The one thing about Hollywood that always irritated Robert Redford: “There’s not a lot I can do about it”
Hollywood is an endlessly fickle place, where stars are extinguished just as quickly as they are created. Even some of the industry’s brightest sparks have had vast periods of downturn and neglect, a feeling that Robert Redford knows all too well.
A staple of the Hollywood scene since way back in the 1960s, Redford has lent his extensive acting talents to a plethora of the industry’s most iconic roles over the decades. From All The President’s Men to his career-defining performance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Californian actor was up there with the most sought-after leading men in Hollywood for a time. Regrettably, though, nothing lasts forever.
In many ways, Redford was a victim of his own success. Once Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had established the actor as a rugged, stoic, and impassive leading man, audiences struggled to view him as anything else. Now, being typecast has worked out pretty well for a countless array of actors over the years; western stars the likes of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood built an entire career off the back of being aloof and stoney-faced action stars. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for development or diversity.
So, although Redford was an unavoidable Hollywood star for much of the 1960s and 1970s, he only took on a handful of film projects throughout the 1980s – and none of them made much of an impact on the industry. Part of that downturn was, of course, a result of the natural changing tides of the film industry, when fresh new talent began to replace the old guard. Another core reason for the slowing of Redford’s career, however, lay in the fact that he was being offered the same old roles over and over again.
Essentially, everybody wanted Redford to play a version of himself, with regard to his offscreen antics and persona from back in his own golden age. Before too long, the actor became understandably sick of those offers. “It does bother me,” he admitted to the Los Angeles Times in 1990. “There’s not a lot I can do about it. You lose something and you gain something somewhere else.”
“You move from doing the work and having that carry the day to having your own persona confused in the performance by other people and, yeah, by maybe yourself too,” Redford continued, highlighting the difficulties that fame and persona bring to Hollywood. “A shift occurs and you restrict yourself just to get by.”
As the actor aged, those roles that harked back to his past persona became increasingly irritating, particularly as the industry couldn’t seem to accept that Redford had matured and developed somewhat. “I was a total wild man when I was in school, I’d climb flagpoles naked for a buck,” he admitted. “I did a lot of crazy things. When there was nothing at stake, when I didn’t have a family to embarrass, I didn’t care what anybody thought. But when you have a lot of people watching your behaviour, you move away from that.”
Redford was able to bounce back from that frustrating period in the 1980s and 1990s, shifting into the directing chair. Perhaps the break did him some good because, eventually, he was back fielding acting offers for a much wider range of roles. The truth is, nobody wants to see a grey-haired Sundance Kid sticking to his mysterious outlaw persona for too many decades.
