The favourite role of Robert Redford’s entire career: “Playing the outlaw”
From becoming a Hollywood icon to creating the Sundance Film Festival, it’s hard to quantify the many accolades Robert Redford has achieved throughout his career. Although he helped start Sundance and has moonlighted as a director, the most remarkable aspect of his career is the number of legendary titles in which he has starred as an actor.
Redford made his feature-length debut in the 1962 war drama War Hunt alongside Charles Aidman and John Saxon. Hailed as one of the titles of the year, the project opened the doors up for more memorable pictures of his career. One of these ensuing highlights came in 1965’s drama Inside Daisy Clover, in which Redford starred with Natalie Wood and eventually won a Golden Globe for ‘Best New Star’.
Arguably the defining moment of Redford’s acting career, however, came in 1969 when he featured alongside Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Redford played Harry Longabaugh, ‘The Sundance Kid’ in the western buddy adventure, with it such a tremendous success that it certified him as a major Hollywood star. While revisionist takes on the movie have been mixed, looking at it in the context of the era, Butch Cassidy was a significant cinematic moment.
After that, Redford continued this purple patch, starring in Sydney Pollack’s critically acclaimed 1972 western Jeremiah Johnson, before enjoying the greatest hit of his career, the crime blockbuster, The Sting, the following year. For his work in the 1936-set work, he was nominated for ‘Best Actor’ at the Academy Awards.
That same year, he also starred alongside Barbara Streisand in the romantic drama, The Way We Were, which spawned the ubiquitous hit song of the same name. Since then, some of the other masterworks of Redford’s CV have come in the form of The Great Gatsby, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, and A Bridge Too Far.
Given his extensive CV and the many highlights it boasts, for a long time, fans have sought to know which Robert Redford role is his favourite. Unsurprisingly, it comes as ‘The Sundance Kid’ in Butch Cassidy. He told ET in 2015: “Butch Cassidy — that was my favourite role, playing the outlaw”.
One of the most well-known westerns ever made, George Roy Hill’s 1969 classic stars Redford and Paul Newman as a couple of outlaws who are on the run from the authorities after a series of robberies. The American Film Institute acknowledged the extensive legacy of this masterpiece by named it as the “7th-greatest Western of all time”.
“I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve had wonderful relationships with people I’ve worked with,” Redford confessed. “But nothing has sustained like Paul Newman. Nothing has sustained like our connection. It went into movie friendship, into personal friendship. It cut very deep. He changed my life: he agreed to have me in the movie [Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid] that I shouldn’t have been in.”
Redford’s character of the laconic ‘Sundance Kid’ is one etched in history. Loosely based on the lives of the real Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, his adroit acting helped the film become one of the most culturally significant of its era, in addition to William Goldman’s balanced script and the almost palpable chemistry between Redford and Paul Newman. From the explosive action sequences that Newman and Redford star in together to their more candid moments during the second act in Bolivia, as far as on-screen partnerships go, this is one of the finest.
It even pips that of Redford and Dustin Hoffman’s in 1976’s All the President’s Men. Adding to this thought is the finale of Butch Cassidy. After the wounded pair plot their next escape to Australia, they confidently run out of the building, directly into the hail of bullets from the Bolivian army. The camera quickly zooms in, and a freeze frame ensues as we hear the sounds of the bullets fired at the doomed outlaws. It’s one of the most fitting conclusions to one of the most compelling cinematic adventures of the era. Since then, Redford and Newman have been tied together, a double act of the kind we don’t really see anymore.
