Fashion Wire Daily - Los Angeles - Looking at Mel Gibson as he walked the red carpet at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Tuesday, Jan. 26, at the premiere of his new thriller "Edge of Darkness," one thing was obvious. He's not a kid anymore. With his lined visage and thinning hair, this is the older, hopefully wiser Gibson, the 54-year-old man who was once the top box office draw in Tinseltown.
That was then, before his infamous DUI conviction that included a sexist and anti-Semitic rant heard round the world; this is now, almost eight years since his last leading role, in "Signs." A lot has changed over those years, including the dissolution of his long marriage, a new relationship and three-month-old baby with the much-younger Oksana Grigorieva, and a clean and sober outlook.
As Gibson explained at an earlier press conference for the action-packed film, he needed to get away from Hollywood for a while to effect those life changes.
"I walked away from it after 'Signs' because I just thought that I was a bit stale and I thought that it kind of maybe wasn't ringing my bells," Gibson explained. "Go away, dig a hole, do something else."
As Gibson tells it, his journey back to the spotlight hasn't been the easiest.
"All experiences, what does not kill you makes you stronger and tough, I think. Life's experiences, whether they be pleasant, unpleasant, torturous or excruciatingly wonderful and blissful, season you somehow and you learn from them. Hopefully we learn. Isn't that what it's about? That's all I'm trying to do now."
And if the reaction of the premiere audience to "Edge of Darkness" is any indication, Gibson is still a potent force. Gibson's longtime friend Jodie Foster made the screening, as did teen heartthrob Joe Jonas, singer Lance Bass and actress Maria Menounos, and all joined in a wild ovation for director Martin Campbell's exciting film as the credits rolled.
Then the crowd headed down the street to party at My House, where Gibson, Grigorieva, and the film's co-stars, including Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Jay O. Sanders, and newcomer Bojana Novakovic, celebrated the positive buzz. Holding court in one of the club's dark nooks, Gibson stuck with his program, no drinking, no smoking, as he joked, "I just don't do anything fun anymore!"
