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Mel Gibson Brings Passion to 'Savages' By Daniel Fienberg
Mel Gibson is a movie star fresh off directing one of the largest blockbusters in cinema history, while Mike Scully and Julie Thacker-Scully are still trying to convince one viewer at a time that FOX cancelled "The Pitts" prematurely. It's no wonder, then, that ABC is promoting the Friday night family comedy "Complete Savages" on Gibson's name, but don't believe the hype that the series is based on Gibson's own life.
The idea for the project actually came from Thacker-Scully, like her husband a "Simpsons" veteran, who decided that there were too many shows on television about women who seem so exasperated with their husbands that it's a wonder their marriages survive at all (think "Everybody Loves Raymond" or "King of Queens"). In "Complete Savages," the wife is long gone, leaving her husband (unlikely sitcom leading man Keith Carradine) battling to raise five boys on his own.
While the show has no direct relationship to either Gibson's life with seven children or the creators' five daughters, Scully and Thacker-Scully have known Gibson for eight years and thought this idea would be a good match for the "Lethal Weapon" star's Icon Productions.
"We've been looking for a project to do together for a while," Thacker-Scully says. "[W]e both have large broods of children and we thought this was custom-made for us. So Mel is, like, riding our coattails."
Although Icon has made a big plunge into television this fall with UPN's "Kevin Hill" and CBS' "Clubhouse," "Complete Savages" is probably closest to his heart.
"The week we were shooting it, he was in the writers' room every night pitching jokes," Scully tells reporters at the Television Critics Association's semiannual press tour.
In addition to executive producing and contributing occasional anecdotes from his own experiences, Gibson took the surprising step of making the "Savages" pilot into his directorial follow-up to "The Passion of the Christ." The A-list icon's appearances on-set initially intimidated the show's young cast members.
"I imagined him as, like, a serious guy... totally into himself and all that," says Jason Dolley, who plays T.J., the youngest Savage. "But when I met him, he wasn't like that at all. He was... light, funny, he was really hilarious. He's really a big kid."
Andrew Eiden, middle child Sam, recalls Gibson showing up in the middle of a crowded audition room.
"I had just seen 'The Passion' right before I went into the auditions, so I didn't know what to expect" Eiden says. "The final audition, it was like me doing my thing in front of 40 people. And then there's Mel right in the center of them and he starts cracking jokes and being really cool and it just totally lightens the mood."
"We can't say enough good things about all the stuff he's done for the show," Scully adds.
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