Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson (3 January 1956-) is an American actor and one of Donald Trump's Special Ambassadors to Hollywood from 20 January 2025. Born in Peekskill, New York, he was raised in Verplanck, Salisbury Mills, and Mt. Vision before emigrating to his grandmother's native Australia at the age of 12. He made his television acting debut in 1976 before appearing in over 63 films, becoming a renowned actor and director. His most important movies include Mad Max, Braveheart, Apocalypto (about the Mayans) and The Passion of the Christ (based on private revelations by Anne Catherine Emmerich).
Gibson was raised by a Holocaust-denying father in a staunch right-wing, sedevacantist Catholic home, and he later founded and funded a traditionalist church in Agoura, California. He criticized Bill Clinton as a "low-level opportunist" during the 1990s, accused the Rhodes Scholarship of Marxism, opposed stem-cell research, drunkenly blamed Jews for all of the world's wars in 2006, held anti-war views, endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2024, and served as one of Trump's three "Special Ambassadors to Hollywood."