Thousands applied, hundreds were chosen, so quite a few of the locals who responded to the call for extras when "The Man Without a Face" was filming in a handful of Maine coastal villages last summer got what they came for: a day's pay and a gawk at the film's director.
The unchosen, though, had to come up with other business in the neighborhood of the shoot if they were going to be lucky enough - or sufficiently adroit in the use of binoculars - to catch a glimpse of "The Man With Those Eyes": Mel Gibson, auteur at work.What is it about angst-infused, coming-of-age stories that holds such attraction for blue-eyed, profoundly beautiful men? Robert Redford made his directorial debut with "Ordinary People," the story of a emotionally afflicted teenage boy. In Gibson's "The Man Without a Face," 12-year-old Chuck Norstadt, played by Nick Stahl, is also a victim of a family that doesn't work, at least for him. He finds solace in the company of a lapsed teacher, Justin McLeod, who is shunned by the town because of his scarred, grisly visage and mysterious past.
Director Gibson decided early on to cast an international sex symbol in the McLeod role, even though, as he says, the part "covers half the assets." When William Hurt and several other name-brand actors said no, Gibson took the role himself.
So there Mel was, the man with two faces, before and behind the camera. Yet even with so much Gibson in evidence, he enjoyed a certain lightness of being. No one becomes a director seeking anonymity, except maybe a movie star.
"The people around you, the people on the set, become immune to you," says Gibson, reflecting on an aspect of directing he particularly enjoyed. "They're reacting to you on levels where you're talking about what color shoes they should have on, or whether you want a stuffed owl in the back of the shot."
Gibson, 37, is arguably one of the movie stars least comfortable with celebrity. But unlike other reluctant stars such as Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, Gibson no longer makes a public show of his ambivalence. "I don't complain anymore," he says. "I did all that a long time ago."
So, the Mel Gibson of recent vintage, the one who has come to terms with his professional obligations, does interviews when he has a movie to flog - "I'm out there whoring," he says, laughing. Given that "The Man Without a Face" is vitally important to him, he's become the media's preferred trick, appearing on the cover of any entertainment magazine that will have him.
These days, meet-the-press Mel resembles the Mel of old only in the particulars - the lean body, the chiseled face and the interview uniform: jeans and cowboy boots. But that's not to say Mel rolls over for journalists. Gibson, whose career has swerved from the "Lethal Weapon" series to romantic comedies to "Hamlet," has not supplied himself with the sort of ready-made persona that other actors rely on. And he's not about to produce the real person.
"I lie a lot," he says, possibly meaning to be disarming, but possibly telling the truth. If through the years his interviews have taken on a professional sheen, he says, it's because "I lie better."
Who is that masked movie star? Don't ask. He's not telling. "I'm just doing a Popeye," he says at one point. "I y'am what I y'am."
And not what he was. A freshly minted star in 1981 with "Gallipoli," Gibson the next year won even more critical acclaim in "The Year of Living Dangerously," but reviews from those who encountered him in person during that period were not so kind: He had a reputation as a lout and a boor and was arrested for drunken driving. Gibson was yet another celebrity in need of a good slap.
"It was like, man, I didn't know this was going to happen," he says, recalling that first enveloping wave of fame. "I got bitter. I was resentful."
The son of a railway worker who moved his family of 11 children from Peekskill, N.Y., to Australia in 1968 when Gibson was 12, Gibson clearly was raised to be something of a regular guy. And like most regular guys - even those grounded in a staunchly conservative Catholic family - Gibson found his upbringing was no match for the enticements Hollywood offers its favorite sons.
Gibson says Hollywood is where he explored "the borders of sanity" after discovering the power that was suddenly his. "It's not fake power, it's real. And power is the biggest thing out there," he says. "With power comes anything and everything. It's very seductive.
"The rot seeps in. Psychologically, it's very weird. It takes you awhile to figure out that you have this power and some people really manipulate it. But if you start playing around with it too much, you, you . . .," he founders for an appropriately dire consequence, before finishing with a barking laugh. "You go blind."
After an extended spell of hostility, Gibson went away and, in one sense, didn't come back. He spent a year off retrenching with his family (he and his wife, Robyn, now have six children, 3 to 12 years in age), then he went on to become the billion-dollar man at the box office while pointedly eschewing any connection to Hollywood beyond making movies.
"It's a choice you make," he says. "You learn what to hold back. . . . I'm not standing in a darkened room with lit candles around to protect me from temptation. I can't make it intelligible, but what you do is switch gears."
Into overdrive, at times. Yet even under the pressure of directing his first movie while starring in it, Gibson, who admits to a mean temper, by all accounts displayed a notable caliber of calm.
Margaret Whitton, who plays the much-divorced mother in "The Man Without a Face," recalls a moment during one shoot - 18 hours after the day began - when fans slipped through security and clustered around the harried director. "People were literally pulling at him," says Whitton, "and he was terribly gracious, very nice. I would have blown up."
Tina Ross, the wife of the attorney for the Maine town of Rockport, recalls Gibson actually working the room at a goodwill dinner organized by the movie company for the local selectman, making it a point to talk to everyone. A word to those who believe the photo they had taken with Mel will some day be a collectible: You're out of luck. It seems Gibson was willing to have his picture taken with anyone who slowed down.
On the set of the $12 million movie - which Gibson proudly brought in within budget - "the ferociously cultured barbarian," as Whitton calls him, was consumed with his task, yet relaxed enough to frequently cut loose on a very primitive level with the child actors ("We called him Demento Boy," she says).
"The Man Without a Face," developed from a young adult novel by Isabelle Holland, might be considered an unexpected choice of material for a bankable actor. Set in the '60s, the story's complexities - each of Mrs. Norstadt's three children has a different father and a dire mystery is attached to Chuck's dad - and its necessary subtleties would seem to narrow its appeal only to those who appreciate a good story well-told.
"It's dodgy, it's not obvious, you could goof it up," says Gibson, speculating that possibly it was the story material combined with his novice status as a director that led several actors - he won't say whom - to refuse the leading role. "But it says such things about tolerance. It was a good story, and it was important to me to tell that story."
Gibson says he went in with a detailed plan and willingness to collaborate with everyone on the set. "You spend two months when you're completely absorbed. You don't sleep at night. Your life is turned over to work," he says happily. The difference between being an actor and a director, he says, is the difference "between nose candy and crack."
"It's a much bigger hit."
That said, Gibson is leaving the direction of his next movie, "Maverick," to Richard Donner ("Lethal Weapon I, II and III"). Gibson will play Bret Maverick in the remake of the '50s TV Western, and James Garner, who along with Jack Kelly starred in the series, will make an appearance. Icon, Gibson's production company, is developing "Maverick" as well as rooting around for the next movie in which he won't star.
"I'll never direct myself again. It's too hard. . . . But I'll definitely direct," says Gibson, sounding as enthusiastic as he gets when there's a tape recorder in the room. "Anything that keeps you up nights is worth doing again and again and again."