Yes, Mel Gibson Is In The Apocalypto Trailer

Before the wave of controversy that was "The Passion Of The Christ," the name Mel Gibson was much less synonymous with scandal than with tomfoolery. The good old days of "Lethal Weapon" and "Braveheart" seemed long forgotten. Back then, you could hardly read anything about a Mel Gibson movie without hearing from his co-stars, crew, and peers about his pranks and fun-loving antics on the set. After "The Passion," many were left wondering what happened to the Mel they knew and loved.

Well, if you saw the Oscars on March 5th, you know that Mel has not lost his sense of humor. At the opening of the Academy Awards, in an opening bit where several Hollywood heavyweights were asked if they would host the show, Mel stood in front of the cast of his film "Apocalypto" speaking many syllables of ancient Mayan with the simple subtitle declaring that he wouldn’t do it. He answered in the language of ancient Mayan that will account for all of the dialogue in "Apocalypto," just as all dialogue in "Passion" was Aramaic. It was a clever play full of his usual self-satirizing wit.

There’s another joke Mel has played on us though, and it is so subtle that it’s been little more than rumor. However, it is not a figment of anyone’s imagination. At approximately 1:48 into the Apocalypto trailer, Mel Gibson suddenly appears standing with his arm around one of the natives donning a long beard and a huge smile. The shot is only a couple of frames long, and you will have to pause and possibly manually search from one frame to the next, but it is there. And, so is the Mel Gibson who had his entire kilt-clad army moon the camera on the set of "Braveheart." Mel continues to entertain us with his perpetual hijinx, and this is merely the latest of them.