भाव

[on his appearance in Havana (1990)] All everyone talked about was aging. It took me by surprise because I have not thought of myself that way. I assumed I would age naturally, as time went on.

As a director, I wouldn't like me as an actor. As an actor, I wouldn't like me as a director.

I am perhaps the best-looking grandfather around, apart from Marlon Brando, of course!

Some people have analysis. I have Utah.

[on refusing the role of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967), the role that made Dustin Hoffman a star seven years before Redford obtained super-star status himself] I never did look like a 21-year-old just out of college who'd never been laid.

[quoted by Robert Osborne, "Academy Awards 1974 Oscar Annual"] I used to feel competitive about a career, but now the only things I'm really passionate about are my family, the environment and Indians.

I learned early that you'd better know what you're talking about. You'd better realize that certain issues are going to be so hot - no matter what reason, what logic you apply to it - you're going to be met with an opposition just because their viewpoint is different, and there's no way they're going to accept your reasoning. Furthermore, they're going to attack you because you will be portrayed as not being credible: "You're an actor. What do you know?"

You should prepare when you go to a public event to be public. That's when I will sign autographs. But not when you're going about your normal business.

I have to be human, of course, to be flattered by attention from the public. How could you not be? But it gets pretty intense when people are going after your clothes, and mobbing you in the streets, and you have to hide. That's kind of amusing, and kind of mind-boggling when it happens - you kind of go with it and have fun with it. Then it gets tiring, and then it gets worse when you realize you're being robbed of a vital part of your life, which is your privacy. And you also know what's coming your way is artificial, because those people are reacting to something they saw on the screen, not you as a person.

[on his relationship with Paul Newman] When we made the movies nobody used the word "chemistry". Nobody used the word "bonding". It was just: "Get up there and do your job!"

[on his friendship with Paul Newman] There are certain friendships that are sometimes too good and too strong to talk about.

I got a review when I was starting in live television. This guy Jack O'Brian called me "hammy and overwrought". Now I'm looking back on it, I'd like to hold on to those reviews. It keeps you in perspective. It really does. Part of you says, "You know, I never ever really got over that." And what I think you learn very early on is not to believe your own press clippings, one way or another, just do your work. Because you're your own tough critic. If you focus on doing the work, you'll get to a place of refinement where those reviews which are often hyped up too much to the negative or the positive fall away.

I've bought hundreds of acres around my home. That's why I moved here from the coast. There's plenty of room to roam and be alone with nature. That's living. The city life is merely existing.

I often feel I'll just opt out of this rat race and buy another hunk of Utah.

A lot of what acting is, is paying attention.

All my life I've been dogged by guilt because I feel there is this difference between the way I look and the way I feel inside.

[during his opening-night address at the Sundance Film Festival, claiming U.S. politicians exploited public support of invasions] We put all our concerns on hold to let the leaders lead. I think we're owed a big, massive apology.

[1972 comment on Paul Newman] Paul is the most generous man with whom I've ever worked. We had a fantastic rapport shooting [Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)]. It was one of the happiest experiences of my life.

[on working with Dustin Hoffman on All the President's Men (1976)] One of the joys of the movie was working with Dustin; he has one of the most wonderful acting minds I've ever worked with.

They throw that word "star" at you loosely, and they take it away equally loosely. You take the responsibility for their crappy movie, that's what that means.

[on the death of longtime friend Paul Newman] I have lost a real friend. My life--and this country--is better for his being in it.

[on the Sundance Film Festival] Political activism has been a part of my life and part of the films I try to make. But we don't focus on any one theme or another. We don't take any ideological stance. I'm anti-ideology. Our work tries to transcend politics. Whatever side you're on, we try to show stories from every part of the country, and so 'red state, blue state' doesn't mean a whole lot to us.

I am passionate. I am political about my country, about what it is, how strong it is, how strong it remains. Lions for Lambs (2007) got rough treatment, and I think it was because--and I don't want to sound defensive--but I think it was misperceived. I am not a left-wing person. I'm just a person interested in the sustainability of my country.

Storytellers broaden our minds: engage, provoke, inspire, and ultimately, connect us.

[US President Barack Obama] has just rejected a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline--a project that promised riches for the oil giants and an environmental disaster for the rest of us. His decision represents a victory of historic proportions for people from throughout the pipeline path and all across America.

I believe history has a habit of repeating itself, that's for sure, but one of things I'm critical of my country on is that we don't seem to take note of the lessons that history teaches us. My country is pretty prone to everything wanting to be black and white, or red, white and blue. And in my experience of life, nothing was ever that simple. No one was dealing with the grey areas. So I decided to become a filmmaker so I could deal with that.

[on choosing Jackie Evancho to play his daughter in The Company You Keep (2012)] I have a big thing about child actors who "act" as opposed to child actors who can be natural, who can be real. Scarlett Johansson was a kid when we did The Horse Whisperer (1998), and I was concerned if a child looked like they were acting it would be like fingernails on a blackboard. So I'm depressed and I go back to my room and I do something I don't usually do and that's surf. And suddenly I'm skipping across these channels and there's this angelic face..singing. And there's a close-up and I think: 'Who's that?' and she was singing Puccini's opera.

[on filming All Is Lost (2013)] It was a bold and pure cinematic experience. It was stripped to the bone and I found that very appealing.. Being wet all day was the hardest thing. You get depressed being wet all the time.

[on Michelle Pfeiffer] She has a great sense of humor. There's a scene after the first time we have a tryst in Up Close & Personal (1996); she says goodbye to me and hands me a gift. I was just supposed to look at it and smile. I unwrapped it and inside was a picture frame, and Michelle had slipped in a photo of herself in a bathing suit winning the Miss Orange County beauty contest. I still have the photo.

[parallels between Forrest Tucker and his life] I cared about the money. I think that if you want to find a parallel it was that whether you're robbing banks or making film, you're either struggling, you go in and out of depression or you're continuously happy. And I've always been making films; it's made me very happy to be able to have the chance to make a film. And particularly if it's the story you want to tell. So for me I've been blessed that way so that makes me happy.

[on the directors who have had the most impact on him] Sydney Pollack and George Roy Hill. It makes me sad when I see certain directors getting a lot of attention, in some cases too much attention, when Roy was one of those who should have got that attention and didn't. If you read his biography he rises to the top, when you think about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973) he never got enough credit for those films.

If a character is involved in a conflict that turns out to be a human conflict, having to do with forces that might overwhelm his rights -- their right to be an individual, any clash of capitalism and ethics, which Quiz Show (1994) is certainly about, which is an eternal struggle, ethics usually loses. And those systems -- any system that has the power to overwhelm either our rights or us as individuals interests me dramatically.

With so many wonderful stories to tell and so much to do creatively, it seems like a tremendous waste of time to make a sequel. But that's my own view. So I would never -- and for me the film, whatever you think of it, it was what it was and it said it, did it, and it's done.

[on how it is difficult to be a celebrity] There is a Faustian side to all this, that you, for whatever glamour, whatever wonderful things there are that can benefit your life, there is also a downside, which is the loss of privacy, the beginning to be treated like an object and worried that you are going to start feeling like one and then maybe become one, the inability to be private.

[on All the President's Men (1976) ] We had so much resistance to getting it made, much of it from the press itself. Just being able to get that to the screen, it took three years and a lot of hard work, and we had to suffer some early paranoia on the media, a lot of it at The Washington Post. We were getting both cooperation and heads butting at the same time, so that was tough, it was hurdle after hurdle. We finally got past it, and it was a moment of great -- it was very gratifying to finally show the film here in Washington and not be eaten alive and have it come out our eyes. There was satisfaction in that.

[on his partnership with Sydney Pollack] We had a wonderful relationship for many, many years. Probably starting in 1960, going clear to 1990 we made several films together. It was a collaborative experience, because Sydney was the director, I was the actor, but behind the scenes we worked together on the script, and it was very collaborative and very giving both ways. And we raised families together. We were personal friends. It was a wonderful time.

And we would very often take on projects that were completely uphill projects. But because of that, it was exciting. I'd say, "Well, let's go for it. Let's do it anyway." So, that was one of them. And Sydney was a very fine filmmaker. He was a wonderful manager of the elements of film. And it was good for me as an actor because it freed me up as an actor, and I trusted Sydney to manage me as an actor. So there was comfort and confidence and loyalty on both sides. It was a terrific relationship.

There have been films that I've done in the past where I had a naive hope that things might be changed. I am not sure that it did or was. I remember when we made The Candidate (1972), the intention behind that film was the hope -- since the 18-year-old vote was in that year -- that it might indeed affect how people looked at the political system, at least how we elect people in this country, which the point the film was trying to make is that we do that essentially through cosmetics and not substance. So that was the hope, and by delivering a somewhat black comedy on the subject, the hope was that people may become aware and maybe do something about it. And the 18-year-old voter turnout was very, very low that year.

Today there is a tendency to lump three areas together in terms of information: there's news, there's documentaries, and then there's historical fiction. And it seems that the responsibilities are clear: news -- facts as known, presentation of the facts as known by the journalists; documentary -- facts as presented on film; and film itself as a dramatic rendering of historical event. Now, many over time have taken it beyond. I've just seen the example of that through the years. But the results are usually always the same: it's about characters, and the choices made, and the consequences, and results of those choices. So there is probably a good question that comes out of it: What is the relationship of historical fact to historical film? (13 September 1994)

All the President's Men (1976) was made with the hope that we would take a hard look at how close we came in this country to losing our First Amendment rights, and that we would take a hard enough look to maybe not make that mistake again. And yet we can see by the repeat that occurs in history, maybe all too quickly, that, who knows, with what kind of an impact that that has. I really don't know. That's not up for me to decide. So I decided some time ago the only thing I can really do is to take an issue that I find interesting, hope to get a story behind it, and dramatize that story to the point where it could be looked at, focused upon, and then possibly debated by the people more qualified than myself to do it. Those were the reasons for the film.

I delude myself as to how much power liberty carries in terms of substantial remarks. Years ago I was making The Candidate (1972), and we were in Monterey, California, at the fisherman's wharf. I was playing a man running for the Senate, and we had the actors with us -- we were doing it in a semi-documentary way, where -- what we call guerilla filmmaking. I was trying to go from booth to booth on the wharf and talk to people about their lives -- food costs and inflation, and so on and so forth. It was feeling pretty convincing. These were all actors, of course, but I had this staff around me, an advance man and so forth, and they kept going on ahead and passing out pamphlets for Bill McKay, running for the U.S. Senate. I felt we were really doing great. I went by one booth, and the woman was standing there with her little 10-year-old son, and she says to the advance guy, "Hey, what's the Sundance Kid doing down here in fisherman's wharf?" The guy, forever the actor, said, "Oh, no, no, no, that's not the Sundance Kid, that's Bill McKay, and he's running for the U.S. Senate." So she turns to her son and says, "You hear that, Tim? Old Sundance is running for the U.S. Senate." So I learned early on what reality is in that regard.

My first film [to watch] was a Walt Disney film. I was a little kid during the Second World War and there was no television, only radio, and the dream was on the weekend to walk to the neighborhood theater and see a movie. To me that was such a joy. You couldn't wait till the weekend to see something on the big screen. What I miss with all the advanced technology making viewing easier, the streaming services, the multiple channels, is the time when you could walk into a theater and sit in the dark with other people. The lights would go off and you could feel some magic happening on the big screen and feel the energy of the people around you. Now that's pretty much gone.