Controversial actor Mel Gibson almost died a horrific death while filming Braveheart. But thankfully, it was just his character, William Wallace, who was hung, drawn, and quartered.
The historical biopic about the Scottish warrior was Gibson's second directorial effort, after The Man Without a Face, which tanked. But Braveheart proved to be one of the biggest projects Gibson had ever been a part of and one of the most successful at the box office. It exemplified how he'd carry on in the director's chair for years to come.
Gibson might have done some questionable things in his life so far, but Braveheart is not one of them. He practically almost gave his life to make it, just like Wallace gave his life to free Scotland.
It's All For Nothing If You Don't Have...A Budget
Gibson almost passed on helming the film. When he ultimately decided to take it on, he initially wanted Brad Pitt to play Wallace because he felt he was too old for the part. However, no one could have played Wallace the same as him, even if starring and directing took their toll.
Financing the project was hard, but Gibson got the film off the ground. Shooting began on location in Scotland in 1994, and soon the English were at the throats of the Scottish, literally. But Gibson had another battle to fight. The budget.
To save them going over budget, Gibson moved filming to Ireland (or as Wallace's man, Stephen would say, "My island!") so they could film the big battles scenes, get a tax break, and "a government deal to use 1,800 members of the Irish Defence Forces," who ended up on both sides of the battlefield.
The battle scenes were the most important thing in the film; without them, Gibson wouldn't have succeeded in telling the warrior's story. It's about a country fighting for its independence and one man's vengeance after all. There needed to be "brutal medieval warfare."
"This was 3,500 people on set, nine cameras, and me on a four-wheel motorcycle in costume with blue face (makeup), whipping around checking camera positions because I only had like two monitors," Gibson told USA Today. "It was fun."
Gibson's Trusty Steed Failed Him
To cut the costs of filming down a little bit, Gibson made sure his scenes had as few takes as possible. Maybe he shouldn't have been in such a rush.
While they were filming in Ireland, in the counties Kildare, Meath, and Wicklow, Gibson was almost crushed to death by a horse while filming one of the intense battle scenes.
According to the Independent, Gibson said, "There was a horse that nearly killed me. He had a good trick where he did this whole rear-up thing, but he'd also fall backwards, which is a problem if you've fallen off first and you're behind him. He did that to me. My stunt double ran in and pulled me out of the way just as the horse fell."
It also probably didn't help that every time Gibson would shout his lines, especially his most famous line in the film, "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!" his horse would run. It was hard to shoot but added intensity.
Most of the horses in the film weren't even real. Gibson brought in mechanical horses which weighed 200 pounds and were fueled by nitrogen cylinders, making them run at 30 mph on the 20-foot tracks.
Still, an animal welfare organization proceeded with its investigation into the film because they thought the fake horses were real. After Gibson's assistant showed them videotaped footage proving they were mechanical, they were convinced otherwise.
In fact, this proved a crucial thing for Gibson. He believed his mechanical horses looked so real that he said he'd give $5 to anyone who could spot a mechanical horse in the film. Some scenes do show the mechanical horses, but at least they helped with the battle scenes. The Battle of Stirling took six weeks to film alone, yet the worst on-set injury was a broken nose, "a broken ankle and a hangnail."
Gibson told Empire, "The thing I wanted out of the battle sequences was clarity. I've seen a lot of these battle movies, and they just turn into mush. I broke it down to archers and horses and hand-to-hand and who had the high ground and the low ground; everybody was clearly delineated, even though it was often the same bunch of people playing different parts."
While the film earned 10 Oscar nominations, winning five, including Best Picture and Best Director, and was a box office success, grossing about $213.2 million worldwide on a $70 million budget, the only thing that critics had trouble with was the historical inaccuracies.
But Gibson knew that his film was largely fictitious and didn't pretend otherwise. "I'm in the business of cinema. I'm not an (expletive) historian," he said.
Gibson later said, "Some people said that in telling the story, we messed up history. It doesn't bother me because what I'm giving you is a cinematic experience, and I think films are there first to entertain, then teach, then inspire. There probably were historical inaccuracies--quite a few. But maybe there weren't, who's to say because there was very little history about the man." Gibson and screenwriter Randall Wallace had to romanticize the film a bit, though, and make it "cinematically acceptable."
Making Braveheart could have killed Gibson in other ways. Besides almost being crushed to death, Gibson's body felt the physical effects of being on location for 105 consecutive days. Gibson said Braveheart was more physically taxing than doing three Lethal Weapon films. Maybe that's what helped Gibson play Wallace. Playing a man fighting for his country was easy when Gibson was going through a similar battle to get Braveheart made.