Robert Redford Retiring From Acting? Not So Fast, His Publicist Says – Update
UPDATED, 12:44 PM: Maybe hold off on plans for that retirement party: Robert Redford’s publicist tells Deadline is not quitting acting anytime soon. “He is certainly not retiring now from acting because he has several projects coming down the pike,” said Cindi Berger of PMK*BNC. She added that he’s not retiring after the next two movies, which he said in a new interview with his grandson, but gave no other details.
PREVIOUSLY, 11:02 AM: In a long, published interview with his grandson, Robert Redford says he’ll retire from acting after his next two movies are finished. “I’ve got two acting projects in the works,” he told Dylan Redford. “Once they’re done, then I’m going to say, ‘Okay, that’s goodbye to all that,’ and then just focus on directing.”
The films in question, both of which are in preproduction, are Our Souls at Night, with Jane Fonda, and The Old Man with the Gun, with Casey Affleck and Sissy Spacek. The Sundance founder recently signed a first-look deal with HBO.
The elder Redford, whose only acting Oscar nom came for Best Picture winner The Sting (1974), won an Academy Award for directing Ordinary People (1980) and received an Honorary Oscar in 2002. He also earned Best Director and Picture noms for 1994’s Quiz Show.
His long acting career began in early-1960s TV with roles on such popular series are Maverick, Playhouse 90, Perry Mason, Route 66 and a memorable lead role as the kind personification of Death opposite a frightened Gladys Cooper in the Twilight Zone episode “Nothing in the Dark.” He continued working mostly in television into the mid-’60s, when he appeared in such film and The Chase and Barefoot in the Park.
Redford would become a full-fledged movie star in 1969 with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, his first pairing with his future The Sting partner Paul Newman. That same year Redford would reteam with Butch Cassidy co-star Katharine Ross in Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here and toplined the skiing movie Downhill Racer with Gene Hackman.
Redford starred in numerous 19709s movies including The Candidate, Jeremiah Johnson, The Great Gatsby, The Great Waldo Pepper, All the President’s Men, Three Days of the Condor, A Bridge Too Far and The Electric Horseman. Later film roles included The Natural, Out of Africa, Indecent Proposal, The Horse Whisperer — which he also directed — and, most recently, A Walk in the Woods, Truth and Pete’s Dragon.
Redford made his directing debut with ORdinary People and would go on to helm such pics as A River Runs Through It, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Lions for Lambs and The Company You Keep.
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