Jodie Foster on Mel Gibson: 'God, I Love That Man'

Jodie Foster doesn't typically wear her heart on her sleeve, but when The Hollywood Reporter interviewed her about her 'Beaver' co-star Mel Gibson, Foster teared up and unleashed a Gibson love-fest the reporter was not expecting.

"God, I love that man," Foster said about Mel. "The performance he gave in this movie, I will always be grateful for. He brought a lifetime of pain to the character that we've been talking about for years, that I knew was part of his psyche and who he is. It's part of him that is beautiful and that I want people to know, too."

The pair first met filming 'Maverick' in 1994 and have remained close ever since. The Gibson of Foster's world seems worlds away from the serially abusive ranter Gibson has proved to be in the past several years.

"He's so incredibly loving and sensitive, he really is," Foster says about the actor. "He is the most loved actor I have ever worked with on a movie. And he's not saintly, and he's got a big mouth, and he'll do gross things your nephew would do. But I knew the minute I met him that I would love him the rest of my life."

Gibson confided in Foster before his relationship with ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva became a public circus, which led to charges of domestic abuse and the release of abusive voicemails.

"We talked about it all the way through, about what was going on in his life," she tells THR. "I don't think he told me until it was something he couldn't handle by himself."

When the first of the voice mails was released last summer, Gibson was on set doing re-shoots.

"He had a lot of work to do," Foster remembers. "It was a bad situation. His assistant called me: 'Come to the trailer!' And I went to his trailer, and he was a mess. Then he came on set, and he didn't have any makeup on, anything. He came in and sat down on the chair and said, 'OK, roll it,' and did two takes that were just beautiful. Then he got on the plane and left."

Foster has been enveloped by complicated men. She recently maintained a grueling schedule on Roman Polanski's 'Carnage,' a shoot that has been described as rough.

"He is my opposite," Foster says about Polanski. "Some directors want lots of discussion and a real collaboration; some don't want any. He's different than I would be, but I can direct my own movies. He wants everything to come from him. There's no input from anyone else."

When asked about Polanski's rape charge in the United States, Foster doesn't gush the way she did when confronted with Gibson's dramas.

"That's not my business," she says.

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