It is hard to think of Mel Gibson in any role that does not revolve around his machismo. After all, this is the actor that made a name for himself in action films such as “The Road Warrior” and “Lethal Weapon.”
Over the past year however, Gibson has begun to take on more comedic movies which might explain his appearance in the animated “Chicken Run” and his latest film “What Women Want.” Until the latter film came along, Gibson had never quite found the right romantic comedy to star in.
Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt team up for the romantic comedy “What Women Want.”
“They don’t get steered at me very often,” Gibson says. “And I’m not about to go around beating on doors, so I just waited around.”
In “What Women Want,” Gibson plays Nick Marshall, a charming bachelor working as a big city advertising executive and living life as God’s gift to women. Nick’s world is turned upside down when Darcy Maguire, his female counterpart, is given his promotion at work. If that isn’t bad enough, Nick is electrocuted in his apartment one evening while experimenting with Darcy’s pet project: women’s products.
He soon discovers that he has developed the ability to hear women’s thoughts. While at first Nick will do anything to get rid of this “condition,” he soon realizes that his new gift can actually be used to his advantage.
Being new to the romantic comedy scene, Gibson relied on special counsel to decide whether he should take on the project: He gave the script to his wife.
“I said, ‘Tell me what you think of this’,” he recalls. “I kind of wandered away and every now and then I’d hear a chuckle out of her. She’d be chuckling away at it. If she’s chuckling at it, then it rings true.”
Gibson may not have entered the production in touch with his feminine side, but he certainly found it fast, for there were dozens of women on the set both onscreen and off.
“Going through rehearsal and filming you are inclined to congregate with the members of the cast and the director to talk about the scenes,” Gibson says. “You’d actually hear the honest thoughts of what women thought of Nick’s behavior and how they would respond if a man did this or that to them. I could be the fly on the wall, and it was interesting.”
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One of the women who shared the screen with Gibson was Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt, who plays Darcy and is much more at home in the romantic comedy genre.
“I didn’t know anything about him really. We had one mutual friend, but that’s not a lot to go on,” Hunt said. “I asked a couple of people who said, ‘He’s the greatest guy.’ If there was a lot of money on the line, I couldn’t come up with something bad to say about him.
“He’s incredibly accomplished but doesn’t feel the need to remind you every five seconds that he’s an Oscar-winning director, history buff and Shakespeare expert. He just lets you forget that.”
According to Gibson, he couldn’t have found a more perfect actress to work with in a romantic comedy than Hunt.
“I think she’s great. Personally and professionally, she’s a gem,” Gibson says. “It’s not hard to magnify those things and have it become a lot of fun. If that starts to happen, you are starting to get some chemistry going.”
The offscreen chemist who put Hunt and Gibson together in the first place was director Nancy Meyers, the producer and writer behind such films as “Private Benjamin,” “Baby Boom” and “Father of the Bride.”
Meyers was excited to work with Gibson, especially because of his onscreen persona as a man’s man. Even with this persona etched into her mind, Meyers was never once nervous about putting the actor in a scene, maybe the funniest in the movie, where he would be dressed in a bra and pantyhose while painting his toenails.
“It never crossed my mind that he wouldn’t do it. There was never a discussion,” Meyers says. “It was in the script, and he said he wanted to be in the movie and that’s what the scene was about. I give him all the credit.
“He was clueless on how to put pantyhose on, because a woman knows you gently put one foot on. He just stood up and whacked through them every time. He never got it. Leggs made us a special size just for him. We went through maybe 40 pair!”
Gibson chuckles heartily when the scene is brought up in conversation, and he start’s shaking his head.
“I used to wear tights in drama school every day. That’s almost the same thing,” he jokes before saying that he thinks his macho persona with movie audiences is what makes that particular scene funny. “Break all the conventions and establish different ones. It wasn’t uncomfortable at all. It was great. I like going in to different styles of acting and exploring stuff I haven’t done before.”
One convention Gibson did not break was his tendency to play practical jokes on those he is working with. He had a special treat for Hunt during one day of filming.
“We had a day and a half of kissing. I mean 9 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock in the evening and through the next morning,” Hunt recounts slowly, almost as if she might get in trouble for telling anyone about Gibson‘s antics. “It was honestly dizzying how much we kissed. No air. So at around 5 o’clock on the first day, I asked Mel‘s makeup people to shave him a little because my face was getting chewed up from his stubble.
“So he showed up on the set with 25 toilet paper marks with fake blood on them!”
“What Women Want” opens Dec. 15.
– J. Sperling Reich
