action film titled Flight Risk, starring Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace.
