Mel Gibson goes off-grid

Mel’s Costa Rica welcome

Mel Gibson is about to head off-grid on a remote $12m, 400 acre ranch in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, 300 miles from capital, San Jose. Gibson, who achieved Hollywood stardom playing a detective in the Lethal Weapon series, is still serving probation following his arrest for drinkdriving, during which he unleashed an anti-Semitic tirade on a policewoman

“Mel loves the country, ” a source told the London Express newspaper. “He’s planning to live there for much of the year.” Gibson was pictured last month in the town of Nicoya while he was scouting locations for his next film, which he is financing himself as he has been ostracized for race-hate remarks.

The Central American jungle was the setting for Gibson’s film Apocalypto, which was released shortly after his infamous run-in with police in Los Angeles last summer. Costa Rica is famed for the richness and variety of its rainforest and wildlife and is home to five per cent of the world’s flora and fauna. The country’s Catholic president, Oscar Arias, has already welcomed Gibson personally.

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The move is a further sign that the star is losing interest in keeping up his status as an A-list leading man and is beginning to turn his back on Hollywood.

It is five years since his last appearance as a leading actor in Signs, and he has no projects lined up for the immediate future. The success of The Passion of the Christ, which grossed more than £300million, means Gibson no longer has to worry about controlling his behaviour.

He financed Apocalypto, an epic about the Mayan civilisation, entirely from his own pocket.

Gibson, who has seven children with his wife of 27 years, Robyn Moore, still owns a California mansion and a ranch in Australia. He also owns Mago, a 2,160-hectare private island near Fiji, which he bought in 2004 from Japan’s Tokyu Corporation for £9million.