I Still Can’t Believe I Got To Interview Robert Redford

During the Academy Awards I posted on social media about my experience interviewing Robert Redford.¹ Then, today, I remembered this interview was no longer online. So, yes, this seems like a good enough excuse as any to bring it back.

¹This got a surprising amount of attention for what I thought was just a fun anecdote. The reactions ranged from positive to accusations of physically impossible acts of self pleasure.

This originally published on October 13, 2015 at Uproxx. The movie Redford and Cate Blanchett were promoting was Truth, in which Redford plays Dan Rather. I'm going to let you in on a little secret: interviewing both Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett at the same time is very intimidating. Yep, just the three of us in a room together hanging out. All totally normal. (Though, to be clear, I remember both of them being extremely nice.)

The anecdote I shared online was that after the interview was over, Redford called me over and had questions about how I do interviews. First, he noticed I had questions written down on paper, as opposed to an electronic device, which he had been seeing more and more of lately. Second, he noticed I did not look at these questions.

In 2010 I interviewed Colin Firth about The King’s Speech for Movieline, a performance that would win Firth an Oscar. Now, I thought I had done a pretty good job. But my editor, Stu VanAirsdale, did not share my enthusiasm. At some point Firth mentioned a dream he had that influenced his performance, but he didn’t elaborate and I went on to my next question I had written down. Stu was furious, “why didn’t you follow up?” I didn‘t have a good answer beyond I had limited time and a bunch of questions to get through. Stu said something I’ll never forget, “You're not actually listening to what they are saying.”

After this conversation I made it my goal to actually listen. To do this I would no longer look at my list of questions. At this point I was still bringing them in with me as a safety net, but I wouldn’t look. If I was looking at questions I wasn’t listening.

This is what I told Redford. He smiled, nodded, and said, “That’s smart.” It was on this day I decided to stop even bothering bringing questions into the room with me. If I’m not listening now, well, I have no safety net to fall back on … so I better be listening. (Yes, like Fraiser Crane.)

Though, it’s funny, this is an interview for a movie called Truth and the first thing I say is a lie. (Though I didn’t realize it at the time.) I had seen Any Which Way You Can in theaters before Ordinary People. So, Ordinary People is actually the third movie I saw in theaters.

The second movie I ever saw in a movie theater was Ordinary People.

Redford: Your second movie?

My mom took me when I was very young.

Blanchett: Oh, Jesus. I remember seeing Ordinary People. I was in, how do you say it, year 11?

Redford: Stop, you guys…