Jodie Foster On Mel Gibson: 'He's So Incredibly Loving & Sensitive'
March 16 2011, Published 3:25 p.m. ET
Jodie Foster is opening up, and heartily defending, her old friend and co-star Mel Gibson - declaring "He's so incredibly loving and sensitive."
Jodie is preparing for a Gibson press related firestorm as she gears up to promote her new movie The Beaver, which she directed and co-starred in with Gibson.
But if anyone is hoping for Foster to dish the dirt it seems they are going to be sorely disappointed as she only has good things to say about the troubled 55-year-old actor.
"He's so incredibly loving and sensitive, he really is," she tells the Hollywood Reporter. "He is the most loved actor I have ever worked with on a movie. And he's not saintly, and he's got a big mouth, and he'll do gross things your nephew would do. But I knew the minute I met him that I would love him the rest of my life."
"I know him in a very complex way. He's a real person; he's not a cardboard cutout. I know that he has troubles, and when you love somebody you don't just walk away from them when they are struggling."
Foster also talks about her "complex" relationship with Gibson, who she describes as "loving and sensitive"-- a 180 degree shift from what the public knows of Gibson's vitriolic rants recorded by ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva released last year exclusively by Breaking Celebrity News.
Even before Gibson's recorded tirades went public, an emotional Foster was made aware they existed. And his "pain" was clearly evident in his Beaver performance, where he plays a troubled husband and executive who adopts a beaver hand-puppet as his sole means of communicating
"I knew about that," she says. "He was upset. Then, on the last day of reshoots of Mel, it all came out."
When the tapes were first released on July 9, Foster was with Gibson, who she described as "a mess".
"He had a lot of work to do," she said. "It was a bad situation. His assistant called me: 'Come to the trailer!' And I went to his trailer, and he was a mess. Then he came on set, and he didn't