ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 8, 1996 TAG: 9611080008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: JOHN ROGERS ASSOCIATED PRESS
When Mel Gibson looks back on the road taken to superstardom, the first thing that comes to mind is coffee.
``Yeah, coffee. It kind of reminds me of coffee,'' he goes on, those famous eyes twinkling.
Then he explains: ``When I made `The Year of Living Dangerously,' I'd made a few films before that - and they'd made money. So I was viable. But if my name came up, people still would go, `Who?'''
That was in 1983 and Freddie Fields, then the head of MGM studios, decided to change all that.
``He had been an agent and he had a flair for using the machine,'' Gibson recalls before adding - in his best cigar-chomping-movie mogul voice - ``We're going to make this kid a star.''
``That's what they used to do in the old days,'' Gibson continues. ``But it still happens sometimes. They keep giving you to the public until you become a star. That's why it reminds me of coffee. Because Freddie served me up to people every morning.
``I saw it happen to someone else more recently, Matthew McConaughey. Man, the guy was every place. He was breakfast cereal. And the same thing happened to Brad [Pitt]. It still happens. It's one of those sleight of hand things. They're making coffee, that's all.''
Before they hooked him up to the machine, Gibson says, he was happy working in films and on stage in Australia, ``collecting my 250 bucks a week and walking away.''
He likened the change to putting a cat in a round room.
``You know how a cat follows its nose around the room? I just kept following my nose around,'' he says, rising up off a couch to demonstrate, cat-like.
Not that he's complaining. For Gibson says he enjoys being a star, even likes saying hello to people on the street. ``People are generally nice,'' he adds matter of factly.
He likes making movies, too, trying to create something that, at the least, is entertaining and sometimes can affect people's lives.
He even likes promoting his pictures, he says, for they give him a chance to meet with a tough audience - film critics - who provide instant feedback on how he did.
He's deeply immersed in that part of the process now, holed up in a Central Park South hotel suite, doing a weekend of nonstop interviews to promote the film ``Ransom.'' He was up late the night before night, up early the day of the interview and is exhausted, for which he is apologetic.
``I must be an idiot,'' he volunteers good-naturedly. ``A sane person would think so.''
Aside from the opportunity to work with director Ron Howard, Gibson says he took the role for the chance to play a character whose perfect life falls apart on every level, and who discovers that everyone around him - from the kidnappers to the cops to his wife - is neither all good nor all bad.
He had his own share of real-life problems, from an appendectomy to arthroscopic knee surgery, during filming.
``It's like, all of a sudden, karmic surgery,'' he says laughing. ``It all comes to rain on me at one time and goes away again.
``But it's good. It kind of makes you aware that, you know, you'd kind of better start cycling or something,'' says the trim and fit-looking Gibson, who recently turned 40.
As for exactly what he does do in his spare time, Gibson isn't particularly forthcoming, though it's well-known he has six children and 10 brothers and sisters.
It was a sister who put him on the road to Hollywood, sending his application to Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Arts without his knowledge.
``She kind of thought I might be good at it, so she made all the applications, gave me the five-buck entry fee and all that,'' he recalls.
He went on to make a string of hits, including ``Tim'' and ``Gallipoli,'' which won him Australian best actor awards, and the ``Road Warrior'' pictures, which provided a cult following in America.
Then came ``The Year of Living Dangerously'' and international stardom for the American who moved to Australia when he was 12.
``My dad's family were from there and went back during the second World War on leave,'' Gibson recalls in the soft-spoken Australian accent he still retains. ``He just thought it would be a good place to kick off again.''
Having starred in and won an Academy Award for directing 1995's ``Braveheart,'' he decided to pass on directing this year, in part because he didn't want that much responsibility again so soon.
``It's nice to see someone else twisting in the wind for awhile,'' he says seriously. At the same time, though, he's looking at future directing projects.
He's also thought of becoming a writer, just not yet.
``I do like to sit down with a good writer and swap ideas and stuff,'' he says.
Then he laughs again and adds, ``But I'd rather have him cough it up than me be the guy on some late night with a bottle of bourbon and a .38 - looking at a blank page.''
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. "Ransom's" Mel Gibson: He enjoys being a star, evenby CNBlikes saying hello to people on the street. ``People are generally
nice.'' color.