He said his upcoming film “The Old Man & The Gun” will be his final acting job, according to Entertainment Weekly.
SALT LAKE CITY – Robert Redford announced Monday morning that he is retiring from acting.
He said his upcoming film “The Old Man & The Gun” will be his final acting job, according to Entertainment Weekly .
„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 because I’ve been doing it since I was 21,“ he said. „I thought, ‚Well, that’s enough.‘ And why not go out with something that’s very upbeat and positive?“
Redford said his upcoming film helped shape his decision. In “Old Man,” he plays Forrest Tucker, a career criminal in love with robbing banks and breaking out of prison.
“The thing that really got me about him — which I hope the film shows — is he robbed 17 banks and he got caught 17 times and went to prison 17 times. But he also escaped 17 times,“ Redford said. „So it made me wonder: I wonder if he was not averse to getting caught so he that could enjoy the real thrill of his life, which is to escape?”
Redford starred in such film as „Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,“ „The Sting,“ „The Natural,“ „The Way We Were,“ and „All the President’s Men.”
Redford won an Academy Award for best director for his work on “Ordinary People.” He also founded the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival .
Redford said in 2016 that he was considering retiring and returning to painting, according to an interview he did with his grandson for the Walker Art Center .
“Yeah, a lot — and a lot lately because I’m getting tired of acting. I’m an impatient person, so it’s hard for me to sit around and do take after take after take,” he said. “At this point in my life, age 80, it’d give me more satisfaction because I’m not dependent on anybody. It’s just me, just the way it used to be, and so going back to sketching — that’s sort of where my head is right now.
“So, I’m thinking of moving in that direction and not acting so much,” he continued.
