The line Robert Redford refused to say: “He even made sure to have it crossed out in the script”
Even though Robert Redford never wanted to become a sex symbol or heartthrob, it happened anyway. Of course, that comes with the territory when a charming and handsome actor cracks Hollywood’s upper echelons, even if his number one remit was to be taken seriously as an actor.
Being easy on the eyes always helps, though, which did admittedly cost him a major role. Redford had eyes on headlining The Graduate, which put Dustin Hoffman on the map thanks to an Academy Award-winning breakthrough performance, but it was inconceivable to Redford and director Mike Nichols that he could convincingly play someone who had no luck with the ladies.
That was Redford’s duality encapsulated: he was a very good actor who actively shied away from thankless parts that traded exclusively on his good looks, but when he did tackle a character-driven turn that went against the persona that had been crafted around him, there were often issues.
When it came to regular collaborator Sydney Pollack’s 1973 romantic drama The Way We Were, both sides were on full display. Redford was hesitant to play Hubbell Gardiner before his arm was twisted, and the film received widespread acclaim and won two Academy Awards from six nominations.
The story saw Redford and Barbra Streisand’s Katie Morosky as polar opposites who fall for each other, only for their differing personalities to cause friction. There was supposed to be a scene that intimated the former as having performance issues in the bedroom, which was swiftly shut down when Redford refused to say the dialogue as written in the script by Arthur Laurents, who adapted his own novel for the screen.
“Never spoken was a line that Laurents had put in both his novel and his screenplay, and it was a line that he wanted to cap the scene,” Robert Hofler revealed. “Hubbell looks into Katie’s eyes after their orgy of grapes and tells her, ‘It’ll be better this time’. Only Redford refused to say the line. He even made sure to have it crossed out in the working script.”
Even though Redford dedicated the majority of his career to breaking out of the box Hollywood had tried to stuff him in as cinematic eye candy, he still couldn’t condone a fictional character he played in a motion picture to be revealed as somebody who delivered anything less than an A+ performance between the sheets.
Obviously, any actor who makes it to the summit of the business requires a touch of vanity and more than a little ego to get there. Still, it was curious that Redford’s insistence on challenging himself and proving he had multiple strings to his bow had its limits, which were tied to his status as a real-life lothario.
