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Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is a Lethal Weapon buddy cop film series and Max Rockatansky in the first three films in the Mad Max post-apocalyptic action series.

He was born in Peekskill, New York, and moved with his parents to Sydney when he was 12 years old. He studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art. During the 1980s, Gibson founded Icon Entertainment, a production company which independent film director Atom Egoyan has called, "an alternative to the studio system." Director Peter Weir cast Gibson as one of the leads in the critically acclaimed World War I drama Gallipoli (1981), which earned Gibson a Best Actor Award from the Australian Film Institute. The film also helped to earn Gibson the reputation of a serious, versatile actor.

In 1995, Gibson produced, directed, and starred in the epic historical drama film Braveheart, for which he won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Director, along with the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2004, he directed and produced The Passion of the Christ, a financially successful, controversial film depicting the last hours in the life of Jesus. Gibson received further critical notice for his directing of the 2006 action-adventure film Apocalypto, which is set in Mesoamerica during the early 16th century.

Early life
Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, the sixth of eleven children, and the second son of Hutton Gibson, a writer, and Irish-born Anne Patricia (née Reilly, died 1990). His paternal grandmother was opera contralto Eva Mylott (1875–1920), who was born in Australia, to Irish parents, while his paternal grandfather, John Hutton Gibson, was a millionaire tobacco businessman from the American South. One of Gibson's younger brothers, Donal, is also an actor. Gibson's first name is derived from Saint Mel, fifth-century Irish saint, and founder of Gibson's mother's native diocese, Ardagh, while his second name, Colm-Cille, is also shared by an Irish saint and is the name of the parish in County Longford where Gibson's mother was born and raised. Because of his mother, Gibson retains dual Irish and American citizenship.

His father was awarded US$145,000 in a work-related-injury lawsuit against New York Central Railroad on February 14, 1968; and soon afterwards relocated the family to West Pymble, Sydney. Mel Gibson was 12 years old at the time. The move to his grandmother's native Australia was both for economic reasons and his father's expectation that the Australian Defence Forces would reject his eldest son for the draft during the Vietnam War.

Gibson was educated by members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers at St Leo's Catholic College in Wahroonga, New South Wales, during his high school years.