Mel Gibson Tells Jay Leno He Has ‘A Bit of a Temper’

Mel Gibson has basically been exiled from Hollywood, and his most recent attempt at a comeback- a film with screenwriter Joe Eszterhas called “The Maccabees”– derailed after a dramatic conflagration between the actor/director and the writer.

What really did Mel Gibson in was not so much a decline in his appeal, but a series of racist, sexist and anti-Semitic tirades he made that, due to the wonder of technology that is the internet, were released on a large scale and disseminated far and wide. Gibson, like many others, went through the stressors of the collapse of his marriage and a subsequent relationship, an arrest for DUI and massive internet shame.

The difference between Mel Gibson and many others, however, is that such average stressors did not make most people turn racist or start hating Jews- that is to say, it’s likely Gibson’s public meltdowns only foregrounded his pre-existing hate and didn’t actually create it. But Gibson has been relying on the explanation that anger itself is responsible for his comments, the most recent of which were leveled at Eszterhas after production of “The Maccabees” fell apart.

In a recent interview with Jay Leno, Gibson fell back on the “I was just really really mad” excuse again, saying that he let loose on Eszterhas not because he “hates Jews” (as Eszterhas has claimed), but because he was in actuality so super mad:

“Has it really come to the place where you can’t blow off steam in your own home, even if you’re justified?…It’s kind of like you build a house, you hire a guy to put a roof on it, he comes over and eats lunch and talks about the roof and then you get rained on all night. Wouldn’t you be kind of peeved?”

Do you think Mel Gibson has a shot at a Hollywood comeback after all his missteps?