{"id":2271373,"date":"2026-02-07T14:24:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T14:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2271373"},"modified":"2026-02-07T14:24:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T14:24:30","slug":"robert-redfords-favorite-movie-roles-have-two-major-things-in-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/robert-redfords-favorite-movie-roles-have-two-major-things-in-common\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Redford&#8217;s Favorite Movie Roles Have Two Major Things In Common"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The late, great Robert Redford had an impressive film and television career that spanned over 60 years, with numerous truly excellent roles, but there were two that he claimed to love above the rest. In separate interviews in 2011 (with <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/DOq6DiHiNV4\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Piers Morgan;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Piers Morgan<\/a>) and 2018 (with <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/films\/0\/robert-redford-interview-kid-no-one-ever-told-good-looking\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Telegraph;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">The Telegraph<\/a>), Redford revealed that his two favorite roles were in &#8220;Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid&#8221; and &#8220;The Sting.&#8221; Both are truly excellent films and bona fide classics, but they also have two pretty big commonalities: They each star Paul Newman and were directed by\u00a0George Roy Hill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/804861\/the-behind-the-scenes-chaos-of-butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kids-casting-process\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Casting on &quot;Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid&quot;\u00a0was a chaotic event;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Casting on &#8220;Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid&#8221;\u00a0was a chaotic event<\/a> that really kicked off\u00a0Redford&#8217;s career, and he attributed a great deal of that success to Newman. In an interview with <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esquire.com\/uk\/culture\/film\/a18292\/robert-redford-style\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Esquire;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Esquire<\/a> in 2017, he said that Newman helped get him cast as the Sundance Kid and that his generosity changed everything. Redford and Newman had a great working relationship and became close friends while filming &#8220;Butch Cassidy,&#8221;\u00a0which certainly helped him appreciate the movie even more. The duo would go on to appear together in &#8220;The Sting&#8221; just a few years later, though <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/819628\/casting-paul-newman-in-the-sting-wasnt-as-obvious-a-choice-as-it-seems\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Newman's casting wasn't originally a given;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Newman&#8217;s casting wasn&#8217;t originally a given<\/a> since Hill worried that audiences wouldn&#8217;t believe his character&#8217;s double-cross due to his and Redford&#8217;s real-life friendship (not to mention, their previous on screen outing as Butch and Sundance).<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;The Sting&#8221; and &#8220;Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid&#8221; are both easily two of Redford&#8217;s best films from an audience perspective, but his reasons for loving them so much were a bit more personal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Read more: <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/1813582\/best-male-actors-ranked\/?zsource=yahoo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:30 Best Male Actors Of All Time, Ranked;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">30 Best Male Actors Of All Time, Ranked<\/a><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"mb-4 text-xl font-bold md:text-2xl\">Robert Redford credited his two favorite movie roles to his co-star and director<\/h2>\n<div class=\"relative\"><img alt=\"Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy and Robert Redford as the Sundance Kid crouching behind a rock in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/IdPHGeobvp40nzthV6BFKw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTUzOTtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/slashfilm_articles_873\/4f3fb9cbf69e7d449eb7f56d94f7bc39\"\/><span class=\"absolute bottom-3 right-3 rounded-full bg-white p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-white\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><\/span><\/div>\n<p>Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy and Robert Redford as the Sundance Kid crouching behind a rock in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid &#8211; 20th Century Studios<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In 2011, Robert Redford told <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/DOq6DiHiNV4\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Piers Morgan;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Piers Morgan<\/a> that his favorite film role was in &#8220;Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid&#8221; because he had so much fun making it.\u00a0&#8220;In other words, I love to ride, I like doing the stunts, you know?&#8221; he told\u00a0Morgan of the experience, also mentioning that it was the beginning of his friendship with\u00a0co-star Paul Newman. And while he had a lot of fun playing an outlaw in &#8220;Butch Cassidy,&#8221;\u00a0Redford later shared that perhaps his best role was actually in &#8220;The\u00a0Sting&#8221; instead. Redford told <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/films\/0\/robert-redford-interview-kid-no-one-ever-told-good-looking\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Telegraph;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">The Telegraph<\/a> in 2018 that he enjoyed making both films, but &#8220;The Sting&#8221;\u00a0was perhaps objectively the better film. He explained:<\/p>\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I think &#8216;The Sting&#8217; is one of the finest films ever, and that belongs to [director] George Roy Hill. He&#8217;s the guy who designed it, who came up with the music and did everything. I hadn&#8217;t seen it for many, many years until recently when my daughter wanted me to see it again, and when I did I realized, &#8216;God, this is a really good movie. Really well made.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It&#8217;s a testament to Redford that he was so complimentary of his co-star and director instead of focusing on himself, though it&#8217;s a real shame that <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/925133\/the-reason-paul-newman-and-robert-redford-never-got-to-make-a-third-movie-together\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:we never got to see Newman and Redford reteam for a third movie together;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">we never got to see Newman and Redford reteam for a third movie together<\/a>. George Roy\u00a0Hill plus Robert Redford plus Paul\u00a0Newman equaled movie magic, so maybe we&#8217;re just lucky we got to see it twice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">If you&#8217;re looking for the easiest way to keep up with all the major movie and TV news, why not <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/subscribe.slashfilm.com\/newsletter-syndicated?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=slashfilm-NL-feed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:sign up to our free newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">sign up to our free newsletter<\/a>? You can also <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=slashfilm.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:add us as a preferred search source;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">add us as a preferred search source<\/a> on Google.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Read the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/2093566\/robert-redford-favorite-movie-roles-paul-newman-the-sting-butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid\/?zsource=yahoo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:original article on SlashFilm;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">original article on SlashFilm<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The late, great Robert Redford had an impressive film and television career that spanned over 60 years, with numerous truly excellent roles, but there were two that he claimed to love above the rest. In separate interviews in 2011 (with Piers Morgan) and 2018 (with The Telegraph), Redford revealed that his two favorite roles were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2271374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[373130,390327,373114,308928,373246,333528,373550],"class_list":["post-2271373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-butch-cassidy","tag-george-roy-hill","tag-paul-newman","tag-piers-morgan","tag-redford-and-newman","tag-robert-redford","tag-sundance-kid"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Robert-Redfords-Favorite-Movie-Roles-Have-Two-Major-Things-In.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271373","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=2271373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2271375,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271373\/revisions\/2271375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2271374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2271373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2271373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2271373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}