'Harry Potter' Actor Jason Isaacs On Mel Gibson: "He's Said And Done Some Things That Are Unconscionable And Unforgivable."

Jun 20, 2025

Jason Isaacs, who played William Tavington in The Patriot opposite Mel Gibson’s Benjamin Martin, recently claimed that Gibson has “said and dome some things that are unconscionable and unforgivable.”

In an interview with Vulture, Isaacs was asked about Gibson and what his thoughts on him are. Isaacs shared, “He was very charming personally, and he’s intelligent and self-deprecating. He’s said and done some things that are unconscionable and unforgivable.”

Isaacs then recalled a cricket event he attended that Gibson was also at, “I was invited by my friend to some charity cricket event for Australians in film. And he said, ‘If you come, Mel will.’ And I said, ‘I don’t want to see Mel.’ I hadn’t seen him since that terrible antisemitic outburst when he got stopped by the police. And my friend said, ‘Come on, mate. We’ll get loads of money for charity.’”

“So I went, and Mel was there, and he called ‘Jace’ across the room, very friendly. I went, ‘Rabbi Gibson, how are we?’ He came up and he said, ‘I was really drunk, man. I was trying to get him to hit me or shoot me or something. I’m having a terrible time.’ And he proceeded to unload some very personal things. He’s not my friend, but — maybe to my eternal shame — I forgave him instantly because he was there making himself vulnerable.”

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When asked if Gibson should be forgiven, Isaacs clarified, “No, you can’t forgive everything from everyone. I’m not saying I forgive Mel. I’ve seen him once a decade for five minutes. We text each other once in a blue moon about something or other.”

“I don’t know what to do with the fact that he put a character into The Passion of the Christ which is essentially a Jewish demon that doesn’t exist in the gospels,” he continued. “I have no idea what to do about him. But if he knocked on my door tonight and said, ‘Look, my hotel’s canceled. Can I stay?’ I’d say, ‘Yes,’ probably.”

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Jesus Christ is very clear that we should forgive those who have wronged us if we want to be forgiven of the people we have wronged. In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ says, “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”

However, as Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin explains, “We aren’t obligated to forgive people who do not want us to.” He goes on to cite the Gospel of Luke where Christ instructs, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Akin explains, “Notice that Jesus says to forgive him if he repents, not regardless of whether he does so. Jesus also envisions the person coming back to you and admitting his wrong. The upshot? If someone isn’t repentant, you don’t have to forgive him. If you do forgive him anyway, that can be meritorious, provided it doesn’t otherwise have bad effects (e.g., encouraging future bad behavior). But it isn’t required of us that we forgive the person.”

“Not everybody is forgiven,” he adds. “Otherwise, we’d all be walking around in a state of grace all the time and have no need of repentance to attain salvation. God doesn’t like people being unforgiven, and he is willing to grant forgiveness to all, but he isn’t willing to force it on people who don’t want it. If people are unrepentant of what they know to be sinful, they are not forgiven.”