Mel Gibson responds to backlash after mocking deaf ASL interpreter

Mel Gibson has spoken out to apologise after a clip of him appearing to mock an ASL interpreter went viral.

The 70-year-old actor appeared at FanExpo Canada recently but got his Q&A off to a controversial start after coming out on stage and immediately mimicking the actions of an interpreter who was already in front of the crowd.

Gibson was a huge name in the 90s and 2000s and earned an Oscar for his directing of Braveheart but his performance at the expo was a little less William Wallace and a little more Rocky the Rooster, even if he didn't return as the smooth-talking chicken in the 2023 Netflix sequel.

Even if his actions were foul rather than fowl on this occasion, with the filmmaker receiving his fair share of criticism online, he looks to have smoothed things over with his recent apology to Variety.

He said: “Sometimes when you get pushed out on a stage in a spotlight your mind is all over the place, and sometimes spontaneous thoughtless idiocy is displayed. There was no intended maliciousness attached, and I certainly apologise to anyone who was upset by it.”

Gibson has never been one to stray too far from controversy, as his box office career was somewhat soured after his anti-semitic comments towards the officer who arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence in 2006.

At the time, he said: "There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of Anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologise specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.

"I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologise directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words."

The bad press isn't what Gibson or the rest of the cast of his upcoming movie Passion of the Christ need as he looks to make his return to the box office world, but given the original 2004 film earned over $600 million, it may well still be a big hit.

Gibson's actions were a far cry from that of Alan Ritchison, who plays Jack Reacher in the Amazon Prime series, after he was captured shaking the hand of his ASL interpreter following his Q&A at the same event.