The movie Robert Redford broke his golden rule for: “His last day of acting”
Robert Redford isn’t the type of guy who is easily swayed. He started in Hollywood way back in the 1950s, and in an era when young stars were flooding the industry, he still managed to stand out and prove his longevity. He had conventionally good looks, but he made sure that his path was anything but conventional. For nearly a decade, he was typecast as a blonde, all-American leading man, but when he got the chance to play against type, he leapt at the opportunity.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid gave Redford the opportunity to show his range as an actor, and it set his career on a new course. Movies like Downhill Racer, The Candidate, and The Way We Were helped burnish his image as one of Hollywood’s most unpredictable stars. He changed course again in 1980 when he directed the drama Ordinary People, which followed a couple grappling with their eldest son’s sudden death and their struggle to reconnect with their surviving son.
Unlike many actors who turn to directing, Redford did not star in the movie, choosing to focus all his energies on everything happening behind the scenes. It was a triumph across the board, winning four Oscars, including for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director.’ Since then, he’s balanced acting and directing, helming critically acclaimed projects such as A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show, and The Conspirator while starring in box office successes like The Natural, Out of Africa, and Indecent Proposal.
One of the reasons Redford has had such a long and successful career is that he made a supposedly ironclad rule for himself to never play the same role twice. It’s hard to imagine a star making this sort of resolution these days when franchises run the industry, but The Sting actor managed to stick to his guns all the way until 2017. That’s when he got a call from the Russo brothers, the duo behind such Marvel box office smashes as Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Infinity War.
Redford had played SHIELD agent Alexander Pierce in the former film, explaining that it was a type of character he had not yet gotten to play. It was a relatively small appearance for such a major star, but it fulfilled his desire to do something new. The irony is that it was also the character that would make him break his rule. When the Russos asked him to reprise the role in 2017 for their movie Avengers: Endgame, he agreed to do it.
Perhaps he had changed his mind about the whole thing due to his impending retirement. During the production of the film, he announced that he would be ending his career as an actor. “That was his last day of acting. Ever,” Joe Russo revealed on the commentary track in the digital release of Endgame, explaining that the Butch Cassidy star had even announced his intentions on set.
That didn’t end up being strictly accurate, though. Redford went on to make 2019’s The Old Man & The Gun, at which point he publicly announced his retirement. On balance, it was a much better send-off than the vanishingly brief reprisal of Pierce.
