Mel Gibson praised his longtime friend and “Air America” co-star Robert Downey Jr. in the latter’s new Esquire magazine cover story. Gibson called Downey “bold and generous and kind” for urging Hollywood to forgive Gibson after his infamous 2006 arrest, which included the “Braveheart” star making comments disparaging Jewish people. Gibson’s antisemitic remarks soured his career in Hollywood.

“One time, I got into a bit of a sticky situation where it kind of ended my career,” Gibson told Esquire. “I was drunk in the back of a police car and I said some stupid shit, and all of a sudden: blacklisted. I’m the poster boy for canceled. A couple of years into that [Robert] invited me to some kind of award he was getting—we always had this kind of seesaw thing, where if he was on the wagon, I was falling off, and if I was on the wagon,...