Gibson defends 'Passion' film, weighs in on religious debate
When Mel Gibson joked that "I think I'm somewhere between Howard Stern and St. Francis of Assisi on the morality scale," it could have been a line from one of those movies in which he plays the likeable rogue.
But in sitting down last night with ABC's interview diva Diane Sawyer, Gibson may have been starring in his most important role to date, fighting to preserve a career and reputation rather than see his legacy transformed into that of a polarizing religious fundamentalist.
In making "The Passion of the Christ," which opens on Feb. 25, Gibson has touched the third rail of interfaith relations by raising the millenia-old issue of who killed Jesus. With debate raging over whether the actor has crafted a powerfully honest recreation of the death of Christ or unfairly pointed to Jewish culpability, the film has become a potent wedge issue dividing Christians and Jews, liberals and conservatives, and what Sawyer called true believers and secularists.
While the argument over "The Passion" has raged largely inside media and religious circles, last night's appearance on ABC's "Primetime" gave Gibson an opportunity to make his case in front of a large mainstream audience. And if anyone was wondering whether Sawyer was simply conducting another syrupy celebrity chatfest, that notion was put to rest when she abruptly asked Gibson: "Are you anti-Semitic?"
Without meaning to seem cynical, or to suggest that Gibson -- a deeply religious man -- was giving a carefully calibrated performance, it is fair to say that he displayed several different public faces. At times he was sturdily defiant, saying the film's detractors were engaged in "character assasination."
When Sawyer asked why he wouldn't take the advice of one of the film's chief critics, Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman, and include a postscript stressing that viewers should not harbor ill will toward Jews, Gibson responded: "Well, that assumes there is something wrong with my film . . . and I don't think there is."
At other times, Gibson engaged in the now familiar TV confessional culture, noting that as a younger actor, he'd been a lost soul, seduced by "drugs, booze, anything you name it."
"I've been to the pinnacle of what secular utopia has to offer," he told Sawyer. "It's not good enough. It leaves you empty."
And for a good part of the evening, Gibson -- mugging and laughing -- showed an engaging, more conciliatory side. In response to Sawyer's question about whether he was anti-Semitic, he responded that "to be anti-Semitic is to be un-Christian, and I'm not." When asked about his remarkable statement that he would like to kill New York Times writer Frank Rich -- a fierce "Passion" critic -- and put his "intestines on a stick," Gibson admitted, "I was blowin' off a little steam."
While Sawyer asked many of the right questions, "Primetime" had little interest in refereeing the dispute or offering its own view. And it's not likely that Gibson changed many minds last night. On a subject this volatile, "Passion" foes and supporters are most likely preaching to the converted, at least until people actually see the movie. 