- Mel Gibson has said he wants to “fix” the problem of stars leaving Hollywood.
- “A lot of people have left, and I don’t blame them,” Gibson said in a recent interview.
- He was recently named one of President Donald Trump’s “special envoys” to Hollywood.
Mel Gibson has said he wants to help solve the problem of people leaving Hollywood as part of his role as one of President Donald Trump’s “special envoys.”
Ahead of his inauguration, Trump named Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight as ambassadors to Hollywood, tasking them with bringing business back to the film industry.
Discussing his new role with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Saturday, Gibson said he was “ready, willing, and able to be of service” to Trump before sharing his thoughts on the trend of Californians ditching the Golden State.
“A lot of people have left, and I don’t blame them,” Gibson said, adding that many had left for the reasons that Hannity said led him to move out of New York — which included crime, schools, high taxes, and regulations.
“It didn’t suit them anymore,” Gibson said. “Even people who were liberal, it didn’t suit them anymore. But if everybody leaves, what’s going to happen?”
The Oscar winner, known for his roles in “Lethal Weapon” and “Braveheart,” said that despite the trend, he has chosen to stay in California. Gibson’s home was recently destroyed in the Los Angeles wildfires.
The actor, 69, said that going forward California needed to “be competitive” with the rest of the world to keep people from packing their bags.
People “are going somewhere else because it’s more cost-effective. There’s just a lot of prohibitive regulations and things in the way that I think could be lifted,” he said. “But I think it can be fixed.”
As Business Insider previously reported, between 2021 and 2022, just over 817,000 people left California — the most of any state in that period.
Actors, executives, and producers are among those to have decided to leave the Golden State in recent years — including Gibson’s fellow Hollywood ambassador Stallone.
The “Rocky” actor said in an episode of “The Family Stallone” filmed in 2023 but aired in 2024 that he and his family had “permanently” vacated California and were headed to Florida.
It’s not hard to see why Florida is an appealing alternative to California for some. The state has no personal income tax, while corporate income tax is also relatively low.
In the interview with Fox News, Gibson said he would look to focus on tax incentives in his new role, as those offered by California Gov. Gavin Newsom may not be “enough.”
“I know Newsom gave some tax incentives, but maybe not enough because it’s still not working. There are other things that offset that,” he said.
Expanding on the state of the film industry, Gibson said that on one occasion, it had been cheaper for him to fly a whole film crew to Europe, provide accommodation, and shoot for three days than it was to “shoot for one day just down the road.”
“There’s something wrong there,” he said.
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