He had hinted at retirement from acting a couple of years ago, but on Monday Robert Redford made it official: “The Old Man and The Gun,” shot last year in Cincinnati, will be his final one as an actor.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 81-year-old Hollywood legend said that while he would “never say never” to performing again, “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. And why not go out with something that’s very upbeat and positive?”
The Old Man & The Gun, which Redford also produced, co-stars Casey Affleck, Danny Glover, Sissy Spacek and Tom Waits and was shot at several locations around the Cincinnati area. The film, a real-life story about an unrepentant bank robber, will premiere next month at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Redford began his acting career in the 1960s, starring in hit movies like All Is Lost, All the President's Men, Barefoot in the Park, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Great Gatsby, The Horse Whisperer, Indecent Proposal, The Natural, Out of Africa, Pete's Dragon, A River Runs Through It, Spy Game, The Sting, Three Days of the Condor, Up Close and Personal and The Way We Were. In 1982, he won an Academy Award for directing Ordinary People. The actor, who won another Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002, also founded the Sundance Film Festival.