The Woad Warrior

Mel said he was attracted to Wallace's "dichotomy. He was heroic, but he didn't seek self-aggrandizement. He didn't want a crown, he didn't want land. He was just doing it because he wanted his country to be free. At the same time, he was a savage. When he won the battle at Stirling, he got the commanding officer and skinned him and made a belt out of him."

My personal top ten list of theories about why Mel Gibson decided to use woad (completely anachronistically) in Braveheart was because

1. it looked cool
2. he has a thing about half his face being different from the other (e.g. see the movie "The Man Without a Face")
3. There was a scene in "Maverick" which showed a red injun with one side ofhis face painted and it looked much groovier than the face paint Mel was lumbered with
4. it looked exotic
5. it was only used in the Battle of Stirling - the battle he did win, so it was a lighthearted touch of dramatic license to emphasise the high morale of Scots
6. someone a bit hazy on the history of Scotland had heard that Scots used to paint themselves in woad when they fought the ancient Romans and confused the first and thirteenth centuries