Joe Rogan Experience #2254 - Mel Gibson

Narrator 0:00 (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Mel Gibson 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) All right, we're rolling. What's cracking?

Mel Gibson 0:14 Oh, man. My back just now, it just-

Joe Rogan 0:16 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 0:17 ... holy shit. It's fantastic.

Joe Rogan 0:19 What is going on with your back? You, you've, you have, like, you've had back issues in the past, right?

Mel Gibson 0:22 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:22 We talked about that the last time you came on.

Mel Gibson 0:24 Well, I was born scoliotic, you know?

Joe Rogan 0:26 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 0:27 So it's like a... I bought just, I just bought my own pen along so I could click the shit from it.

Joe Rogan 0:33 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 0:34 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:34 Here, take all devices away from me.

Mel Gibson 0:36 I can't believe, I can't believe you remember. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:41 (laughs) You remember clicking on the pen? That's hilarious.

Mel Gibson 0:43 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm, I'm a fidget, you know, so I, uh, let me take everything off.

Joe Rogan 0:47 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 0:49 So... So... (laughs) It's, it's not good. Oh, yeah, uh, born, born slightly scoliotic and then, of course, I banged myself up over the years, you know?

Joe Rogan 0:57 Of course. What can you... What, when the... Do they do anything other than surgery for people with scoliosis?

Mel Gibson 1:02 They do, because I don't wanna do surgery.

Joe Rogan 1:05 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:05 Once you start opening stuff up and fooling with it-

Joe Rogan 1:07 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:08 ... there's no going back, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:09 Especially the back.

Mel Gibson 1:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11 Backs are rough. I'd nev- never met anybody that had, like, fusions or anything where it turned out good.

Mel Gibson 1:15 No. And, like, Hippocrates, you know, the father of medicine, he said, "In any ailment, look first to the spine." And it was like, he's kinda right.

Joe Rogan 1:25 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:25 It all emanates from the, from the core.

Joe Rogan 1:28 Well, if your back is fucked up, everything's fucked up.

Mel Gibson 1:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:30 You know? No matter how strong your arms and legs are, if your back is fucked up, you're, you're in trouble.

Mel Gibson 1:34 Yeah, that's true. Your brain.

Joe Rogan 1:36 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:36 Everything. Everything goes to hell.

Joe Rogan 1:37 Well, you're in pain all the time.

Mel Gibson 1:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:39 People with back problems, like they can't think straight 'cause you're always like, (groans) you know? It's always-

Mel Gibson 1:44 There's a gift to not thinking straight.

Joe Rogan 1:46 Hmm.

Mel Gibson 1:47 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:48 Tell me. Tell me more. I wanna know. (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:49 Well, it actually takes you down some pretty weird paths, you know? Um, uh, if you're happy all the time, I don't know, you don't have, you, you don't have to strive to find thoughts to make yourself happy.

Joe Rogan 2:02 Right.

Mel Gibson 2:03 So it's like a, um, it's a good, it's a good, uh, it's a good predisposition, I think.

Joe Rogan 2:09 I agree to that. Yeah, I think being happy all the time is a... It's kind of an unlikely scenario.

Mel Gibson 2:16 No, nobody is.

Joe Rogan 2:17 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 2:18 No. But we all want it. You notice-

Joe Rogan 2:19 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 2:19 We all yearn for it.

Joe Rogan 2:21 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 2:21 There's this incred-... That's the only thing we all want, right?

Joe Rogan 2:23 Right.

Mel Gibson 2:24 Is just happiness, a little peace.

Joe Rogan 2:26 Well, it's also we're shown it, like, in, you know, television, in movies.

Mel Gibson 2:31 Sure.

Joe Rogan 2:31 Like we're, we're shown happiness as this goal.

Mel Gibson 2:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:34 Like, seek happiness.

Mel Gibson 2:36 Sure.

Joe Rogan 2:36 You should be happy all the time.

Mel Gibson 2:38 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:38 Happy. You should never be upset.

Mel Gibson 2:40 Yeah, well.

Joe Rogan 2:41 It's not realistic.

Mel Gibson 2:43 It's completely unrealistic. However, it's nice to have those little journeys through art where you can actually explore those things. You can explore your ids, you can explore happiness, and, uh, so you'd experience the opposite. I look at situations around me and I, I generally feel pretty grateful, uh, from what some people go through.

Joe Rogan 3:06 Sure.

Mel Gibson 3:06 I'm grateful. And everybody's got their crap, you know? But, uh, like, this morning, for example, I will be surprised if my home is still there.

Joe Rogan 3:15 Yeah, we were just talking about that.

Mel Gibson 3:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:17 The Palisades is on fire.

Mel Gibson 3:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:20 My friend, Tom, Tom Segura, his house is gone.

Mel Gibson 3:22 Yep. (sighs)

Joe Rogan 3:23 His... Where he used to live. He sold it, luckily. And moved in there.

Mel Gibson 3:25 Yeah, I have a son, he's in the sort of volunteer fire brigade. Milo. I call him the Mayor of Malibu. And he's running around. I asked him, "How's things looking there, Milo?" He says, "Not good, Pops." He says, "Your neighborhood..." And he sent me a, a video of my neighborhood and it's in flames. It looks like an inferno.

Joe Rogan 3:43 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 3:43 So yeah, not good.

Joe Rogan 3:45 Do you think this will get you out of California finally?

Mel Gibson 3:47 Yeah, maybe, (sighs) you know?

Joe Rogan 3:48 Where are you gonna go?

Mel Gibson 3:49 Oh, I don't know. I got a place in Costa Rica. I love it there.

Joe Rogan 3:52 Ooh.

Mel Gibson 3:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:53 Costa Rica's nice.

Mel Gibson 3:54 Yeah, I bought there many years ago.

Joe Rogan 3:56 Yeah?

Mel Gibson 3:56 And it's, it's, uh, it's in a real nice spot. It's not too touristy or, you know, dirt roads, so it's-

Joe Rogan 4:01 Oh, nice.

Mel Gibson 4:02 ... off the beaten, off the beaten.

Joe Rogan 4:04 Does it feel safe out there?

Mel Gibson 4:06 Pretty safe. I think, look, it, no place is safe. I mean, you got the Darién down there, you know? And you got-

Joe Rogan 4:11 What's that?

Mel Gibson 4:13 It, it's kind of in the, um... What's the next country down? Panama.

Joe Rogan 4:16 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 4:16 And you, and, and there's this no man's land where the Colombians come through and it's like, you know, all kinds of dirty dealings-

Joe Rogan 4:23 Oh.

Mel Gibson 4:23 ... in the jungle with, you know-

Joe Rogan 4:24 Ooh.

Mel Gibson 4:24 Who knows, you know, drugs and mules and-

Joe Rogan 4:27 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 4:27 You know? (laughs) Yeah. So, um, you know, it can be dangerous and I've heard of danger happening there. You know, you hear about somebody getting chopped up by a machete. And Costa Rica-

Joe Rogan 4:39 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 4:40 ... is actually, it's actually a cool place because it, it never had a culture of death like a lot of the Central American countries did. They have a culture of death, you know? Even Mexico, I mean, they used to, you know, tear people's hearts out and pyramids.

Joe Rogan 4:55 Aztecs.

Mel Gibson 4:56 All that sort of stuff, you know?

Joe Rogan 4:56 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 4:57 Aztecs were like the Romans, the Mayans were like the Greeks, but they all sort of dabbled in some stuff. Um, Costa Rica always had a policy where they... (clears throat) It was like the Switzerland of Central America. They emphasized education and health and everybody's literate and it's, it's kind of interesting in that way. (clears throat) But it deals with its own little troubles.

Joe Rogan 5:20 Yeah, well-

Mel Gibson 5:21 Like every country, you know, corrupt.

Joe Rogan 5:22 Espe- anywhere down in that part of the world-

Mel Gibson 5:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:26 ... is just like there's so much sketchy shit going on all around you.

Mel Gibson 5:29 Yeah, there can be.

Joe Rogan 5:30 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 5:31 Yeah, one has to, uh, be forewarned, forearmed, all that, you know? So I have a, a nice place down there.

Joe Rogan 5:37 Yeah, I have some friends that have a place in Mexico and I'm always like, "Don't you ever worry?"

Mel Gibson 5:43 Mm, yeah, I worked in Mexico a couple of times. I was down there and it was, uh, it was in Veracruz, and apparently, you know, people were rolling heads into bars and stuff like that, you know?

Joe Rogan 5:54 Oh, great.

Mel Gibson 5:54 Rival gangs and stuff. And they said... (clears throat) "I go for a walk," you know? And, uh, they'd say, "You're crazy going for a walk. You'll get kidnapped." I said, "I'm not gonna get kidnapped. I'm the guy that pays. You're gonna get kidnapped."

Joe Rogan 6:07 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 6:07 "And I'm not gonna pay your ransom," so... (laughs) And it's like... (clears throat) I never felt insecure in that way. And, you know, when something's gonna happen, it's gonna happen.

Joe Rogan 6:19 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 6:19 You know, if your number's up. I know, I used to watch guys who do what I do for a living, and they'd have a phalanx of bodyguards around them, you know? And, like, for security and stuff, but... And I used to have that stuff for a little while, but, eh, doesn't make any difference. You're gonna be okay.

Joe Rogan 6:39 Okay.

Mel Gibson 6:39 Or not.

Joe Rogan 6:40 Or not, right?

Mel Gibson 6:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:41 Until you're not.

Mel Gibson 6:42 'Til you're not.

Joe Rogan 6:42 And everybody's gonna be okay until they're not.

Mel Gibson 6:44 Yeah. I got in a dodgy situation one night and I acted crazy.

Joe Rogan 6:48 Yeah?

Mel Gibson 6:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:49 What happened?

Mel Gibson 6:50 If you act crazy, everybody leaves you alone. So-

Joe Rogan 6:53 Especially if you are a little crazy.

Mel Gibson 6:55 A little. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:56 You know? If they know that-

Mel Gibson 6:57 Well, you're in a stress mode, so you actually get angry. I, if, if I feel like I'm threatened, I get angry, which is what happens. And then you get really in people's faces, and they think, "This guy's crazy." But all the old cultures thought that. Like, when there were people traveling across the Great Plains to go West, you know, if you acted nuts, they'd leave you alone 'cause they didn't want your evil spirits.

Joe Rogan 7:19 Oh.

Mel Gibson 7:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:20 So what happened with you?

Mel Gibson 7:22 Oh, nothing. They left me alone.

Joe Rogan 7:23 Well, where was this?

Mel Gibson 7:24 Oh, man. I was in a bad neighborhood. I, um, was f- it was when I'd first gotten into LA, and I was to go to dinner with Costa-Gavras. He was a Greek director. I, uh, went the wrong way. And it was before they had, you know, phones with like-

Joe Rogan 7:43 Right.

Mel Gibson 7:43 ...you know, all that stuff. So-

Joe Rogan 7:45 The Thomas guide.

Mel Gibson 7:46 It was the Thomas guide, anyway. I wasn't guided well by Thomas. I ended up in the wrong place, and then my muffler fell off, and I was driving a Mercedes, you know, pretty nice sporty car, you know? And I thought, "Uh," and I had the wife in the car and... I pulled into a side street, the sun was going down, and as I got out of the car, I thought, "Oh, I gotta fix this muffler. I can't just drag it." People started coming from houses, and they came up to me and, and, uh, I saw them coming in the rearview mirror, and, uh, I jumped out of the car and got in their face, and I said, "What the fuck do you want?" 'Cause I thought, I felt threatened.

Joe Rogan 8:25 Right.

Mel Gibson 8:26 And, um, and the guy said, "Man, I'm just looking for some money. You got any money?" Saw I was being mugged, and it was (laughs) like, I thought, "I'll think about it when I'm fucking finished," like, you know. (laughs) And I opened the trunk, and this is the weird part, Joe. I, I will never quite understand this. I opened the trunk to see what I could find to help me put the muffler back on, and sitting there, the only two things in the back of the trunk was a pair of wire cutters and a coat hanger. It's exactly what I needed, and I don't know why it was there. That's weird, isn't it?

Joe Rogan 9:01 That's very weird. So you-

Mel Gibson 9:02 Very weird.

Joe Rogan 9:02 ...used the coat hanger to wire up your muffler?

Mel Gibson 9:04 Yep. I cut a piece of wire, wired the muffler up. The whole time, more guys are coming.

Joe Rogan 9:09 Jesus Christ.

Mel Gibson 9:09 And they're standing behind me and I'm feeling like, "Oh." And, um, anyway, I get (clears throat) up, I finish the muffler, slam it, and I'm acting mad and crazy the whole time, and they think, "This guy's nuts." And I get back to the car and my wife gives me a handful of cash, and I thought, "What's this?" She says, "It's just fives and ones. Give it to 'em." (laughs) So I threw it and drove off.

Joe Rogan 9:29 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 9:29 But it was like, it was looking hairy for a minute, and you never know.

Joe Rogan 9:34 What year was this?

Mel Gibson 9:35 Oh my God, back in the '90s.

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Joe Rogan 10:47 So things are more dangerous now?

Mel Gibson 10:49 I think they are.

Joe Rogan 10:49 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 10:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:50 I think so for sure.

Mel Gibson 10:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:52 Yeah, we were just talking about the wildfire situation and how crazy it is that they spent $24 billion last year on the homeless.

Mel Gibson 11:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:02 And what did they spend on preventing these wildfires?

Mel Gibson 11:05 Zero.

Joe Rogan 11:06 Not so- zi- zip.

Mel Gibson 11:07 Zip. And in 2019, I think Newsom said, "You know, I'm gonna take care of the forests and maintain the forests and do all that kind of stuff." He didn't do anything.

Joe Rogan 11:14 Didn't do anything.

Mel Gibson 11:15 Nope.

Joe Rogan 11:15 And then on top of that, they cut the water off.

Mel Gibson 11:17 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's all funny. And then I think all our tax dollars probably went for Gavin's hair gel.

Joe Rogan 11:23 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 11:23 I don't know, but it's like, you know, it's sad. It's like the place is just on fire.

Joe Rogan 11:27 Well, the whole state is just so poorly managed.

Mel Gibson 11:30 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 11:30 It's so conf- it's so frustrating and confusing, and then he gets on TV and pretends like everything's great.

Mel Gibson 11:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:37 And I'm, Cal- California's the best, we have the best state, we have the most amazing economy, and like, "You're out of your fucking mind, dude. You've ruined this state."

Mel Gibson 11:45 It is ruined.

Joe Rogan 11:45 Personally ruined it.

Mel Gibson 11:47 Well, it's the same team that was up in San Francisco.

Joe Rogan 11:49 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 11:49 And then they came down to LA and they're doing what they did in San Francisco and-

Joe Rogan 11:53 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 11:53 San Francisco's kind of like apocalyptic now, you know?

Joe Rogan 11:56 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 11:56 I went there and it's just like people every- you know, homeless, you know, it's just, it's a mess.

Joe Rogan 12:00 It's just unbelievable that society can crumble that quickly.

Mel Gibson 12:04 Mm-hmm. It doesn't take-

Joe Rogan 12:05 It's really unbelievable.

Mel Gibson 12:06 It doesn't take long.

Joe Rogan 12:07 No.

Mel Gibson 12:08 Yeah. I read a book once by Jared Diamond called Collapse.

Joe Rogan 12:11 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 12:11 You ever read that book?

Joe Rogan 12:12 Yeah, yeah.

Mel Gibson 12:13 Crazy, right? It says all the things you need for a civilization to cave in and collapse, and a lot of the things...... are present. All those earmarks, the precursors of a collapse, they're present in our time. So, it's, it's an interesting observation.

Joe Rogan 12:29 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 12:30 And we're no smarter than our grandparents, I don't think.

Joe Rogan 12:32 Well, that ab- brings me to one of my favorite movies of yours, is Apocalypto.

Mel Gibson 12:36 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:36 You know, when the Mayans were r- running things, like, who could have ever thought when they had such an incredibly sophisticated society, unbelievable construction-

Mel Gibson 12:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:44 ... like, the stuff that they had built, that one day, you would just walk through there, and there's nothing.

Mel Gibson 12:48 Nothing.

Joe Rogan 12:49 Nothing and nobody.

Mel Gibson 12:50 In fact, there's something, because it's interesting. Somebody was flying by what they thought was a volcano in the '30s, some busboy, and he thought, "Hey, that's, somebody built that. Wait a minute, there's 4" by 8" foot bricks. That's not, that's manmade." And it is literally the biggest pyramid in the world. It's bigger than the ones in Egypt, and it's in Guatemala.

Joe Rogan 13:13 Yeah, we talked about that the other day, yeah. It's a recent discovery, right?

Mel Gibson 13:17 Well, not that recent. I was, um, maybe 20 years ago, I visited.

Joe Rogan 13:22 Hmm.

Mel Gibson 13:22 I went down there with the, uh, with the, uh, archeologist, a guy named Richard Hansen, who's from Idaho or some place. And he's down there with his family. He's been working tirelessly for, like, 30 years, trying to extract this pre-classic city from the jungle. And there's not a bunch of tourists. All the pyramids in Tikal would fit inside the one big pyramid in El Mirador.

Joe Rogan 13:48 Really?

Mel Gibson 13:48 Yeah. It's a monster. And so, that tells you that the pre-classic civilization was bigger and grander and more sophisticated than the civilizations that came after it.

Joe Rogan 13:59 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 14:00 Pretty interesting. (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 14:01 Well, it is unbelievable how, like, when, when you, the accounts of, like, people that visited Mexico-

Mel Gibson 14:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:07 ... and visited the Aztecs, like, what the markets looked like, and how insane it was, and how gorgeous it was.

Mel Gibson 14:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:12 And then it just ... (clicks tongue)

Mel Gibson 14:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:14 Disease.

Mel Gibson 14:15 Yeah, disease.

Joe Rogan 14:16 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 14:16 Or, I don't know if it was disease or what. I think the people were pretty dissatisfied. It would've been hard for, uh, Cortes, with his limited numbers, to actually take over a civilization like that, unless they kind of happened upon a civilization that was pretty dissatisfied with the way things were going.

Joe Rogan 14:33 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 14:34 So I think they had people to help them sort of rebel.

Joe Rogan 14:38 I'm sure.

Mel Gibson 14:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:38 When, when you're making a movie like Apocalypto, I mean, that's a crazy undertaking. You're making an entire movie where there's no English in it at all.

Mel Gibson 14:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:45 And it's a blockbuster.

Mel Gibson 14:47 Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. It was fun.

Joe Rogan 14:49 That's one of the best movies, man. It's a fucking great movie.

Mel Gibson 14:52 (clicks tongue) Well, because I think it's scary because nobody's speaking your language. And you're looking at indigenous peoples who you ... And because they're not speaking your language, you totally kind of buy it, and you can buy the horror and, and the primal nature of, of the story you want to tell.

Joe Rogan 15:10 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 15:10 And s- and really, it's just a series of fears, one after the other. You know, being chased by, you know, scary guys, or, uh, wi- eaten by wild animals, or, you know, hit by, pff, blowgu- you know, blowgun.

Joe Rogan 15:23 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 15:24 It's all, like, uh, a series of these things. But I think, (clears throat) basically, what I was doing was trying to talk about our time now, and the civilization that we live in, and how close are we to collapse, and what are the things that lead to collapse, you know? It's environmental stuff. It's, um, human sacrifice.

Joe Rogan 15:44 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 15:45 I mean, we do that.

Joe Rogan 15:47 Kinda.

Mel Gibson 15:47 We do.

Joe Rogan 15:48 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 15:48 Yeah, we do.

Joe Rogan 15:50 We just dress it up.

Mel Gibson 15:51 Yep.

Joe Rogan 15:51 (clears throat) When you find out medications are killing people, and they keep prescribing them, and they do it for money, that's a kind of sacrifice.

Mel Gibson 15:58 It is.

Joe Rogan 15:58 When you find out that wars are ch- irresponsible.

Mel Gibson 16:01 They're not just wars.

Joe Rogan 16:02 Not just.

Mel Gibson 16:03 No.

Joe Rogan 16:04 They're, they're for money.

Mel Gibson 16:05 And we send our young people over there to-

Joe Rogan 16:07 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 16:07 ... to die.

Joe Rogan 16:08 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 16:09 Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for not.

Joe Rogan 16:12 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 16:12 I mean, I have, I love the s- I love the warrior. I do. I love the warrior, but I hate the war, man.

Joe Rogan 16:18 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 16:19 And, um, you know.

Joe Rogan 16:20 Well, we hate, we hate an unjust war.

Mel Gibson 16:22 Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:25 You know?

Mel Gibson 16:26 (sighs) Anyway, it's a, yeah, it's a mess. But, uh, the human sacrifice aspect is, is alive and well in our society, I think.

Joe Rogan 16:36 It really is. It's just dressed up in a different way.

Mel Gibson 16:38 Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, rhetoric around it. But they've always been able to justify it. Like, in Apocalypto, it was like, "Yeah, so the crops will be better. Hey, we'll just, you know."

Joe Rogan 16:48 Yeah, kill a few people.

Mel Gibson 16:50 Yeah. And then, I had all these people come out of the woodwork. "Hey, we're, we're archaeologists and scientists, and that never happened." So there's this revisionism about it too, that it didn't happen. But there are accounts from the time where, yes, people did witness these things. And, um, (smacks lips) and, of course, I had a bunch of battery of archaeologists and scientists and professors on my own that say, "Yeah, well, this d- stuff did happen, and here's the, here's the, you know, the depictions of it in paintings and images." And, you know, so it's like, it did happen. So, you know.

Joe Rogan 17:22 When you, when you set out to make a movie like that, like, what, first of all, what brings you to that? Did you get the script first? Like, what, w- w- th- was it an idea that you had in your head?

Mel Gibson 17:32 It was, uh, it just came from in here. And I was working on something, and a buddy of mine said, "So, what do you wanna do next?" I said, "Ah, man, I wanna direct something, and I always wanted to direct a chase film." He said, "What kinda chase?" I said, "A foot chase." He said, "What?" I said, "Yeah, people chasing you." I mean, there's something kinda primal and scary about a foot chase. And I think, in order to have a foot chase, you can't have a society where there's any kind of cars or anything like that. Otherwise, you'll have a car chase. But I wanna film a foot chase like it's a car chase. And, uh, he said, "Oh." And he says, "What are you thinking?" I said, "Well, I'm thinking if you go back before Columbus discovered America, you know?" And it's like, uh, people ass- assume that Columbus discovered America, and then life began. I said, "I wanna know what was happening right before he got there, before he got there."... and I said, "So I had this idea that you see all this stuff going on and there's no time period on it, and then all of a sudden you date it by the arrival of Europeans."

Joe Rogan 18:31 Mm.

Narrator 18:31 Hm.

Mel Gibson 18:31 And I thought, "It's kinda like the Rod Serling, you know, Planet of the Apes ending."

Narrator 18:35 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:36 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 18:36 It's like, it's kind of a cool, cool ending. And he said, "Oh, wow," and he said, "Where do you think Columbus landed?" I said, "Well, I don't know. Let's look." So I looked up, and the first peoples he encountered were Mayan trading canoes off the coast of Honduras, and I thought, "Cool. What was happening in Honduras?" You know? And you look at these towns and, and pyramids and temples and stuff at that time, and then the story was born f- from there. And, of course, then we read the book by Jared Diamond, Collapse. I read the Mayan bible, the Popol Vuh, and, you know-

Joe Rogan 19:09 Hm.

Mel Gibson 19:10 ... sort of tried to delve into what they believed and, and, and what their civilization was like. And they had concepts, as we do, of, uh, heaven and hell, of punishment and reward, you know? It was a little different, quite a bit different actually. In fact, when I went down to, uh, the archeological sites at El Mirador, they'd dug something up, and it was like, "Well, what is it?" And they thought, "We don't know." It could... There was this carved image in the stone of this Mayan warrior drinking, and he had an ear full, and it was like, "Hm." So they dug further and further, and they went, like, 26 meters down, and it was the entire story of the Popol Vuh.

Joe Rogan 19:51 Wow.

Mel Gibson 19:52 Of, of the twins going into hell and getting their father's head and swimming back, and it was... It's this crazy story. And it, um, uh, kind of dated that book, because I think it was a- almost 3,000 years old, this, this, uh, mural, this carving. So it tells you that the story's pretty old. And they thought... Initially it was probably back in the 1300s, but this confirmed that it was at least 2,600 years old, something like that.

Joe Rogan 20:18 Oh, wow.

Mel Gibson 20:19 Yeah, so it's pretty cool. That... To be there when they're digging that stuff up is mind-blowing. But-

Joe Rogan 20:25 Well, they're missing so much of the Mayan history. It's a ve- very intr- want some coffee?

Mel Gibson 20:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:29 I want the water. That's water right there.

Mel Gibson 20:30 Water.

Joe Rogan 20:31 They're missing so much of the Mayan history, you know, because everybody's gone, but, um, one of the- Y- You ever see the very bizarre carving where it looks like there's a guy who's sitting in a cockpit of a spaceship-

Mel Gibson 20:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:44 ... but looking through some sort of an, an eye thing?

Mel Gibson 20:47 Yeah, they got some weird stuff. It's like-

Joe Rogan 20:49 Weird.

Mel Gibson 20:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:50 With its fire underneath the chair. Like, what is that?

Mel Gibson 20:53 They got dudes that look like Europeans. They have these guys with red beards-

Joe Rogan 20:58 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 20:58 ... and helmets and stuff like that.

Joe Rogan 20:59 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 20:59 It's like these Phoenician guys, who probably traveled over there early on.

Joe Rogan 21:04 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 21:06 Probably maybe in the sixth century or something like that, so they... It wasn't that long a boat ride, so they probably went over there and made contact, and they, they thought they were gods or something, and then they went away again. And they said, "We'll wait for them to come back." And, uh, of course, they did come back, but it didn't work out the same.

Joe Rogan 21:23 No.

Mel Gibson 21:23 No. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:25 No. Well, there's so many accounts of, you know, people visiting, the... Especially when you get into the Amazon.

Mel Gibson 21:30 Sure. Oh, I don't know about the Amazon.

Joe Rogan 21:32 Oh, my God.

Mel Gibson 21:33 What's... Tell me about that.

Joe Rogan 21:34 Well, first of all, the Amazon used to be filled with people.

Mel Gibson 21:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:38 And most of the Amazon is manmade. The jungle in the Amazon is agriculture.

Mel Gibson 21:43 I didn't know that. Yeah, wow.

Joe Rogan 21:44 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 21:44 Okay.

Joe Rogan 21:44 The jungle in the Amazon, they didn't even know this until fairly recently.

Mel Gibson 21:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:49 And they now know from flying over... They use li- LIDAR, which is this, uh, light-emitting radar.

Mel Gibson 21:55 Yes, I know, yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:55 So they... So when they use this laser radar shit-

Mel Gibson 21:58 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 21:58 ... when they fly over it, they're finding all these grids and pathways and cities in the jungle, so the jungle had consumed all these cities. They think there was millions and millions of people living in the Amazon-

Mel Gibson 22:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:10 ... and that Europeans came over, (snaps fingers) diseases.

Mel Gibson 22:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:12 Everybody dies. Jungle consumes-

Mel Gibson 22:14 Sure.

Joe Rogan 22:14 ... the city. People come back 200 years later looking for it, like the Lost City of Z.

Mel Gibson 22:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:19 Like that, uh, that story.

Mel Gibson 22:20 Right, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:20 They go back to look and there's, there's nothing left.

Mel Gibson 22:23 Yeah. Guns, germs, and steel.

Joe Rogan 22:25 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 22:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:26 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 22:27 Great. Yeah. Wow, that's fascinating. I'll have to look into that then, so-

Joe Rogan 22:32 And we're going through all those things right now, guns, germs, and steel. (laughs)

Mel Gibson 22:34 Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:36 Germs. (laughs)

Mel Gibson 22:37 Yeah. Oh, God, the germs. I had... I'm just, just on the tail end of some hideous flu that was go-... I don't know if you got-

Joe Rogan 22:43 Did you get the H5N1 or whatever the fuck it is?

Mel Gibson 22:46 No. I don't know what the hell... Yeah, I've had that. That was the swine thing.

Joe Rogan 22:49 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 22:49 I had swine flu one time. I got bird flu.

Joe Rogan 22:51 Did you have that in 2009?

Mel Gibson 22:52 I... Yes.

Joe Rogan 22:53 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 22:53 It was around then, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:55 Yeah, it was a- it was an epidemic, a, a pandemic, whatever you wanna call it, but it didn't have the same sort of press releases that COVID did.

Mel Gibson 23:02 Yeah. Sure. I got the swine flu. I acted more like a pig, you know?

Joe Rogan 23:05 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 23:06 It was terrible, terrible, wallowing in my own mud.

Joe Rogan 23:10 So, uh, I like Flight Risk. It's a fun movie.

Mel Gibson 23:12 Oh, it's a hoot. You know, it's a, it's a hoot. I mean, I think the first thing you gotta do with any film, and I think it's incumbent upon all directors, artists to entertain first in some fashion. Even if it's a heavy story, you have to find some, some aspect of it that entertains, and, uh, (sniffs) and I think this, for entertainment's sake, is just fun, and it's quick. I'm, I'm not subjecting you to four hours of, like, watching autism dry.

Joe Rogan 23:39 Right. (laughs)

Mel Gibson 23:40 You know, it's like, it's like, uh, you know, it's 85, 90 minutes, and then you're out.

Joe Rogan 23:45 Yeah, and it's a good time.

Mel Gibson 23:46 Yeah, and Mark is insane.

Joe Rogan 23:47 Yeah. Yeah, he's great in it.

Mel Gibson 23:48 And... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:48 He plays a good psycho.

Mel Gibson 23:49 Oh, he's a psychopath. Mark's got a good dark side. There's some, there's some dark stuff there that he was able to draw from, and, uh, every now and then he'd let it out. I can't even repeat some of the stuff he'd say.

Joe Rogan 24:01 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 24:01 In fact, we had to cut most of it out. It was, like, really sick. But, uh, we, we hint at it.

Joe Rogan 24:08 Hm.

Mel Gibson 24:09 Yeah, anyway.

Joe Rogan 24:10 When you make a movie now, I mean, you've had such a career-

Mel Gibson 24:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:13 When you make a movie now, like, what motivates you at this point in your life?

Mel Gibson 24:16 Um...

Joe Rogan 24:17 Like, how do you, how do you decide, "Let's hit the green light on this one"?

Mel Gibson 24:21 Yeah, there are things that speak to me, and, uh, and they speak for a l- for a long time. Uh, it's, uh... (clears throat) I remember when I was a, a kid in high school, I was studying English. And they... Well, where did the English language come from? And they talked about, wow, it came from this old guttural German, old Norse that the Vikings brought across. And I always think, "Wow, that's cool, the Vikings," you know? And then immediately I start thinking that somebody should make... I wanna make a film about Vikings and they only speak in old Norse, because if-

Narrator 24:55 Ooh.

Mel Gibson 24:55 ... if, if they say, if they say, "Uh," you know, if they speak English all of a sudden-

Narrator 24:59 Right.

Mel Gibson 25:00 ... you're not buying it.

Narrator 25:01 Right, right, right.

Mel Gibson 25:01 But if they speak in some guttural language-

Narrator 25:03 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 25:03 ... you're sort of scared by them, and it's like, "That's scary to me." And then I said to myself, "I'm 17 years old, why am I thinking about making films about Vikings? I don't know anything about making films and not much about Vikings, so why the hell am I even thinking about that?" But that was something that was early on, was like a, a drive, I guess, to sort of depict things like that. So I did films in other languages. We had Mayan and in, in Aramaic, in, in Latin.

Narrator 25:29 Yes.

Mel Gibson 25:29 And, you know, so...

Narrator 25:30 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 25:30 And there's a power to that. I noticed when I was young, I used to go and watch a lot of foreign films. And I watched French movies, right? Or German, or whatever they were, Spanish. I'd watch them and I think, "Wow, the acting's great in those." And they seemed better because of the subtitles, because they-

Narrator 25:47 Right. Yeah, yeah.

Mel Gibson 25:48 ... they, they're more believable somehow. I don't know.

Narrator 25:50 Right, because you're not, y- you're not hearing insincerity in their voice, because you don't even understand what they're saying.

Mel Gibson 25:56 No. Yeah.

Narrator 25:57 Yeah, you just feel the emotions and the words.

Mel Gibson 25:59 And it also ha- it has to take your attention, because you have to do another function. You have to read.

Narrator 26:03 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 26:04 Which is another thing that sort of maybe blinds you to the flaws in the filmmaking, perhaps. So, you know, hey, it's a great trick.

Narrator 26:12 Yeah. Well, it's-

Mel Gibson 26:12 (laughs) It's obfuscation.

Narrator 26:13 There's a, there is a thing about reading it while you're watching, and it's like an added element of concentration.

Mel Gibson 26:18 Mm-hmm.

Narrator 26:19 You know? Like, uh, subtitled movies, you feel like you're a smarter person watching a movie where you're reading it as well.

Mel Gibson 26:26 Yeah. And there's a... Yeah, there's something about the written word that's like... It's a pretty interesting thing to throw into the mix. I know when I first started, it was kind of confusing, but then I got really good at it. And I think, uh, especially with something like, well, The Passion that I did, the written word was very important.

Narrator 26:42 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 26:43 Because it was... You know, you got all those books, the Bible, you know, you've got the, the different gospels and stuff that people are quite familiar with. Half the time, they didn't even need to read the subtitles, they could look at it and know what was going on.

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Narrator 28:11 That was a crazy movie-

Mel Gibson 28:12 (clears throat)

Narrator 28:13 ... because, uh, it was a great movie, but-

Mel Gibson 28:15 Yeah.

Narrator 28:16 ... it seemed like there was resistance to that movie.

Mel Gibson 28:18 Oh, yeah. No, there was, uh-

Narrator 28:19 Which, uh, I, I ve, I thought was very stra-

Mel Gibson 28:22 (laughs)

Narrator 28:22 There was, like, Hollywood resistance to that movie. Like, people didn't like that you were making it, it seemed like.

Mel Gibson 28:27 No. Yeah, there was a lot of, there was a lot of opposition to it. And, uh, I, I, I don't know. It's, uh... I think if you ever hit on that subject matter, you're gonna get people going, because-

Narrator 28:39 (clears throat) Of course.

Mel Gibson 28:40 ... it's big subject matter, and it's like, uh, you know? And my contention is, you know, when I was making it, it was like, you're making this film and it, the idea was that we're all responsible for this, that his sacrifice was for all mankind. And that for all, all our ills and all, all the things in our fallen nature, it was a redemption. So, you know? And I believed that, you know? I b- I actually am... You know, I was born into a Catholic family. I'm very Christian in my beliefs, you know? So I do actually believe this stuff to the full. (smacks lips) So depicting that was an honor, but it was also, yeah, you got the, you got the daylights beat out of you for it.

Narrator 29:24 Yeah, because there's, there's resistance, first of all-

Mel Gibson 29:26 (clears throat)

Narrator 29:26 ... from secular Hollywood-

Mel Gibson 29:27 Mm-hmm.

Narrator 29:28 ... where, for whatever reason, Christianity is the one religion that w- you're allowed to disparage.

Mel Gibson 29:34 Yeah.

Narrator 29:34 Christianity is the one religion where people, th- the, all these progressive, open-minded, leftist people, they'll embrace all these different religions-

Mel Gibson 29:45 Mm-hmm.

Narrator 29:45 ... until it comes to Christianity.

Mel Gibson 29:47 Yeah.

Narrator 29:47 And for whatever reason, that represents, like, white male, you know, what, whatever it represents, col- colonialism.

Mel Gibson 29:54 Mm-hmm.

Narrator 29:55 You know, w- whatever it, you know, whatever it represents, it's negative.

Mel Gibson 29:58 Yeah, sure. It's gotten a bad rap. And, uh, they, people do feel free to beat up on it.

Narrator 30:03 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 30:04 Even I do when I see it's like, you know, when it's not fair-

Narrator 30:08 Right.

Mel Gibson 30:08 ... or when I think it's off, you know?

Narrator 30:09 Right.

Mel Gibson 30:10 Like, uh, you know when they appoint some cardinal in some diocese and he's been covering up for, like, people who were child molesters-

Narrator 30:18 Yes.

Mel Gibson 30:18 ... or s- you know, like Theodore McCarrick or Cardinal Wuerl-

Narrator 30:21 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 30:21 ... or those kind of guys. I mean...

Narrator 30:22 Or the Pope.

Mel Gibson 30:23 Yes.

Narrator 30:23 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 30:24 Absolutely. I'm, um-

Narrator 30:25 Benedict.

Mel Gibson 30:26 Uh, not Bennie... Well, he was covering up, but like s-

Narrator 30:28 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 30:28 ... so is the guy now. And, uh-

Narrator 30:30 Is he really?

Mel Gibson 30:30 Well, yeah-It's, it's not great.

Joe Rogan 30:33 I thought he was, like, the more progressive pope.

Mel Gibson 30:35 Oh, he's very progressive, yes, but-

Joe Rogan 30:37 But he's covering up for stuff as well?

Narrator 30:39 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 30:39 Well, they, uh, they all are. I mean, it's a, it's a w- a dark institution-

Mel Gibson 30:43 (sniffs)

Joe Rogan 30:43 ... in a lot of ways-

Mel Gibson 30:44 It-

Joe Rogan 30:44 ... 'cause it's history.

Mel Gibson 30:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:46 You know?

Mel Gibson 30:46 Well, you know, the institution, it was instituted by Christ, you know, but that doesn't mean that it can't be flawed. And there's a school of thought that says (clears throat) it isn't what it purports to be anymore. It's, it's moved away from what it was intended to be and what it is. Uh, almost... There's a guy called, um, B- Bishop Vigano who says it's a counterfeit parallel church, and it's, it's running an entirely different religion. I actually don't, I don't adhere to a post-conciliar church. I adhere-

Joe Rogan 31:25 Can you define what that means?

Mel Gibson 31:26 Okay. Um, there was an event that happened in the, in the '60s. (clears throat) First, there was an event in the Vatican where they elected John XXIII pope, right, in 1958. I was two years old, right? Um, he was elected, and there was a very funny thing that happened in the conclave. You know, usually, there's white and black smoke that goes out of the, the chimneys to tell you, "We have a pope," you know? "Habemus papam."

Joe Rogan 31:54 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 31:54 You know? And the white smoke came out, and everybody cheered, and they went crazy. And then, about a half an hour later, black smoke came out. That... Never in history has that happened, that the white smoke came out and then the black smoke came out.

Joe Rogan 32:08 So white smoke means, "We found a new pope." Black smoke means, "No pope."

Mel Gibson 32:13 That's right. They'd have votes or there'd be one reason or another. They'd have a round in the conclave, and black smoke would come out many times. Many times, maybe. Maybe it would take two weeks. But never was it known that white smoke came out, then black smoke came out.

Joe Rogan 32:28 So what was the scenario?

Mel Gibson 32:29 (clears throat) That somebody was elected, and that maybe something else happened and he was pushed aside and someone else was put in.

Joe Rogan 32:39 Oh.

Mel Gibson 32:40 So it was- (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 32:40 Power struggle.

Mel Gibson 32:41 Some kind of power struggle. And, um, of course, n- the man who came out was a man called Angelo Roncalli, and he was John XXIII. Now, it's interesting to note that never had a pope taken the name of another pope ever before in history.

Joe Rogan 32:56 Hm.

Mel Gibson 32:56 But this man took the name of a known anti-pope from the 15th century that Cosimo de' Medici put in there as his own man. "I'll get you on the chair, and then everything will be rosy," you know? "Everything will go good for business."

Joe Rogan 33:10 Oh.

Mel Gibson 33:10 You know, whatever he was putting him in there for, some corrupt reason, but... Um, and there have been corrupt men in that place before. I mean, there's Alexander VI, and Julius II, and Sixtus IV. I mean, some of these guys are, you know... They're not saints. Um, so he took the name of a known anti-pope from the 5th century who actually said, "Yes, I'm an anti-pope. Sorry I'm not the right guy," 'cause there was more than one, and he confessed to being. And he wanted to, you know, square things with, with the Almighty, I guess, so he confessed to being an anti-pope. And, uh, so he took the same name as that guy, John XXIII.

Joe Rogan 33:49 Hm.

Mel Gibson 33:49 So it's interesting, don't you think? I mean, I... Why would he do that?

Joe Rogan 33:52 Well, whenever you have that kind of power... Like, I'm sure you've been to the Vatican, right?

Mel Gibson 33:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:57 It's stunning.

Mel Gibson 33:58 Yes, it's huge.

Joe Rogan 33:59 It's so cra- When you're walking around, you see the, just the massive ama- Just the dollar value in the art that they possess.

Mel Gibson 34:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:08 It's fucking insane.

Mel Gibson 34:09 It's crazy, yeah. And, uh, you know, it's a very small country. It's a country, I guess.

Joe Rogan 34:16 Yeah, it's a country inside of a small city.

Mel Gibson 34:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:19 'Cause Rome's not the biggest city.

Mel Gibson 34:21 No.

Joe Rogan 34:22 And then it's got a country inside the city?

Mel Gibson 34:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:25 With a, with walls around it?

Mel Gibson 34:27 Sure.

Joe Rogan 34:27 And you can't extradite people?

Mel Gibson 34:29 Uh, yeah. Pretty weird.

Joe Rogan 34:30 How convenient.

Mel Gibson 34:31 Yeah. Even Ratzinger, he didn't drive from the Vatican to the other place. He flew.

Joe Rogan 34:38 Ooh.

Mel Gibson 34:39 And it was only a little while, 'cause who knows why? I don't know.

Joe Rogan 34:43 Well, he was wanted.

Mel Gibson 34:44 Yes.

Joe Rogan 34:45 Yeah, I mean, he had done... One of the things that he had done was he had moved a priest that had molested 100 kids, and he moved him s- to some new place where he molested deaf kids.

Mel Gibson 34:58 Yeah, yeah. Boy.

Joe Rogan 35:00 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 35:00 Yeah. I know. There-

Joe Rogan 35:01 That's the w- the dirtiest, most evil practice that the Catholic Church has been accused of.

Mel Gibson 35:06 (clears throat) I think so, and many institutions as well.

Joe Rogan 35:09 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 35:09 But that is a very bad one. And, uh, I think it's all part and parcel of the same corruption that crept in. And when you asked what's the difference between pre-Vatican II, so Vatican II happened, and of course they, they took the church and they, they reformed it, and they changed things in it.

Joe Rogan 35:30 (clears throat)

Mel Gibson 35:30 And it didn't necessarily agree with everything that went before it.

Joe Rogan 35:34 Hm.

Mel Gibson 35:35 And up to that point, yeah, you could find it agreed with itself. But all of a sudden, you got something else, to the point where now, (sighs) I mean, I mean we got a pope that brought a, a South American idol into the church to worship.

Joe Rogan 35:53 Really?

Mel Gibson 35:53 He did, the Pachamama. He brought the South Ame- And he got that-

Joe Rogan 35:57 What did, well, I don't, I don't know what that is.

Mel Gibson 35:58 It's a, it's kinda like a South American god, Pachamama. It's this... And he-

Joe Rogan 36:03 Why would he do that?

Mel Gibson 36:04 (sighs) Good question. But he did.

Joe Rogan 36:08 Did he have an explanation for why he did it?

Mel Gibson 36:10 Yeah, it's kind of a weasel-worded thing of like, "Oh, all religions are just as good as one another," but-

Joe Rogan 36:15 Mm.

Mel Gibson 36:15 You know, if that's his contention-

Joe Rogan 36:17 He shouldn't be the pope.

Mel Gibson 36:18 No. I mean, he-

Joe Rogan 36:19 How can you be the pope if you say all religions are just as good?

Mel Gibson 36:22 You know, we all worship the, you know... So yeah, that is the Pachamama. There you go.

Joe Rogan 36:26 So he brought that in.

Mel Gibson 36:27 Yeah, into the Vatican. Then the hierar- He... The hierarchy even worshiped it. They had a ceremony around it outside, so-

Joe Rogan 36:34 What?

Mel Gibson 36:34 Well, that constitutes apostasy, Joe.

Joe Rogan 36:36 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 36:36 It's a, that's an apostasy move.

Joe Rogan 36:38 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 36:38 All right?

Joe Rogan 36:39 Worshiping false gods.

Mel Gibson 36:40 Yeah, that's number one on the Mosaic hit list, you know?

Joe Rogan 36:43 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 36:44 Moses goes up on the mountain. He comes back down, and people are worshiping but a golden calf?

Joe Rogan 36:48 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 36:48 You know? It's, it's that.

Joe Rogan 36:49 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 36:50 So (clears throat) you can't do that.And, uh, for me, that's a, a departure from (sighs) what-

Joe Rogan 36:57 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 36:57 ... you, you know, that's called apostasy.

Joe Rogan 37:00 Right.

Mel Gibson 37:00 That's a falling away from. And the very nature of apostasy means that you have to be part of it to fall away from it.

Joe Rogan 37:07 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 37:08 So it's an inside job.

Joe Rogan 37:10 Oh.

Mel Gibson 37:11 So.

Joe Rogan 37:11 So what, do you think there's a motive behind these things?

Mel Gibson 37:14 (sighs) I don't think he... well, probably. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:19 What do you think it is?

Mel Gibson 37:20 I don't know. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:22 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 37:22 But it isn't good. I think, look, I think we're, we're, we're looking at a world where, (sighs) and this is the, in the next film I'm gonna do, I'm gonna try and tackle this question, that there are big realms, spiritual realms. There's good, there's evil, and they are slugging it out for the souls of mankind. And my question is, why are we even important, little old flawed humanity, why are we important in that process where the big realms are slugging it out over us? And I think there's bigger things at play here. And institutions that purport to touch on the divine are necessarily going to be affected by that slugfest that's goin' on between good and evil.

Joe Rogan 38:11 Right.

Mel Gibson 38:13 And...

Joe Rogan 38:14 And sometimes good gives up ground.

Mel Gibson 38:16 Yeah. And maybe not on purpose. You know?

Joe Rogan 38:18 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 38:19 Maybe there's some deception involved or self-deception.

Joe Rogan 38:21 Right, co-opted.

Mel Gibson 38:22 Like, every morning when I wake up, I actually pray that I don't deceive myself.

Joe Rogan 38:28 Hm.

Mel Gibson 38:28 You know? Because it's like, you know, your mind is a very funny place. I mean, there's, uh, I've always said, you know, it's your second thought and your first action that, that you're responsible for. Your first thought, throw it away, you know?

Joe Rogan 38:43 Right.

Mel Gibson 38:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:44 But upon consideration...

Mel Gibson 38:46 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:46 ... the second thought is what you're responsible for.

Mel Gibson 38:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:49 That's the difference between first-degree and second-degree murder.

Mel Gibson 38:51 There you go.

Joe Rogan 38:52 Right?

Mel Gibson 38:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:54 Right?

Mel Gibson 38:54 There you go.

Joe Rogan 38:55 First degree, like, I'm plotting this out. And we, we take that into consideration when we sentence people.

Mel Gibson 38:59 Sure.

Joe Rogan 39:00 Like, if you're a person who just, you're, all of a sudden you're in a fight with a guy, you didn't expect it, and you stab him and kill him, second-degree murder.

Mel Gibson 39:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:08 But if you're like, "I'm gonna kill this motherfucker."

Mel Gibson 39:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:10 "I'm gonna find out where he is."

Mel Gibson 39:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:11 "And then I'm gonna go get him." First-degree.

Mel Gibson 39:13 Sure.

Joe Rogan 39:13 That's-

Mel Gibson 39:13 I planned a lot of murders in my life, you know?

Joe Rogan 39:15 Yeah. In your head?

Mel Gibson 39:16 We all have. Yeah, in your head, you plan the murder and you think, "Well, that's not a very good idea."

Joe Rogan 39:19 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 39:20 "But I think I could get away with it."

Joe Rogan 39:21 Right, but there's the second thought.

Mel Gibson 39:23 Sure.

Joe Rogan 39:23 Yeah. That is interesting that we take that into consideration.

Mel Gibson 39:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:27 That we do. Like, if you've had time to think about it, you're a different kind of person, the person that acts in the act.

Mel Gibson 39:33 Sure.

Joe Rogan 39:34 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 39:34 You're in your animal brain.

Joe Rogan 39:35 An act of passion.

Mel Gibson 39:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:36 Yes.

Mel Gibson 39:36 And I found this out, I actually spent a long time in my animal brain, which is a very horrible place to be. And, um...

Joe Rogan 39:45 When you say that, what do you mean by you spent a long time in your animal brain?

Mel Gibson 39:48 You're in flight or fight.

Joe Rogan 39:50 Right.

Mel Gibson 39:51 All the time. You don't even sleep. It's like, really not a good place to be. And if anybody looks at you the wrong way, you wanna bite him.

Joe Rogan 40:00 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 40:00 And sometimes you say and do things that are socially unacceptable. And, you know, I went and got a brain scan by this guy called Daniel Amen who's this brain guy. He's against all psych meds and stuff, but he thinks, like, "Let me have a look at your brain." And he put a radioactive tracer in me.

Joe Rogan 40:16 Whoa.

Mel Gibson 40:17 And, to photograph my brain.

Joe Rogan 40:19 Right, MRI, right?

Mel Gibson 40:21 He works with a lot of... Yeah, he works with a lot of football players and guys-

Joe Rogan 40:23 Okay.

Mel Gibson 40:23 ... who've had brain injuries. Man, it's thirsty in here.

Joe Rogan 40:25 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 40:27 But, um, so he, (laughs) he looked at my brain and he was like... and he opens the file and I'm in there with the guy and he, he looks up and he goes, "Are you okay?"

Joe Rogan 40:38 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 40:40 (laughs) And he go... first, no, first he went like this, "Huh?" And I said, "What?" And he went, "Are you okay?" Like that. And I said, "Yeah, I think so." And he, he came over and he sat next to me, but very slowly and cautiously, and he says, "No, you're not." And I said, "What do you mean?" He says, "You got the worst case of PTSD I have ever seen." And I said, "L- you, you mean, like, even worse than guys in war and shit like that?" And he goes, "Y- yeah." And he says, "You're not okay." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:08 Jesus Christ. (laughs)

Mel Gibson 41:09 And, and I was like... and I s-

Joe Rogan 41:10 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 41:10 And I, I start, I started to well up, you know? Like, "No, no I'm not." You know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:15 Oh, boy.

Mel Gibson 41:17 It's like... (laughs) And it was, uh... he had a very miraculous and a great remedy for it, which was to eat a bunch of fish oil, vitamin B complex, and get into a hyperbaric chamber for 40 sessions, but make sure you do at least two or three a week.

Joe Rogan 41:36 Oh.

Mel Gibson 41:38 It fixed my head.

Joe Rogan 41:39 Really?

Mel Gibson 41:39 Yeah, it got me outta that wacky place, you know?

Joe Rogan 41:42 So-

Mel Gibson 41:43 B-

Joe Rogan 41:43 ... it was something to do with nutrition and oxygen and...

Mel Gibson 41:47 Yeah. And your brain is neuroplasti- he t- he explained neuroplasticity to me and how, okay, you could get brain damage and, like, holes in your head and all, you know, concussion. I used to play rugby.

Joe Rogan 41:57 Ah.

Mel Gibson 41:58 And I've been knocked down on the field a couple of times, you know?

Joe Rogan 42:00 That explains a lot.

Mel Gibson 42:02 You know?

Joe Rogan 42:02 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 42:03 And, um, so, uh, it actually... you can actually heal the holes in your head. They look like Swiss cheese. (laughs) Like, horrible. There's a lot, a lot of these football players get like that too.

Joe Rogan 42:14 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 42:14 The poor guys. I mean, they get depressed and they get-

Joe Rogan 42:16 Oh, yeah.

Mel Gibson 42:17 You know? Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:18 Hormonal imbalance, pituitary gland's fucked up.

Mel Gibson 42:21 Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 42:22 They're not, yeah, not producing testosterone or human growth hormone correctly.

Mel Gibson 42:25 That's correct.

Joe Rogan 42:26 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 42:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:26 Depression, low energy.

Mel Gibson 42:28 Yep.

Joe Rogan 42:29 Irritability.

Mel Gibson 42:30 A- irritability, want to kill somebody.

Joe Rogan 42:31 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 42:32 You know? It's like terrible stuff.

Joe Rogan 42:33 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 42:33 You know? And, uh, and it's just not socially acceptable. Plus I don't wanna go to prison.

Joe Rogan 42:38 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 42:38 So...

Joe Rogan 42:38 Well, the rugby, I bet that's a, a giant factor.

Mel Gibson 42:41 Uh, yeah. I, I played from, like, 13 to probably in my late teens. And, and you get knocked around a little bit.

Joe Rogan 42:48 Oh, 100%.

Mel Gibson 42:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:49 Yeah, there's no if, ands, or buts about that.

Mel Gibson 42:52 No helmet, no... you know.

Joe Rogan 42:53 Well, people don't realize, like, even shots to the chest cause brain damage.

Mel Gibson 42:57 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:57 Yeah. That's what people are realizing now.

Mel Gibson 42:59 Yeah, sure.

Joe Rogan 43:00 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 43:00 I mean, you know, and, like, I'm addicted to the UFC, right? I love it.... but I know that these guys are... I, I feel kind of sorry for them.

Joe Rogan 43:09 I do as well. Yeah.

Mel Gibson 43:10 And, and one of the guys, I, I knew one of the guys fairly well. And usually, I'm pretty immune to, like... But, like, he was in there, and he was fighting against Volanovski. It was Brian Ortega. (laughs) And he was getting his ass handed to him in one fight. He almost got him a couple of times, but like-

Joe Rogan 43:28 Yeah, he almost submitted him twice.

Mel Gibson 43:30 Yeah, I know. But because I knew Brian, it was like my chi- it was like my son was in there.

Joe Rogan 43:35 Right.

Mel Gibson 43:36 I, I almost started crying.

Joe Rogan 43:36 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 43:36 I was like... And it got to me. I was like, "I should probably feel like this about all these guys, but I don't know them as well."

Joe Rogan 43:42 It becomes a problem for me when I'm friends with a guy-

Mel Gibson 43:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:45 ... and then, uh, and then also I see when they're on the tail end of their career, and they can't take shots anymore.

Mel Gibson 43:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:50 And then when you talk to them, you recognize the speech patterns are slurring.

Mel Gibson 43:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:54 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 43:55 Yeah. I met Muhammad Ali when he was in the chair, you know?

Joe Rogan 43:57 Oof.

Mel Gibson 43:58 And, um... (laughs) Man, I don't know if I can even tell this story. What he said was so funny, but he was still in there, and he was still a little devil.

Joe Rogan 44:07 Hmm.

Mel Gibson 44:08 And he was like, uh... And he was still, he was still fucking with people.

Joe Rogan 44:12 Of course.

Mel Gibson 44:12 But it was like, uh... (laughs) I t- I can't tell the story.

Joe Rogan 44:15 You can't?

Mel Gibson 44:16 No, man.

Joe Rogan 44:17 Okay.

Mel Gibson 44:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:17 We'll footnote it. Tell me later. (laughs)

Mel Gibson 44:19 I'll tell you later. It is funny.

Joe Rogan 44:20 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 44:20 But it was my assistant, you know?

Joe Rogan 44:22 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 44:22 It was what he said to my assistant. It was, like, so funny. And, um... And, and then he said it, and we all went like, "Whoa." And then I looked at him, and he was just like (laughs) laughing.

Joe Rogan 44:32 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 44:32 He was laughing his ass off. So, he was still all in there, but it was hard. I guess he had the damage of being punch drunk.

Joe Rogan 44:39 Yeah. It's trauma-related Parkinson's disease.

Mel Gibson 44:41 Yes.

Joe Rogan 44:42 Very common for fighters.

Mel Gibson 44:43 Oh, my God. Oh, no.

Joe Rogan 44:44 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 44:45 Yeah. Yeah. (laughs) It's not good.

Joe Rogan 44:47 No.

Mel Gibson 44:47 I got knocked out when I w- (laughs) in a fight when I was, like, 20. And it was like knocked out, like out. And it was... Uh, you know, I woke up in the hospital.

Joe Rogan 44:59 Hmm.

Mel Gibson 44:59 Not good.

Joe Rogan 45:00 No. Well, a few of those will explain a lot.

Mel Gibson 45:04 Yes, it does.

Joe Rogan 45:05 Yeah. And we didn't know that, you know, back then. That's why i- it always drives me crazy in a movie when someone gets hit over the head with a gun and knocked out, and then five minutes later, they're fighting, and they're fine.

Mel Gibson 45:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:14 You know, it's like-

Mel Gibson 45:14 Or shot-

Joe Rogan 45:15 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 45:15 ... in the arm, you know?

Joe Rogan 45:16 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 45:16 They're gonna kill you. You know. I, that always makes me laugh too, but we used to do it, you know? We used to do it.

Joe Rogan 45:21 Well, you kind of have to, right?

Mel Gibson 45:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:22 It's like part of the whole thing of telling a movie. You gotta-

Mel Gibson 45:26 Sure. I mean, Michelle-

Joe Rogan 45:27 It's a special kind of disability.

Mel Gibson 45:28 ... Michelle Dockery even brains Mark Wahlberg with a fire extinguisher-

Joe Rogan 45:31 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 45:31 ... at one point, and it's like... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:32 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 45:33 He's back, you know?

Joe Rogan 45:34 Brains him, shoots him.

Mel Gibson 45:36 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:36 It's, uh, it's a lot.

Mel Gibson 45:37 He's a cockroach. You can't kill him.

Joe Rogan 45:39 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 45:39 It takes a lot more. We'll... You'll find out. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:42 Yeah. But, uh, we're w- you know, f-... People used to think that concussions were just something you recover from, like no big deal.

Mel Gibson 45:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:50 You get a concussion, take a break for a little while, you'll be fine.

Mel Gibson 45:53 Mm-mm.

Joe Rogan 45:53 You might not be fine.

Mel Gibson 45:54 No, you're not.

Joe Rogan 45:54 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 45:55 I got a concussion at my daughter's wedding. This is really weird, okay? So, she's getting married. Married a great guy. They got a great family. And, um, a buddy of mine from Australia comes to the wedding, and he goes, "Hey." He comes up, and I, I go to hug him, and he, he ducks down, and he comes up, and he puts his shoulder into the point of my chin. The guy weighs 240, and he puts his shoulder into the point of my chin and knocks me the fuck out.

Joe Rogan 46:22 Jesus Christ.

Mel Gibson 46:23 And I'm like, "Ah." (laughs) And, like, for the next four months, I'm messed up. I have to get, like, a guy to work cranial, sacral, you know, fix me up, and stuff like that. It really-

Joe Rogan 46:34 Jesus-

Mel Gibson 46:34 ... messed me up.

Joe Rogan 46:35 ... fucking Australians.

Mel Gibson 46:36 Yeah. Yeah, there you go.

Joe Rogan 46:37 Wild folk.

Mel Gibson 46:38 Worse than Germans, yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:39 (laughs) They're just wild ex-prisoners.

Mel Gibson 46:41 (laughs) Yeah, yeah. Wild prisoner of Mother England, yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:44 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 46:45 Anyway.

Joe Rogan 46:46 So, this, th- this story that you wanna tell about good and evil-

Mel Gibson 46:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:50 ... like, uh, d- do you have a script, or is it just-

Mel Gibson 46:52 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:52 ... a thing in your head? What, what is it?

Mel Gibson 46:54 Yeah, it's, it's, it's the resurrection story.

Joe Rogan 46:57 Oh.

Mel Gibson 46:57 And it... And... But it's, it's, uh, it's not just... It's not linear, because you can't really... It's hard to understand, so it's gotta be put in a framework where you answer a few other questions as well. And you have to juxtapose the event itself against everything else so that it makes some kind of sense in, in a bigger picture, which is a hard thing to do. And it took my brother and I about... And, and R-... A guy called Randall Wallace, plus my brother and I, took us six, seven years to write it.

Joe Rogan 47:36 So, are you doing this with historians as well? Are you trying to make it...

Mel Gibson 47:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:40 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 47:40 Yeah, historical stuff. Well, I regard, I regard the Gospels as history. It's verifiable history. Some people say, "Well, it's a fairytale. He never existed." But he did. And there are other accounts, verifiable historical accounts outside the Biblical ones, that also bear this up that, yes, he did exist. And, um, and, and the other aspect of that is that the, all the evangelists, the apostles who went out there, um, every single one of those guys died rather than deny their belief. And nobody dies for a lie, nobody.

Joe Rogan 48:16 Right.

Mel Gibson 48:17 So, that's part of what I'm doing. It's like showing nobody dies for a lie.

Joe Rogan 48:22 Yeah. Well, the resurrection is the one that is the most difficult for people to swallow.

Mel Gibson 48:28 Yes.

Joe Rogan 48:29 That, that's the one that requires the most faith.

Mel Gibson 48:31 The most faith and the most belief, yeah, resurrection.

Joe Rogan 48:34 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 48:35 Who, who g- who gets back up three days later after he gets murdered in public. Um, who gets back up under his own power? Buddha didn't do that shit.

Joe Rogan 48:45 Right.

Mel Gibson 48:46 You know? So...

Joe Rogan 48:48 You believe that was a real event?

Mel Gibson 48:50 Yeah, I do. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:51 What brought you to that belief? Is it something that you've always had, or is it something you, y- you've studied it, and you've come to this conclusion because of the historical accounts and-

Mel Gibson 49:01 Yes. Uh, I think as a child, you know, one accepts things on faith because, you know, you're raised by people who are nice to you, and they believe it. And my dad was a pretty smart guy. He was like Mensa smart, you know? Like, real smart.... like, back in 1968, he won Jeopardy!, right? And then-

Joe Rogan 49:19 Really?

Mel Gibson 49:20 And then they brought all the Jeopardy! winners back, and he played all the winners, and he beat all of them, too. So, he had a mind like a steel trap. And his memory was practically photographic. My memory's pornographic, but it's like-

Joe Rogan 49:33 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 49:33 It's like, his, his was like... I don't have that, that kind of mind.

Joe Rogan 49:36 Right.

Mel Gibson 49:37 Um, but, I'm more... Like, he did math, and I, you know, I can't add. But, uh... Um, so as a child, you learn, um, these things, and you accept them on faith. And I still have that faith, but as I got older, I came to it through intellect, and through reading, and putting things together, and accounts, and then occurrences, like, in my own life, you know? I mean, just recently, they verified the Shroud of Turin. Have you seen that?

Joe Rogan 50:07 I've been reading about it, and I know that there's some contention.

Mel Gibson 50:11 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 50:11 There's some, some discussion and debate about it.

Mel Gibson 50:14 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:15 But they used to think that it was only a couple hundred years old.

Mel Gibson 50:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:18 And n-now they've, they've changed that.

Mel Gibson 50:20 Yeah, they've said, "No, it, it's back then."

Joe Rogan 50:22 They also don't understand how it was made, which to me, is very fascinating. 'Cause it's not paint. It's not, they don't know what caused the image itself and how that technology would have even been available-

Mel Gibson 50:35 It wasn't, no.

Joe Rogan 50:35 ... a couple thousand years ago.

Mel Gibson 50:37 An intense light, I mean, atomic, to leave almost, like, a photographic imprint on a piece of cloth.

Joe Rogan 50:45 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 50:46 And-

Joe Rogan 50:46 It's wild. Look, pull that up. Pull the Shroud of Turin up.

Mel Gibson 50:49 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:49 It's wild to look at because-

Mel Gibson 50:50 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:51 ... it's, it's so interesting.

Mel Gibson 50:52 Oh, yeah. And you can see it, that it depicts a first-century Hebrew male because the hairstyle was from, from the first century, and a Hebrew hairstyle, that he was about six feet tall, that he was completely scourged all over his body. He was crucified.

Joe Rogan 51:13 Um, yeah-

Mel Gibson 51:14 That's it there, yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:14 ... the one on the left is... The one on the right is just, like, an artistic rendition.

Narrator 51:18 It's the AI recreation.

Mel Gibson 51:18 That's the face.

Joe Rogan 51:19 Yeah, click on that one, the face. The face, yeah. That's good enough. Get that large.

Mel Gibson 51:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:23 That's fucking crazy.

Mel Gibson 51:25 Okay. Yeah, yeah. Scourged, beaten-

Joe Rogan 51:27 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 51:27 ... a cra-...

Narrator 51:28 The, the wounds on the, the thorns, the hands, the feet.

Joe Rogan 51:31 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 51:32 Uh, and, and the scourging. And the, the, the hairstyle was from the first century. And the pollens that they found in the cloth were from that region.

Joe Rogan 51:43 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 51:44 Uh, also, the weave was a first-century weave. That was typical. And another guy, an archeologist who I knew who actually translated The Passion in Aramaic, told me that if you look close, you can see the, the, the image of a Tiberius coin marks on the eyes. Now, I don't know if that's real or not. I've never actually checked that, but th- there's images of Tiberius on the coin.

Joe Rogan 52:09 'Cause then they would put the coins over the eyes?

Mel Gibson 52:12 Yeah. So that would date it. Uh, but they have now verified that it does actually go back to that time period. For a while, they were testing pieces that had been repaired in the 13th century or-

Joe Rogan 52:23 Right, right.

Mel Gibson 52:24 ... you know, so-

Joe Rogan 52:24 What is the latest on that, Jamey? Can you see... Like-

Narrator 52:27 I did... I was trying to get that. I... Two different articles from within the last six months saying opposite things.

Mel Gibson 52:33 Yeah, the Smithsonian's got... Yeah, opposite, of course.

Narrator 52:34 I'm trying to figure out which one sounded the most accurate.

Joe Rogan 52:36 Well, it's such a crazy thing to even try to verify.

Mel Gibson 52:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:42 Like, what are you, like, what are you saying? Are you saying that this is really the shroud that Jesus was covered in? So, you're saying Jesus historically, absolutely did exist, and we think that this is the shroud that covered him. That, just that alone, people-

Mel Gibson 52:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:55 ... incredulity, people's... Immediately, their, their, they, their hackles raise. Like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute."

Mel Gibson 53:01 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:01 And they just... Instead of, like, looking at it objectively, they al- almost always wanna look at it from a point of view of dispu- disproving it immediately.

Mel Gibson 53:09 Of course.

Joe Rogan 53:09 Dismissing it immediately.

Mel Gibson 53:10 But that's, you know, that's science, isn't it? You have to sort of-

Joe Rogan 53:12 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 53:12 ... you know, you play the devil's advocate.

Joe Rogan 53:15 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 53:15 And that's okay. Go for it, you know.

Joe Rogan 53:17 Um, do you... Are you aware of Graham Hancock?

Mel Gibson 53:19 Ooh, no.

Joe Rogan 53:20 Graham Hancock is, uh, he's sort of, um, a historian that has a very, uh... He's got a, a series on Netflix. He's a fascinating guy. And his, his career started because he was investigating this, these accounts in Ethiopia-

Mel Gibson 53:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:38 ... of the Ark of the Covenant.

Mel Gibson 53:40 Right.

Joe Rogan 53:40 And that they believe the Ark of the Covenant is in this one church that's protected by all these monks that wind up getting c-cataracts and radiation disease and sickness. And they think that it's because they're protecting this Ark of the Covenant, this-

Mel Gibson 53:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:55 ... this actual thing, that it's an actual physical thing that's there.

Mel Gibson 53:58 And if you touch it, you get zapped.

Joe Rogan 54:00 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 54:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:01 Yeah, and that even being in its presence fucks these people up.

Mel Gibson 54:03 Maybe, maybe. Who knows?

Joe Rogan 54:05 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 54:05 I mean, there's gotta be some place, right? They buried it. They lost track of it.

Joe Rogan 54:08 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 54:09 But, uh... Man, it used to be... And, and all the stories are if you're even touched it, you fall over.

Joe Rogan 54:14 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 54:15 You know? 'Cause it was-

Joe Rogan 54:16 Like, what i-

Mel Gibson 54:16 ... instructed electrically somehow.

Joe Rogan 54:18 Yeah, like, what is that? What's in there?

Mel Gibson 54:20 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 54:20 Why, why is it giving people cancer if they're really protecting it?

Mel Gibson 54:23 I think it's the actual structure of the container it's in that, that is the problem. That's my thought on it.

Joe Rogan 54:29 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 54:29 I could be wrong, but I think inside it, they have (clears throat) things from, like, uh, when Moses was... Like, manna and, you know, stuff like that, that they, they managed to keep from... Like, for example, they, they say that, uh, (sighs) that Golgotha, the place where the crucifixion happened, it's called Golgotha, the place of the skull, because that's where Adam's head is buried.

Joe Rogan 55:00 Really?

Mel Gibson 55:01 Yes, and that, that it's also perhaps the same place, and, and it, it tells you it's kind of in the same area where Abraham almost sacrifices Isaac.

Joe Rogan 55:13 Oh.

Mel Gibson 55:15 So, that's interesting.

Joe Rogan 55:16 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 55:17 And it's, uh...And, and the cross, when ... in any artistic depiction, at the foot of the cross, underneath it, is the skull, uh, representing the Skull of Adam.

Joe Rogan 55:30 Huh.

Mel Gibson 55:31 So, it's interesting. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:35 Yeah, there it is.

Mel Gibson 55:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:36 That's the Skull of Adam, huh?

Mel Gibson 55:37 Yep.

Joe Rogan 55:38 Wow.

Mel Gibson 55:40 Place of the Skull, Memory, Myth, and the Chapel of Adam. Anyway.

Joe Rogan 55:43 What did you, uh, find on the Shroud of Turin, Jamie?

Narrator 55:45 Well, I, uh, liter- ... both those articles j- just asked, like, one person. Like, one re- researcher thought it was, another researcher, based off of their research, said it wasn't.

Joe Rogan 55:55 Mm-hmm. Can you put it to the one that thought it was?

Narrator 55:57 Um, let me see. So the one who thought it was is a, uh, like, a nuclear researcher.

Joe Rogan 56:02 Does date to the time when Jesus?

Mel Gibson 56:04 A nuclear researcher?

Narrator 56:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:05 Jesus Christ.

Narrator 56:06 The other one was, like-

Mel Gibson 56:06 Hmm.

Narrator 56:07 ... a AI artist from Brazil.

Joe Rogan 56:08 Yeah.

Narrator 56:09 So I, like ... I don't know who has the most-

Joe Rogan 56:12 So it says, "Study published in the journal Heritage, the authors conducted dating work on a sample from the shroud, coming to the conclusion that it may be a 2,000-year-old relic. The shroud, which has long been the subject of intense scrutiny, features a faint image of a man some believe is the body of Jesus, miraculously imprinted onto the cloth. While the latest study does not discuss the question of whether or not the artifact was indeed Jesus' versial- ... bur- uh, burial shroud, specifically, the authors did find its age is roughly consistent with his time."

Mel Gibson 56:40 Hmm. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I think ... Isn't the Smithsonian guy old for it? I don't know. Maybe that's him. I don't know. But, uh ... Yeah. There's for and against. There's always been.

Joe Rogan 56:56 Yeah, always. It's just-

Mel Gibson 56:57 But the, but the, but the image is like-

Joe Rogan 56:59 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 57:00 ... come on.

Joe Rogan 57:00 It's pretty crazy.

Mel Gibson 57:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:01 Whatever it is is pretty crazy. And the fact that they don't know how they made it is also pretty crazy.

Mel Gibson 57:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:05 It's not a painting.

Mel Gibson 57:06 Nope.

Joe Rogan 57:07 And then not, not exactly sure how-

Mel Gibson 57:08 Nothing.

Joe Rogan 57:09 ... it even came about.

Mel Gibson 57:11 Yeah. It had to have been some kind of intense light.

Joe Rogan 57:13 Well, the, the thought was that even trying to replicate something like that today-

Mel Gibson 57:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:18 ... is, would be incredibly difficult to do.

Mel Gibson 57:19 Sure. It's like an X-ray vision, you know?

Joe Rogan 57:21 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 57:22 It's, it's like an X-ray. That's what it ... There ... You only see, you really see it in the negative only.

Joe Rogan 57:26 Right.

Mel Gibson 57:26 You know? It's crazy.

Joe Rogan 57:27 Right, it's like a negative. Yeah.

Mel Gibson 57:28 Yeah. Hmm. Hey, I buy it.

Joe Rogan 57:33 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 57:34 But, but, but that's not the only reason I buy it. I mean, I think, you know, there's other logical reasons why I, why I believe, so ...

Joe Rogan 57:42 Like, what are those?

Mel Gibson 57:44 Oh, okay. Stuff that happens in your own life. The results you get from actually appealing to a power greater than yourself, you know? And, I mean, I don't think it's any secret, I am flawed in the fact that I am, by nature, born an alcoholic, right? I did drugs, I did alcohol. So ... And there was nothing that could stop me from doing that. Nothing. So I was really kind of on ... You're on a downhill run. So I regard the fact that I was able to appeal to something greater than myself to help me and actually stop me doing that. I think that's a miracle.

Joe Rogan 58:29 Hmm.

Mel Gibson 58:30 It is. For me, it is. And for many, you know? So ...

Joe Rogan 58:34 Well, that is the thing about AA, right? It's, it's ... A part of the whole process is appealing to a higher power.

Mel Gibson 58:40 Sure.

Joe Rogan 58:40 And-

Mel Gibson 58:40 It's a spiritual program.

Joe Rogan 58:41 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 58:42 Because you're suffering your spiritual malady, you know?

Joe Rogan 58:45 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 58:45 So it's a spiritual cure. And that's, uh, the essence, I think, of why it works. Because you can't explain it otherwise. I mean, it's ... You c- ... Well, you kind of can, but, um ... I think what you're being asked to do is to think about other people and other things more than yourself, because it's kind of an ego disease.

Joe Rogan 59:12 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 59:14 So if you-

Joe Rogan 59:14 That is the problem with addiction, right? It's very narcissistic.

Mel Gibson 59:17 Very narcissistic.

Joe Rogan 59:18 'Cause you're constantly thinking about yourself and what you need.

Mel Gibson 59:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:21 "I need a drink, I need a bump, I need a l- ... You know, I need something."

Mel Gibson 59:25 Sure. "I need ev-" or-

Joe Rogan 59:26 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 59:26 And no matter what you need, it's never gonna be enough.

Joe Rogan 59:28 Right, right.

Mel Gibson 59:30 So you actually have to appeal to something outside that you consider bigger and better than yourself. Which instantly kind of pushes you more in the direction of humility. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:42 Yes.

Mel Gibson 59:43 Because, because you're not the center of the universe anymore.

Joe Rogan 59:45 Right.

Mel Gibson 59:46 And that you can't do it. And the first step in any of that sort of stuff is accepting that you are powerless over it. That's the first, that's the first, uh ... That's the most powerful step you can do, is that you're powerless.

Joe Rogan 59:58 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 59:58 When you realize that, you're like, "Okay."

Joe Rogan 1:00:00 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:00:01 "There's fuck all I can do about this. I have to appeal to something better than me." And that, to me, is a miracle.

Joe Rogan 1:00:07 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:00:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:09 Well, it's a very uniquely human thing, the ability to course correct, and also just the, the concept of addiction in the first place.

Mel Gibson 1:00:15 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:00:16 You know? It's a very uniquely human thing, that we all know that there's dark roads our mind can go down. And then we wonder, like, "What is the purpose of these dark thoughts?"

Mel Gibson 1:00:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:25 "What is the purpose of this destructive behavior that we're, we're all prone to in some way, shape, or form?"

Mel Gibson 1:00:31 What is the purpose of everything?

Joe Rogan 1:00:33 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:00:33 I mean, like, really.

Joe Rogan 1:00:34 Right.

Mel Gibson 1:00:34 I mean, "Why am I here? What's the meaning of this?" And-

Joe Rogan 1:00:37 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:00:38 ... I'm looking for purpose, and, and, uh, what is it we're here for? I think ... You know, we have to leave some stuff. But you have to leave some good stuff. You can leave plenty of bad stuff, you know? And it's, uh ... And we're all prone that way. I often think about, you know, the human race as a whole, you know? You think about guys like, you know, Stalin or Hitler-

Joe Rogan 1:01:00 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 1:01:00 ... or Chairman Mao, or the ... And I'm, I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be sharing a cell in the afterlife with those guys, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:01:07 Right.

Mel Gibson 1:01:08 I don't know where I'll be on the ladder, but, uh ... Um-

Joe Rogan 1:01:13 Depends on how you end up, right?

Mel Gibson 1:01:14 Well, that's it.

Joe Rogan 1:01:15 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:01:16 It really is. It-

Joe Rogan 1:01:16 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:01:17 It's like, you know. And we're allowed to make mistakes, and we do. We are so flawed. And I am, I, I'm more flawed than anyone, you know?... but it's, uh, um, something that you, I think... And it's pretty safe to say I'm in the third act now. You're in act two, right?

Joe Rogan 1:01:33 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 1:01:33 Gesundheit, but-

Joe Rogan 1:01:35 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:01:35 ... I'm, (laughs) I'm like, I'm in the third act, man. So you got... You have to think about the other side.

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:01:43 You have to think about what comes next. Is there a next? Yes, there is. I believe there is, and I think it's, um, uh, depends on how you live now. And, uh, and the beauty of believing is that... even for your transgressions, you can be forgiven, and you can be redeemed, but it's all up here.

Joe Rogan 1:02:11 Right.

Mel Gibson 1:02:11 You know?

Joe Rogan 1:02:12 It's the true acceptance and understanding of what you've done-

Mel Gibson 1:02:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:16 ... and what you should do.

Mel Gibson 1:02:17 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:02:18 And how-

Mel Gibson 1:02:18 You have to look at yourself honestly.

Joe Rogan 1:02:19 Yes. Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:02:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:21 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:02:22 Absolutely honestly, you have to be able to accuse yourself, and, uh, and understand that there is... There's... It's a great deal of mercy involved and the fact that I believe that God sent His son down to tell us, "Okay, I'm gonna ransom you people from your fallen nature, and, um, and I'll give you a roadmap on how to do it." And, um, and people do it. There's even people that do it that have never even heard of it. You know, some guy in the jungle some place, I'm sure.

Joe Rogan 1:03:02 Right.

Mel Gibson 1:03:03 You know? Because the Creator is above the law. I mean, it's an interesting fact to note that the first canonized saint... Do you know who it was?

Joe Rogan 1:03:19 No.

Mel Gibson 1:03:19 The first ever confirmed canonization as a saint was Dismas. Do you know who Dismas was?

Joe Rogan 1:03:26 No.

Mel Gibson 1:03:27 He was hanging... He was the thief on the cross next to Jesus.

Joe Rogan 1:03:30 Oh.

Mel Gibson 1:03:31 And he says to him, "You're gonna be okay. This day, you'll be with me." Unbaptized, criminal, all that stuff, so...

Joe Rogan 1:03:41 Wow.

Mel Gibson 1:03:42 The lawmaker is above the law, so there's a lot of mercy.

Joe Rogan 1:03:48 What about people that never experience Christianity? What about the-

Mel Gibson 1:03:52 That's what I'm saying.

Joe Rogan 1:03:52 ... the uncontacted people?

Mel Gibson 1:03:54 Yeah. That's right. That's what I'm saying.

Joe Rogan 1:03:55 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:03:55 Some guy in the jungle.

Joe Rogan 1:03:56 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:03:57 It's been known that, uh... It's called invincible ignorance because they don't know what the truth is.

Joe Rogan 1:04:05 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 1:04:05 You know? It's possible that they can be saved as well. I don't... you know?

Joe Rogan 1:04:12 So, what are your thoughts on evolution?

Mel Gibson 1:04:15 Mm. Wow. Eh.

Joe Rogan 1:04:20 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:04:22 The Darwin thing?

Joe Rogan 1:04:23 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:04:25 I don't really go for it.

Joe Rogan 1:04:27 No?

Mel Gibson 1:04:27 Nah. Ice age, dinosaurs, you know, what did they turn into? I mean, things became extinct at some point. I don't think I was some kind of, like, you know, legless thing that crawled out of the ocean. I don't think I came from that. I think I was created.

Joe Rogan 1:04:47 Do you think other things were legless things that came out of the ocean? Do you think, like, multi-celled organisms came out of single-celled organisms, and there was some sort of a natural selection and random mutation, and it led to everything else but us?

Mel Gibson 1:05:03 Sure, look at gain of function. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:06 Right.

Mel Gibson 1:05:07 You can, like... You can make stuff happen.

Joe Rogan 1:05:10 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 1:05:10 And I'm sure stuff did happen, um, but I think it's all part of creation. I think it's all ordered. I think anyone left... anything left to itself without some kind of intelligence behind it will devolve into chaos, and so that there has to be some big intelligence that orchestrates everything. Not that we don't have chaos in the world, but I think that's our own making.

Joe Rogan 1:05:36 But what do you think separates us from all the other creatures?

Mel Gibson 1:05:39 Wow. I think we have a soul. We're created with a soul. Um, and, you know, I went to a restaurant last night. It was a steak house in Austin, and it was interesting because all the pictures on the wall are pictures of animals that look resentful, like cows and steers staring at you, looking angrily-

Joe Rogan 1:06:03 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:06:03 ... as you rip into a steak. But, um, I just believe we, we are higher than those creatures because we have a soul, we have an intellect above theirs, and, uh, and we aspire to, to higher things. We have, we have aspirations.

Joe Rogan 1:06:19 Right.

Mel Gibson 1:06:20 Um, and, you know, this is part of why people drink and smoke and do dope and all this kind of stuff is because they're looking for a, a spiritual experience. They're looking for... Like, they actually call alcohol "spirits." I mean-

Joe Rogan 1:06:32 Right.

Mel Gibson 1:06:32 It's... They're looking for something higher, and I think we all have that yearning in that we wanna be happy, and, uh, we wanna be at peace, and we want everything to be hunky-dory. So, there's this yearning inbuilt in all of us for that, to aspire to something greater. And that's why we're inspired by stories, I think, because it's like, uh, you know, hero stories. You know, Joseph Campbell's stuff, The Hero-

Joe Rogan 1:07:01 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 1:07:01 ... with a Thousand Faces and stuff. It's like these stories inspire us. I'm at... I, I was at a party the other day in, in, uh, in Tennessee. And you think, "Tennessee, what's gonna happen there? It's gonna be 'Squeal Like a Pig.'" No.

Joe Rogan 1:07:16 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:07:17 Man, there's some people live in Tennessee.

Joe Rogan 1:07:19 Sure.

Mel Gibson 1:07:20 But, like, amazing people. And I found myself in a conversation with four tier one dudes, all of who-... did something extraordinary, and it was that Tom Slatersly guy. It was the Blackhawk Down guy. There was Sean Ryan who's, he's got a, you've probably heard of this guy.

Joe Rogan 1:07:38 Yeah, a friend of us.

Mel Gibson 1:07:38 Yeah. Right?

Joe Rogan 1:07:39 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:07:40 There was, um, a guy called Christian Craighead, you know who that guy is?

Joe Rogan 1:07:45 No.

Mel Gibson 1:07:46 Whoa. And then there was, uh, Eddie (sighs) they wrote a book about him.

Joe Rogan 1:07:52 Eddie Gallagher?

Mel Gibson 1:07:52 He's a n- Gallagher, yeah. Eddie Gallagher. I was talking to four of these guys at the same time, and I didn't know who to, y- who do you even talk to? But their stories are amazing, especially... And the one guy I ended up talking to was, uh, an SAS guy, British SAS, and he just looks like a bank teller, but he did something extraordinary and in- incredibly brave and, uh, and with no regard for himself, only regard for other people. And it was like, "Whoa." You hear these stories, and it's sort of just like, it pumps you up. You think, "Would I, could I do that? Could I be that person?" I don't know if I could. I don't... In, in a way I don't even wanna ever find out because you have to be in an extreme situation.

Joe Rogan 1:08:41 Right.

Mel Gibson 1:08:42 But, um, but hearing about other people and how they behave in situations that are difficult is very inspiring, so, you know, it's, uh... Yeah, there's so many of those stories around, and through history.

Joe Rogan 1:08:59 Well, that's another unique thing about human beings is that we learn from others in a very extraordinary way.

Mel Gibson 1:09:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:04 And that's one of the reasons why we like stories.

Mel Gibson 1:09:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:07 Why we like myths and fables 'cause there's l- there's lessons you can apply to your own life without having to actually go through those things.

Mel Gibson 1:09:14 Yeah. Well, that's right. I made a film about that guy, um, uh, Desmond Doss. You know, I don't know if you saw it. It was like Hacksaw Ridge was this film, and it was about a medic who figured so much killing going on, he's gonna go into the battlefield and save lives. And he didn't have a weapon, and he was in the worst place on Earth. And he, he got a, uh, a Congressional Medal of Honor because he kept going in to the worst place possible and dragging wounded guys out-

Joe Rogan 1:09:44 Hmm.

Mel Gibson 1:09:45 ... with no regard for himself. I mean, who does that kind of stuff?

Joe Rogan 1:09:49 Right.

Mel Gibson 1:09:49 And over and over again. He didn't just do it once. He did it hundreds of times. He finally got, you know, hit with shrapnel and a bunch of other stuff, but he lived to be an old man. But wow, and it was just pure faith, you know? So, you know, those guys, that, those kind of stories inspire the hell out of me. Anyway.

Joe Rogan 1:10:11 So when, back to this, uh, idea of evolution, so-

Mel Gibson 1:10:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:10:16 Do, do you believe that evolution exists in animals?

Mel Gibson 1:10:19 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 1:10:21 Or do you think there's some sort of a natural selection process, or do you think that it is all intelligent design?

Mel Gibson 1:10:30 Um, well, I think everything was created, right? And maybe things do move on and adapt and change through time, but I think that that's a function of an intelligence also. And, uh, I mean, look at the fires in LA, you know? I mean, what's that gonna do? It's gonna give me a new house, you know, maybe.

Joe Rogan 1:10:54 (laughs) Maybe.

Mel Gibson 1:10:55 And, uh, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:10:56 Or a new place to live.

Mel Gibson 1:10:57 Yeah, something. Yeah, I'm just not totally convinced. I feel it in my... And, and I can't really... Uh, I'm sorry, I can't intellectually tell you why I don't believe in evolution, but I don't. It's just a feeling. I don't think I was some ape or I don't think my ancestors were. I think they had to be pretty smart to survive.

Joe Rogan 1:11:18 So what do you think all these pre-human hominids are that they keep discovering?

Mel Gibson 1:11:23 Like what, tell me what a pre-human hominin is.

Joe Rogan 1:11:25 Like Australopithecus-

Mel Gibson 1:11:26 Oh, right.

Joe Rogan 1:11:27 ... or, or some of the other human-like creatures that never made it, like Denisovans, Neanderthals.

Mel Gibson 1:11:33 Yeah, yeah, stuff like that. Okay, well, they've got st- something called Zinjanthropus, you remember him?

Joe Rogan 1:11:38 No.

Mel Gibson 1:11:39 Zinjanthropus man, and he was like, "Hmm." He, he looked kind of like this. But he was like, they, they looked at it and they did some core samples on him, and it was put out there by people advocating evolution, and they discovered that it was a human skull attached to the jaw of an ape.

Joe Rogan 1:11:56 Oh, I do remember this.

Mel Gibson 1:11:57 So it was a hoax.

Joe Rogan 1:11:58 Yeah, there's been some hoaxes.

Mel Gibson 1:12:00 Yeah. Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:12:01 Yeah, but there's also been real stuff.

Mel Gibson 1:12:03 Really?

Joe Rogan 1:12:03 Yeah. You don't think so?

Mel Gibson 1:12:04 Well, maybe.

Joe Rogan 1:12:06 Well, what do you... (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:12:07 Uh... Well, you know, like n- I don't know, tell me.

Joe Rogan 1:12:10 Uh, well, what was that one that we looked at the other day that was one of the first, uh, pre-humans that buried their, their, their young or buried their dead rather? It was a homo na- nana- ninaldi, what was it? Remember that?

Mel Gibson 1:12:25 Yeah, I'm just trying to think.

Joe Rogan 1:12:27 I can't remember how to say it, but...

Narrator 1:12:30 Naledi?

Joe Rogan 1:12:30 Naledi, yeah. The pre- pre-human hominid, very small creature-

Mel Gibson 1:12:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:12:35 ... that b- buried their young-

Mel Gibson 1:12:37 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:12:37 ... or buried their dead rather. I keep saying buried their young. They buried their dead. Um, you know, Australopithecus.

Mel Gibson 1:12:42 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:12:42 There's, there's a bunch of different... You know, the Lucy skeleton. There's a bunch of different-

Mel Gibson 1:12:47 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:12:47 ... pre-human hominids.

Mel Gibson 1:12:49 Yeah, maybe they were monkeys. I don't know, you know.

Joe Rogan 1:12:51 Yeah. Well-

Mel Gibson 1:12:52 But...

Joe Rogan 1:12:53 ... they were, they're similar to us, just not where we are.

Mel Gibson 1:12:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:56 They're on the road to becoming what, what it means to be a human being.

Mel Gibson 1:12:59 Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. You-

Joe Rogan 1:13:00 What do you think those are?

Mel Gibson 1:13:02 I don't know. They could be animals or they could be like... Look at today. I mean, you can get, some mosquito can bite you and, and your kid can be born with a malformed skull or something. It's like, uh, you know, they have those, you know.

Joe Rogan 1:13:15 Yeah, but this is like a d- like a genetic thing. Like, they've done... They've mapped the genome of these creatures.

Mel Gibson 1:13:22 Well, they have-

Joe Rogan 1:13:23 They're different.

Mel Gibson 1:13:23 Yeah. Hmm. Well, I don't know how to explain those, Joe. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 1:13:28 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:13:28 ... but...

Joe Rogan 1:13:29 But you do think that human beings were created-

Mel Gibson 1:13:32 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:13:32 ... by God?

Mel Gibson 1:13:32 I do, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:33 When do you think that happened?

Mel Gibson 1:13:35 (inhales deeply) Oh, when? Oh, probably ab- ab- and not that long ago.

Joe Rogan 1:13:39 Really?

Mel Gibson 1:13:40 No, not really.

Joe Rogan 1:13:40 Like, what do you mean by not that long ago?

Mel Gibson 1:13:42 (inhales deeply) Probably only about 8,000 years ago.

Joe Rogan 1:13:45 Really?

Mel Gibson 1:13:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:46 So, what do you think things like Gobekli Tepe are? When they find these constructions that are-

Mel Gibson 1:13:52 (inhales deeply) (smacks lips)

Joe Rogan 1:13:52 ... dated, carbon dated to 11,000-plus years old.

Mel Gibson 1:13:54 I question carbon dating.

Joe Rogan 1:13:56 Really?

Mel Gibson 1:13:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:58 Well-

Mel Gibson 1:13:59 That- that makes things a lot simpler.

Joe Rogan 1:14:00 ... there's... There's... (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:14:00 (laughs) Yeah. They, they're, like, yeah, well, there's a lot of money in, in, in, you know, claims, and I don't know.

Joe Rogan 1:14:06 Real-

Mel Gibson 1:14:06 We got water too.

Joe Rogan 1:14:06 Uh, water's there.

Mel Gibson 1:14:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:09 Well, carbon dating seems to be pretty rock solid s- studies.

Mel Gibson 1:14:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:13 I mean, science, the science behind radiocarbon dating and detecting carbon isotopes, it's like, that's pretty-

Mel Gibson 1:14:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:22 ... pretty legit.

Mel Gibson 1:14:23 (inhales deeply) Yeah. I don't know. I can't square it.

Joe Rogan 1:14:28 Yeah. Well, you don't have to.

Mel Gibson 1:14:30 And, and I don't have to. And I-

Joe Rogan 1:14:31 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:14:31 And what difference is it gonna make to me?

Joe Rogan 1:14:33 Yeah, that's the thing. It's, uh, it doesn't make a difference in terms of your experience in this life on Earth.

Mel Gibson 1:14:40 No.

Joe Rogan 1:14:41 Like, you, you can have your faith and your ideas and live a great life from beginning to end, and it might not suit you to really ponder evolution and all the puzzles and problems.

Mel Gibson 1:14:53 No. It doesn't, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:14:57 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:14:58 And I just, like, you know, I look at all sorts of stuff like that, like, you know, the, you know, the icebergs melting and the water overflowing.

Joe Rogan 1:15:05 It's not.

Mel Gibson 1:15:05 Ever have a glass full of ice and watched it melt? Did you ever see the glass flow over?

Joe Rogan 1:15:10 No.

Mel Gibson 1:15:11 It takes up less room, you know? So...

Joe Rogan 1:15:12 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:15:13 You know, the, the hot greenhouse, whatever, you know. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 1:15:16 Well, there's a lotta horseshit that's involved in climate change, for sure. I've studied that, and I've ta- had many discussions over the last four years. The problem with anything is that once a narrative gets established-

Mel Gibson 1:15:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:15:27 ... and then there, there's a profit attached to the solution to that narrative.

Mel Gibson 1:15:30 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:15:31 And that's green energy and green energy bills, and then there's businesses that are wrapped around there. And then there's also this fear that they love to pump into people about climate change, that, you know, they terrify the shit outta young people that we're gonna destroy the world, and climate change, you must act now. And then you become beholden to the political party that is espousing these ideas.

Mel Gibson 1:15:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:51 And then they're, your enemy is the deniers of this science-

Mel Gibson 1:15:55 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:15:56 ... even though you don't even understand the science.

Mel Gibson 1:15:58 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:58 And did you see The Washington Post, uh, article that they published recently about, uh, temperature change on Earth?

Mel Gibson 1:16:05 No.

Joe Rogan 1:16:06 Well, there's a down, th- like, what they've realized is over the last, you know, X amount of thousands of years that the temperature on Earth is plummeting.

Mel Gibson 1:16:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:16 And it's dropping. And then when they look at the, the dips, this is the most important thing for anybody that's really freaked out about climate change. Th- there's no static temperature of Earth ever.

Mel Gibson 1:16:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:29 There's never been a time where it maintains a temperature until human beings came along and fucked it all up.

Mel Gibson 1:16:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:35 That is just not real.

Mel Gibson 1:16:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:36 Before human beings ever existed, if you trust these core samples, there's been a giant rise and fall and this constant dip in-

Mel Gibson 1:16:45 I think it's-

Joe Rogan 1:16:45 There it is.

Mel Gibson 1:16:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:46 ... scientists have captured the Earth's climate over the last 485 million years. Here's the surprising place we stand now. Look at the dip at the end.

Mel Gibson 1:16:55 Whoa.

Joe Rogan 1:16:55 That's where we are.

Mel Gibson 1:16:56 Yeah, wow.

Joe Rogan 1:16:56 That's, that's reality.

Mel Gibson 1:16:58 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:16:58 And then if you look at the course of history, you look at the rise and fall, like, it's never a straight line.

Mel Gibson 1:17:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:05 Way before human beings ever existed, if you believe these silly people, way before human beings had ever existed, there's always this rise and fall. And this idea that the whole thing is based on carbon emissions from human beings is total bullshit.

Mel Gibson 1:17:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:17:21 It's not true.

Mel Gibson 1:17:22 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:17:22 We might be having an effect, but we're having a small effect, a very small effect. And the other things are completely outside of our control, including solar activity, the distance between the Earth and the sun.

Mel Gibson 1:17:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:17:36 You know, there's a lot of factors. There's, there's all sorts of factors involving natural activities, like volcanic emissions, you know, which devastate, you know, the entire human race was knocked down to a few thousand people-

Mel Gibson 1:17:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:51 ... at one point in time because of the Toba volcano.

Mel Gibson 1:17:53 Oh, my God, yes. Yeah, no light. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:17:56 Yeah, no light for years.

Mel Gibson 1:17:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:58 Good luck.

Mel Gibson 1:17:58 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:59 Good luck. And the people that survive are fucking barbarians.

Mel Gibson 1:18:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:18:02 The most savage, and then they, it takes a long time before they can figure out civilization again after that.

Mel Gibson 1:18:08 Right. It's like dinosaurs. They just stop.

Joe Rogan 1:18:10 Mm-hmm.

Mel Gibson 1:18:12 So, what do they evolve into?

Joe Rogan 1:18:14 Chicken.

Mel Gibson 1:18:15 I guess.

Joe Rogan 1:18:15 Birds, raptors.

Mel Gibson 1:18:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:18:17 Well, they think mo- a lot of dinosaurs had feathers now.

Mel Gibson 1:18:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:18:19 That's the, the newest thing.

Mel Gibson 1:18:21 Yeah, maybe.

Joe Rogan 1:18:22 You don't think so?

Mel Gibson 1:18:24 I don't know. I need to take a pee. I'm so desperate.

Joe Rogan 1:18:25 Okay, let's take a pee.

Mel Gibson 1:18:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:18:27 Let's take a pee. We'll take a break. We'll be right back.

Mel Gibson 1:18:28 I need to take a piddle. It's a nice picture. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:18:34 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:18:35 It's...

Joe Rogan 1:18:36 That's gotta be a moment in your head where you're just like, every now and then, just go, "Fuck."

Mel Gibson 1:18:39 Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:18:40 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:18:41 It is funny.

Joe Rogan 1:18:42 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:18:43 But it was a good picture.

Joe Rogan 1:18:45 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:18:45 The only thing that was going through my head was, "Okay, I can't- I just can't look bad." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:18:54 (laughs)

Mel Gibson 1:18:57 And I didn't have anything, no grooming implements, so I just tried, tried my best to not look too bad, but there you go.

Joe Rogan 1:19:04 Yeah, you talk about humility.

Mel Gibson 1:19:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:19:07 Like, what gives you more humility than being publicly humiliated?

Mel Gibson 1:19:12 Yeah, sure.

Joe Rogan 1:19:12 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:19:13 Public humiliation, and it's, you know what? Most, for most people, it is their number one fear.

Joe Rogan 1:19:19 Sure.

Mel Gibson 1:19:20 Is public humiliation.

Joe Rogan 1:19:21 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:19:22 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:19:22 Yeah. Public speaking, and because of that, public humiliation.

Mel Gibson 1:19:25 Yeah, sure.

Joe Rogan 1:19:26 Yeah.

Mel Gibson 1:19:27 Happens all the time.

Joe Rogan 1:19:28 'Cause we're so concerned about other people's opinions of us.

Mel Gibson 1:19:31 I