As an actor and as a person you come together with being in familiar territory although that has not been my whole life. That's been a part of it. I think a lot of people associate me with the west because of Sundance.
Basically, there needs to be more theaters. That's the chief problem for independent film right now, and it keeps getting camouflaged by all the fashionable attention. It actually makes me nervous because, like fashion, it will exhaust itself, and independent film will become yesterday's news.
Because, you know, you're in Utah. And because of its political conservatism, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
Curiously, directing my own films has made me more tolerant and patient. I've always been an extremely impatient actor - you know, not too many takes, don't want to spend too much time on the set. Waiting around drove me nuts. But now I'm much more sympathetic to a director's struggle.
Filmgoers are starved for new ideas, voices and visions.
Generally speaking, I went through that. I came to a place where I realised what true value was. It wasn't money. Money is a means to achieving an end, but it's not the end.
Golf has become so manicured, so perfect. The greens, the fairways. I don't like golf carts. I like walking. Some clubs won't let you in unless you have a caddy and a cart.
He's meant to be that classic Homer, Ulysses, Hercules - a character who goes out or has some gift of some kind. He goes on a journey of discovery and part of that is falling into darkness - the temptations of life.
Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better.
I am a cynical optimist. Big opening weekends are like cotton candy. The films you will remember over time are the films that stick in the consciousness of the audience in a good way.
I believe in mythology. I guess I share Joseph Campbell's notion that a culture or society without mythology would die, and we're close to that.
I did not, like my children and people today, grow up with television as part of my life.
I don't know what your childhood was like, but we didn't have much money. We'd go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book.
I had just arrived in New York from California. I was nineteen years old and excited beyond belief. I was an art student and an acting student and behaved as most young actors did - meaning that there was no such thing as a good actor, 'cause you yourself hadn't shown up yet.
I have absolutely no plans to extend this festival. I'd rather close it, quite frankly, and let someone else start a festival.
I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?
I'm not a facelift person. I am what I am.
I'm not interested in a film about golf but I am interested in golf as a metaphor.
In fact you've got your hands tied behind your back when somebody chooses to take a low road in to you, there is nothing you can do about it, and so you just live with it and move on.
It's an honor putting art above politics. Politics can be seductive in terms of things reductive to the soul.
It's hard to pay attention these days because of multiple affects of the information technology nowadays. You tend to develop a faster, speedier mind, but I don't think it's necessarily broader or smarter.
Lastly get emotionally connected to your story so you can deliver it, you know, if you can't deliver the emotions to your script there's no point to your story. Story is the key.
Never revisit the past, that's dangerous. You know, move on.
Once the festival achieved a certain level of notoriety, then people began to come here with agendas that were not the same as ours. We can't do anything about that. We can't control that.
Radio, newspapers, they were normal parts of my life. In those days, you had to go somewhere to watch television and leave something to see it.
Sport is a wonderful metaphor for life. Of all the sports that I played - skiing, baseball, fishing - there is no greater example than golf, because you're playing against yourself and nature.
Sundance was started as a mechanism for the discovery of new voices and new talent.
The idea was to set Quiz Show at this time of naive energy, when television's audience tended to believe what it saw as what really was.
The technology available for film-making now is incredible, but I am a big believer that it's all in the story.
There is nothing I can do about this stuff and I am pretty well ok with the fact that I think Sundance is not going to be stopped by it, because he Festival is itself now, and doesn't need me out there to talk about it like I did years ago.
Usually I like to improvise. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the piece, I like to improvise because I think it brings certain freshness and a reality to it, as long as it doesn't go too far out of the box.
We program the festival, after 20 years, exactly the way we did on the first day.
Well first of all it's a business and it's a tough business, and you have to have the strength to survive all the set backs all the failures that make this a mean business, that's getting meaner and meaner every year in my opinion.
Well I like to work, it's just being as selective as you are at the time, when there's maybe less product out there that's available.
What about a sequel to 'Butch Cassidy?' Well, the guys died in it, what is it going to be, a spiritual film?
What I would do is when I was younger I would draw in a sketch book something that happened in my life and then write a little something on the side about what happened or what the story.
Whereas money is a means to an end for a filmmaker, to the corporate mind money is the end. Right now, I think independent film is very confused, because there's excess pressure in the marketplace for entertainment to pay off.
You can't completely control the sport - Tiger Woods comes close. The test is against yourself and nature's own way. I find golf a particularly good metaphor for this story.
He was voted the 30th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
In addition to being the graduation speaker for Bard College's 144th Commencement (class of 2004), he also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the college.
He is the founder of the Sundance Film Festival, which he named after his character 'The Sundance Kid' from the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).
He is a National Member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity (brothers include Cory Poccia and Michael C. Williams).
In the early 1970s, Paramount had plans that were unrealized to remake Double Indemnity (1944) with Redford in the Fred MacMurray role.
Robert was mentioned in the theme song of the 1980s TV hit "The Fall Guy" (1981).
He was named an Officer of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
He is dating German painter Sibylle Szaggars. [1999-present]
Robert is the father of Shauna Redford and Amy Redford.
He was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#4). [1995]
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