Mel Gibson ‘was interested’ in starring in Schindler’s List… 14 years before his anti-Semitic scandal: ‘It wasn’t going to happen’

Ironically, Mel Gibson was on a short list of celebrities “interested” in playing Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Holocaust drama Schindler’s List, 14 years before his anti-Semitic scandal.

‘The name Mel Gibson came up. He was interested. His agent proposed it,” said CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz. THR Thursday in a 30th anniversary oral history.

‘But that wasn’t going to happen. Steven wanted a non-movie star for the role.

And while the 77-year-old filmmaker refused to reveal who was in contention for the lead role of the German industrialist who saved more than a thousand Jews by employing them in his factory, Liam Neeson spilled the beans.

‘I heard the name Harrison Ford. [Kevin] Costner’s name. Australian actor Jack Thompson,” recalled the 71-year-old Irishman.

“I thought, ‘Oh yeah, Jack looks a lot like Schindler.’ I didn’t look like Schindler at all. Anyway, he was always in the back of my head, but I didn’t have high hopes.

Liam ended up receiving his only Oscar nomination for his performance as Schindler, but lost the Academy Award to Philadelphia star Tom Hanks.

“It’s the best movie I’ve ever made,” said Steven, who won his first two Oscars for directing and producing Schindler’s List.

“I’m not going to say it’s the best movie I’ve ever made. But it’s currently the work I’m most proud of.”

The budget of 22 million dollars cinematic classic – Based on Thomas Keneally’s 1982 novel Schindler’s Ark – it won a total of seven Oscars and racked up $322.2 million at the global box office.

Two years later, Mel had an uncredited cameo in Universal Pictures’ 1995 supernatural comedy Casper, of which Spielberg executive produced.

The 68-year-old, born in New York and raised in Australia, tarnished his movie star persona during a 2006 DUI arrest when he told Deputy Sheriff James Mee: ‘Damn Jews…Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you Jewish?

The day after his arrest, Gibson entered rehab and separated from his wife of 26 years, Robyn Moore, and his subsequent $400 million divorce settlement in 2011 was the largest in Hollywood history.

The two-time Oscar winner, who began drinking at age 13, was sentenced to three years of probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor drunk driving.

Five years later, Mel is pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of assault against her mother Oksana Grigorieva, with whom she has a 14-year-old daughter, Lucia.

Gibson had left voicemails for Oksana like: “You look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of blacks, it’ll be your fault.”

Winona Ryder has also repeatedly accused the divorced father of nine, whose father Hutton Gibson was anti-Semitic, for calling her an “oven evader” back in the 1990s.

Last summer, Mel directed his eighth feature film, the upcoming Alaska-set thriller Flight Risk, starring Mark Wahlberg, Topher Grace and Michelle Dockery.

Audiences last saw Gibson as hotel manager Cormac O’Connor in the three-episode prequel series The Continental: From the World of John Wick, which was Peacock’s biggest original release of the year.

The Golden Globe winner also played Mitchell opposite Garrett Hedlund in Nadine Crocker’s Southern noir thriller Desperation Road, which only grossed $40,799 at the worldwide box office last October.

For his portrayal of Lieutenant Kevin Hickey in Michael Oblowitz’s film. poorly reviewed In the thriller Confidential Informant, Mel was nominated for Worst Supporting Actor at the 44th Golden Raspberry Awards, which will be announced on March 9.