(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Mel Gibson says going through a "metamorphosis" helped make acting appealing to him again.

The 55-year-old Hollywood actor appeared at the Cannes International Film Festival earlier this week to promote The Beaver, the Jodie Foster-directed drama where he portrays a man who can only communicate with his family by using a hand puppet.

Mel shied away from too many interviews as he has been enduring troubles in his personal life during the making of The Beaver tapes of him lambasting ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva and apparently showing him using violent, racist and abusive language towards her had been made public. However, he did give one interview to Variety, where he was prepared to discuss his professional life. The star explained his refreshed new attitude to starring in movies, as he famously announced he would be putting his acting career on the backburner back in 2002 before retuning with a leading role in 2010 film Edge of Darkness.

"I think I just walked away for about eight years cos you keep grinding on the same bicycle and you know then the chain starts to wear out...so I just got to a place where I thought I don't even know if I wanna do this,' he explained.

"When enough time has elapsed and you've gone through some kind of metamorphosis, when you come back to it it's interesting again."

Mel was thrilled with the reception The Beaver received during the screening in Cannes. He was particularly pleased that the movie touched audiences, as he knew this was what Jodie had hoped for.

"Yeah they seemed to appreciate it, like it. You know you could hear people sniffling and stuff so I think they were affected by it, that's good, I think that's what Jodie wanted from it," he smiled.

"It's about the length that someone will go to to survive. It's actually kinda spiritual in a weird way because its more than...we all go through things which are hard to bare at some point or other and we have to get through it." (C) Cover Media