Is Mel Gibson Australian?

Question: Is Mel Gibson Australian?

• From his Mad Max movies in Australia, Hollywood star Mel Gibson has hurtled through the stratosphere of international celebrity and profit.

  His production of The Passion of the Christ was the megahit of 2004 and the word in July 2005 from the entertainment industry bible, Daily Variety, is that he is set to go behind the camera again and and delve into an ancient civilisation of about 3000 years ago with the new film Apocalypto, to be fully financed by his production company, Icon Productions.

Answer: Mel Gibson, actor, director, producer, was born in the United States in Peekskill, New York. His mother Ann was Australian-born.

The Gibson family moved to Australia in 1968 and settled in Sydney. Most of Mel Gibson's young life was spent in Australia.

Mel Gibson first studied drama at the New Zealand Drama School, Toi Whakaari, in Wellington, New Zealand. He completed the course, then studied at Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) from 1975. While at NIDA, he roomed with Australian actor Geoffrey Rush.

Among his early Australian films were Summer City (1977), Mad Max (1979), Tim (1979), and Gallipoli (1981).

He starred in the Lethal Weapon movies with Danny Glover; won an Oscar for directing Braveheart (1995), which also received the Academy Award for best picture; and directed, wrote and produced The Passion of the Christ (2004).

Because of his youth, training, studies and first appearance in films in Australia, Australians generally regard Mel Gibson as one of their own. In recent years, he contributed to the construction of the new National Institute of Dramatic Art building in Sydney, which was completed in 2003.