The classic movie Robert Redford was rejected for because he wasn’t a “loser”
Being a handsome, charming, and charismatic star is undoubtedly much more of a benefit than it is a detriment in Hollywood, but Robert Redford ended up missing out on the lead role in a classic movie because there was no way he could convince anybody that he was a loser.
That’s not to say he was eye candy and nothing more, of course, with Redford regarded as one of his generation’s finest performers. Equally comfortable treading the boards as he was lighting up a movie, the actor’s stage and screen credentials didn’t matter in the slightest when the casting process began for a film that would go on to earn seven Academy Award nominations including ‘Best Picture’.
Mike Nichols was already very familiar with Redford having directed him on Broadway in Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, a role that the leading man would reprise in the 1967 film adaptation. The respected stage director only had one feature under his belt at the time, but it landed him on the ‘Best Director’ shortlist when he steered Elizabeth Taylor to ‘Best Actress’ glory in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
For his follow-up, Nichols had settled on adapting Charles Webb’s The Graduate, and the entire production hinged on the identity of the actor cast as Benjamin Braddock. Fresh out of college and unable to figure out what he wants to do with his life, he ends up being seduced by his parents’ friend Mrs Robinson, before matters get increasingly complicated when he falls for her daughter.
Braddock is far from being cool, calm, and collected, which were qualities Redford exuded effortlessly. He wanted the part, and may have been under the impression his established professional relationship with Nichols would work in his favour, only for his natural suaveness to rule him out of the running.
“I interviewed hundreds, maybe thousands, of men,” Nichols admitted of the casting process per Vanity Fair, before his conversation with Redford turned out to be a short one. “I said, ‘You can’t play it. You can never play a loser’. And Redford said, ‘What do you mean? Of course I can play a loser’. And I said, ‘OK, have you ever struck out with a girl’. And he said, ‘What do you mean?’. And he wasn’t joking.”
It must have been a hard life for Redford, having absolutely no idea what Nichols was even referring to after being quizzed on whether any advances made towards the opposite sex had failed to bear fruit. No offence to Dustin Hoffman, but he was exactly the kind of loser The Graduate was crying out for, which was reflected in the ‘Best Actor’ nominee giving a breakthrough performance in a movie that netted Nichols the Oscar for ‘Best Director’.
