visited Lowell<\/a> in 2014, when Cook was serving as the college\u2019s executive director of public affairs. In this instance, and for many of the Celebrity Forums since he joined MCC in 2004, Cook himself shared the stage with Redford and interviewed him in front of a packed Lowell Memorial Auditorium.<\/p>\n\u201cFor a number of years, Robert Redford was on the list of people [former MCC President Carol Cowan] wanted here because of his work with various charitable organizations and his promotion of independent filmmakers,\u201d said Cook in a phone call with The Sun Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
Redford had been in talks to be the celebrity guest in the years leading up to 2014, but his filming schedule made it difficult to line things up for the April to June window MCC tends to host the forum. Cook recalled that Redford\u2019s forum ended up taking place in July, because Redford was in the middle of filming \u201cA Walk in the Woods.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cook remembers Redford arriving early to the Nesmith House, which is owned by MCC, where they had a meal prepared for him as MCC officials greeted him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a little downtime\u2026 And he was just obsessed with learning more about the history of Lowell,\u201d said Cook. \u201cI started with the Nesmith House\u2026 The connection with the mill owners in the 19th century. He just had a nonstop barrage of questions about the history of Lowell, the industrial revolution, the mills\u2026 He was just enthralled hearing more and more about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
What Cook did not realize in the course of his private conversation with Redford was that his phone was in his pocket, and his MCC colleagues had been relentlessly calling and texting him because they were late getting to the LMA. Once he realized, Redford was quickly brought to the venue, where he met sponsors and fans backstage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a level of giddiness about folks who were getting to meet this Hollywood icon\u2026 It was fun to watch because people were so animated and excited about him,\u201d said Cook.<\/p>\n
After the two finally sat down together on the stage, Cook said Redford swapped seats with him on the fly, which was fine with Cook, but he also had a hard time seeing the one-hour countdown clock.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he wasn\u2019t in a rush,\u201d said Cook of Redford.<\/p>\n
In their interview, Cook and Redford covered a number of topics from Redford\u2019s support of independent film-making, his efforts toward ecological conservation, and his thoughts on the state of the world in relation to characters he has played. One question from the audience that night was asked about Redford\u2019s opinion on the state of journalism at the time in comparison to the way things were during the Watergate scandal, noting of course that Redford played the role of legendary investigative journalist Bob Woodward in the film \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was when journalism reached its height at that point in history. What I was interested in showing was a movie about hard work\u2026,\u201d Redford said in the 2014 interview. \u201cIt seemed to me it was at its absolute zenith at the time. Then what shocked me is how quickly it declined after that and it went down the back side. Something changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few months before the 2014 Celebrity Forum, Redford was featured prominently in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as Alexander Pierce. To put it lightly, Cook was a big fan of that role.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnybody who knows me, knows I have been collecting comic books my whole life. It was how I learned to read,\u201d said Cook.<\/p>\n
So, during the interview Cook said he made sure to sneak in a \u201cHail Hydra\u201d to Redford, referencing a scene with Redford\u2019s character in the film, which Cook joked was his \u201cone geek moment\u201d he allowed himself during the interview.<\/p>\n
When asked about his own favorite Robert Redford movie, given his extensive filmography, Cook paused for a moment as he thought about it before answering \u201cJeremiah Johnson,\u201d the 1972 film where Redford plays the titular character, a veteran who chooses to live in isolation in the mountains after serving in the Mexican-American War.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it was my brother Gerald\u2019s favorite movie,\u201d said Cook.<\/p>\n
Cook said his late brother took him to the theater to see it when they were both young, and it was both his first memory of a movie theater and the first movie he remembers seeing more than once. Being a former reporter for The Sun himself, Cook said \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men\u201d is also a favorite, given its depiction of the behind-the-scenes of a newsroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving met a number of these celebrities backstage\u2026 He was genuine. He was the real deal,\u201d said Cook. \u201cEven though he was a Hollywood A-lister, he would shrug off the celebrity status. I saw it when he wanted to know so much more about Lowell from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redford\u2019s filmography spans from his rise as a film star in the 1960s to his final film credit in 2020, when he provided the voice for Lokia the Dolphin Monster in \u201cOmniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia.\u201d Redford\u2019s final on-screen film appearance was in Avengers: Endgame in 2019, where he reprises his role as Alexander Pierce. According to his Internet Movie Database profile, Redford has 82 total acting credits, 10 director credits and 57 credits as a producer.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.lowellsun.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOWELL \u2014 For a little more than 20 years, Middlesex Community College Vice President of Administration Patrick Cook has met with a wide range of celebrities and esteemed guests through MCC\u2019s annual Celebrity Forum. From famed journalists and actors to world class musicians and bands, Cook is one of the few who get a chance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2045863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[23219,22860,308544,22764,379194,379192,379193,379195,21738],"class_list":["post-2045862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-connecticut","tag-hollywood","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-lowell","tag-lowell-memorial-auditorium","tag-middlesex-community-college","tag-middlesex-county","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/He-was-the-real-deal.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2045862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2045863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2045862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2045862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2045862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}