The Beaver is a 2011 drama film directed by Jodie Foster and starring Mel Gibson. This is their first film together since 1994's Maverick.

Walter Black (Mel Gibson) is a depressed CEO of Jerry Co., a toy company nearing bankruptcy. He is kicked out by his wife (Jodie Foster), to the relief of their elder son Porter (Anton Yelchin). Walter moves into a hotel. After unsuccessful suicide attempts, he develops an alternate personality represented by a "beaver" hand puppet found in the trash, which from then on he always has with him, and through which he communicates with other people, helping him to recover. First, he reestablishes a bond with his younger son Henry and then with his wife, although not with his elder son, Porter. He also becomes successful again at work by creating a line of Mr. Beaver Building Kits for kids.

Porter, who gets paid for writing papers for schoolmates, is asked to write a graduation speech for Norah (Jennifer Lawrence). He gets emotionally attached to Norah but his father's actions with his beaver puppet embarrass him.

The Beaver is the weekly newspaper of the London School of Economics Students' Union at the LSE.

Despite being published by the Students' Union, The Beaver is independent in its reporting. 2,000 copies are published and distributed free of charge every Tuesday during term time. The Beaver is governed by the Collective, a body of students who have contributed three or more written pieces or photographs to the paper and elects the editorial staff. The paper is made up of sections for News, Comment, Features, Social and Sport, as well as an arts and culture supplement, PartB.

The Beaver's news section has consistently been among the strongest in UK student media, consisting of LSE, University of London and Higher Education stories from across Britain, frequently being quoted in the national press. A recent example concerned the story of the LSE Council having discussed the option of privatisation, which was subsequently reported by a number of national newspapers including The Guardian.

Comment publishes opinion pieces discussing issues that are relevant to the LSE community, regardless of whether they have wider social or political implications. Letters to the editor are also published, and the extensive range of articles and letters featured reflects the broad readership of the paper. Contributions to the Comment section have been wide-ranging and varied, and contributors have ranged from former LSE Director Sir Howard Davies to lay students.

Jodie Foster (born Alicia Christian Foster; November 19, 1962) is an American actress, film director, and producer.

Foster began acting in commercials at three years of age, and her first significant role came at age 13 in the 1976 film Taxi Driver as the preteen prostitute Iris, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Also that year, she starred in the cult film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1989, for playing a rape victim in The Accused. In 1991, she starred in The Silence of the Lambs as Clarice Starling, a gifted FBI trainee, assisting in a hunt for a serial killer. This performance received international acclaim and her second Academy Award for Best Actress. She received her fourth Academy Award nomination for playing a hermit in Nell (1994). Other popular films include Bugsy Malone (1976); Freaky Friday (1976); Candleshoe (1977) Maverick (1994); Contact (1997); Panic Room (2002); Flightplan (2005); Inside Man (2006); The Brave One (2007); Nim's Island (2008) and Carnage (2011), for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American film and television actress. She had lead roles in TBS's The Bill Engvall Show and in the independent films The Burning Plain and Winter's Bone, for which she received nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Satellite Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award. At age 20, she was the second youngest actress ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She is also known for playing Mystique in X-Men: First Class. In 2012, Lawrence achieved wider recognition starring as the heroine Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, an adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-selling novel of the same name. Her performance in the film garnered her notable critical praise and marked her as the highest grossing action heroine of all time. Lawrence's performances thus far have prompted Rolling Stone to define her as "the most talented young actress in America."

Lawrence was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and has two older brothers. Her parents are Karen (née Koch), who runs a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who once owned a concrete construction firm, Lawrence & Associates. She acted in local theater and, by the age of 14, had decided to pursue an acting career, persuading her parents to take her to New York City to find a talent agent. Prior to finding success in Hollywood, Lawrence attended Kammerer Middle School. She graduated from high school two years early with a 3.9 average in order to begin a career in acting. While growing up and in between acting, Lawrence served as an assistant nurse at the children's summer day camp that her mother ran.

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO (born 3 January 1956) is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. He was born in Peekskill, New York, moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old, and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.

After appearing in the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series, Gibson went on to direct and star in the Academy Award-winning Braveheart. In 2004, he directed and produced The Passion of the Christ, a film portraying the last hours in the life of Jesus.

Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York State, the sixth of 11 children, and the second son of Hutton Gibson and Irish-born Anne Patricia (née Reilly, died 1990). His paternal grandmother was the Australian opera contralto Eva Mylott (1875–1920). One of Gibson's younger brothers, Donal, is also an actor. Gibson's first name comes from Saint Mel, fifth-century Irish saint, and founder of Gibson's mother's native diocese, Ardagh, while his second name, Colm-Cille, is also shared by an Irish saint and is the name of the parish in County Longford where Gibson's mother was born and raised. Because of his mother, Gibson holds dual Irish and American citizenship.