Martin Campbell: "Oddly enough, we had a slightly different ending to the film and it just wasn’t comfortable. It didn’t work, and in fact Mel said to me, 'This is not working. It doesn’t feel right,' and so forth. We discussed it and he said to me, 'Well, why don’t we put it in the hospital? In the hospital corridor?' That’s precisely what we did, so that’s where that came from. There’s also another scene which is, I think, one of the best scenes in the movie which is the flashback scene to the little girl and the shaving scene. Well, I have to say that was entirely Mel’s idea. It wasn’t mine, and that was a scene that Mel improvised with the little girl. We shot it in two or three hours, I think. We shot the scene and it’s probably my favorite scene in the movie, or certainly one of my favorite scenes in the movie."
Regardless of whether you revisited the series or not, were you hesitant to revisit a past success?
Martin Campbell: "No, it all depended on the script. As Ray said earlier, it entirely depends on the script. I think the idea of a father who’s lost his only daughter and sets out on a voyage of discovery, I always thought that was a great story. To be honest, it was simply a matter of the script coming right. Andrew Bovell did a terrific job, the first writer, but Bill Monahan took it to the finish line. I could put the series out of my mind and it was a very good script so I had no hesitation."
Mel, was there a point during your period off that you considered not coming back?
Mel Gibson: "Yeah, of course, yeah. Probably further toward the beginning and then as time went on, you think, 'Maybe I should try again.' You don’t know. That’s why I didn’t make some big pronouncement: 'I am quitting. I’m retiring.' I didn’t want to do that, but I just thought I’d back away for a while."
Were you discouraged or tired?
Mel Gibson: "Just tired and bored with it, you know? I’ve done that a couple of times. I just walked away and just spent a year not doing it, doing something else. I think it’s a natural thing. As soon as something starts getting a little tedious and you want to spice it up again, you kind of have to change it."
Are you a protective dad in real life, and is it especially hard with daughters?
Mel Gibson: "Yeah, well, I think I am a protective dad. I’ve never really been in situations, fortunately, where the kids have been in some of harrowing dangerous experience. I related one the other day. It’s pretty basic. I remember I went to the pharmacy to buy some formula for my newly born twins. They’re now 27. I brought my 21 month old to the pharmacy with me because my wife was occupied with twins. It was a place called Coogee in Australia. There was a pharmacy right on the corner and then there was the Coogee Bay road, really busy road. We had a nurse from New Zealand at the time who used to help out during the day and go home at four. So it’s that time, we’re in the pharmacy, I’m buying formula and I take my eyes off the child for a second. The next thing I look up, I’m saying, 'Well, what’s the difference between this one and that?' I look up and I see my child standing about maybe 25 yards away on the edge of the curb and the nurse in a bus stop on the other side with traffic blowing in front of her going [waving hands no]. She’s going out there to say hi to her. 25 yards and not much time to get the kid, okay? So needless to say, there’s an old man with broken ribs. There was a lady with a footprint on her face. I completely wrecked the place to get through that place and get the kid. I broke everything and ran through things and lifted things and threw them out of the way, that you weren’t supposed to do, to pluck her out before she got struck by a car."
"So, yeah, you’ll do anything for your kids, even kill somebody. [Laughing] But the poor woman, I had to apologize to a lot of people afterwards and they didn’t understand. They get very angry, of course, because you’ve knocked an old lady over."
Did you learn anything exciting while you were recharging away from the industry?
Mel Gibson: "Well, I didn’t really get away from the industry. I learned a lot about the industry. I learned about writing. I learned about conceiving, from conception to writing, bringing that to the screen to sort of mounting a film to producing it to directing it, to actually single-handedly marketing and distributing and doing everything except exhibition. And I think I did it. It’s almost kind of the full thing. Now I bought a bunch of theaters in Australia called the Dendy chain, so I’m an exhibitor as well."
What made you come back then?
Mel Gibson: "To act again? It was just time. I don't know. I just felt like doing it. It was my first love. I used to love doing it and if the tarnish is on it and the glow goes off it, you can kind of walk away for a while. When it’s time to come back, you come back."
Ray, is Steven Soderbergh’s Cleo still happening?
Ray Winstone: "I don't know. It was going to go last year and I think Steven had another film to go and do. There was talk of it going this year but I haven’t heard anything more about it, to be quite honest with you. It’d be great, dressing up in a toga and all that with Tony Curtis haircuts, singing rock n’ roll."
Would it have been you singing?
Ray Winstone: "What, do you want me to apologize for that? Yeah, and that’s another - from a kid, I always wanted to be a singer. My balls dropped one day and that was it. My daughter’s a singer. She sings jazz and blues. But I’m a frustrated singer, really. I think I became an actor because I couldn’t sing. You play a different kind of music now. I’d love to do that."
Ray Winstone: "I haven’t been told it’s dead. I haven’t been told when it’s going, but I’d love to. And to get a chance to kiss Catherine Zeta-Jones...you know, that’s just making movies, isn’t it? So I’d love to do the film. I think he’s a very, very clever boy and I think if anyone can pull that off, he could."
Mel, have you ruled out a cameo in Mad Max?
Mel Gibson: "No, no. We just talked."
