Mel Gibson Gives Health Update After Battle with COVID

Mel Gibson is juggling multiple projects, including his new movie “Last Looks,” following a battle with COVID that landed him in the hospital.

“Extra’s” Billy Bush caught up with Mel, who opened up about his health, reflected on his life tenets, and chatted about his roles in “Father Stu” and “Last Looks.”

Gibson said of his busy work life, “I’m not raising a sweat. I figured out how to do it and relax.” He revealed, “Life is too short to get panicked about anything.”

Mel is better after his bout with COVID, saying he’s “pretty good. One-arm push-ups. Everything's great.”

Billy asked, “What is the great life lesson from Mel Gibson? Give me the gem.”

Gibson shared, “I think it all starts with, you’ve got to look at yourself a lot and how do you get meaning out of this existence? And what's it all about? So it's, it's a search in that direction. I think the search, you might never get to the end of it, but I think the very act of searching yields some good fruit.”

Bush followed up with, “What do you do every day that is beneficial to you?”

Mel said, “Man, I get up every day and I realize I'm not in control of this whole thing. And no matter what happens, I just ask for the grace to be able to deal with and to deal with it well, and to accept it.”

Billy wondered, “The tenets of Mel Gibson's life, is it prayer, is it meditation, is it an exercise? You remain in tremendous shape.”

Gibson said, “Well, all those things are in play. I would say prayer, meditation, exercise, and introspection, and self-investigation. So you make sure that you don't get out of line too much… It's a highwire act.”

It was recently announced that Mel is teaming up with Mark Wahlberg for “Father Stu.” He shared, “This is just a very personal story about a guy named Stuart Long. Just kind of a guy who was a good boxer and he was kind of a wild boy, but he had a few lessons along life and they sort of put him on a certain course where he chose to become a man of the cloth. It is kind of a redemption story.”

Billy asked, “The Catholic Church has taken a bit of a beating in the press over the last several years. You're a faithful member of it, so is Mark Wahlberg. Is this a concerted effort by the two of you guys to get back to the good?”

Mel said, “Back to basics… Of course, it's lamentable all the stuff that's gone on. Like any institution, it's capable of being corrupt. And, you know, it is sad to see, but as always, I don't think it's the institution that's at fault. I think it's a lot of people they get in it. Institutions are as good or as bad as the people in it, running it. It is having a bit of a rugged time right now. I think there's going to need to be a housecleaning. It is going to have to come back to some sort of equilibrium in the future.”

Now, Gibson is starring in the murder-mystery “Last Looks,” playing an eccentric TV star named Alastair Pinch. Mel said, “Yeah, he was fun. He's a little showy. He's a little over-the-top, kind of a caricature, if you’d like. There was always a tradition of British actors, great British actors, actually from the stage, who all had healthy drinking habits back in the ‘60s.”

Gibson had to smoke cigarettes in the role, but he’s not smoking off-screen. “I make sure that they don't give me the stuff with the nicotine so it actually tastes like you're smoking oregano, but it doesn't addict you at all. Because I've been on the wagon. I haven't had a cigarette in 10 years. So I'm really proud of that. I don't need to go back to that habit.”