Robert Redford Announces Retirement From Acting

Academy Award winner Robert Redford, 81, has announced that he is retiring from acting in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. In a 2016 interview with his grandson, Dylan Redford, Redford had said that he was “getting tired of acting.” At the time he had two projects in the works, Our Souls at Night and The Old Man & the Gun and said that he wanted to retire once those two films were completed. It seems that Redford is keeping true to his word when he announced in his EW interview — published Monday, August 6, 2018 — that The Old Man & the Gun would be his final film as an actor.

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Redford told EW, “Never say never, but I pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting, and [I’ll] move towards retirement after this ’cause I’ve been doing it since I was 21. I thought, Well, that’s enough. And why not go out with something that’s very upbeat and positive?” The Old Man & the Gun tells the story of real-life career criminal, Forrest Tucker, who robbed 17 banks, went to jail 17 times, and escaped each time. Tucker’s bank robbing career spanned for over 60 years, a parallel to Redford’s acting career. Redford said that he enjoyed his role as Tucker — especially at this time in his life — and wondered if “he was not averse to getting caught so he that could enjoy the real thrill of his life, which is to escape?”

Redford’s breakout film was Barefoot in the Park, with Jane Fonda, in 1967. He went in to star in several other iconic films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and All the President’s Men. Redford even starred in Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014. In Our Souls at Night, released on Netflix in 2017, Redford reunited with Fonda for what he called, “a love story for older people who get a second chance in life.” In 1980, he won an Academy Award for his directorial debut, Ordinary People, and in 2002, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement award from the Academy. When asked if he would retire from directing as well, Redford said “we’ll see about that.”

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The Old Man & the Gun is scheduled to premiere on September 28, 2018. The film is directed by David Lowery and co-produced by Redford. Sissy Spacek, Danny Glover, Tom Waits and Casey Affleck will star alongside Redford in the film.