SiS Newsletter - January 2010 - Amigos del español:

Robert Redford

Robert Redford came to fame as an outlaw and, movie legend or no, he sees himself as an outsider still. A good Spanish speaker, Redford lived five years in a little town in the south of Spain at the end of the fifties and grew up in south Los Angeles, surrounded by a Spanish community. Good friend of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

You grew up in a Spanish Community in Los Angeles, and lived in Spain for a long time, do you speak Spanish?
I do speak Spanish but I don't practice as much as I would like, so right now I don't speak as I used to in the past.

Do you have a favorite Spanish author?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a good friend of mine who helped me to develop The Motorcycle Diaries , the movie that Walter's Salles directed and I produced. I invited Marquez many times to Sundance to come to help start a Spanish speaking lab and he promised me to come if I was going to Cuba.

Is there a book from him that you like most of the others?
I liked all of them, but Hundred Years of Solitude is my favorite, and Love in the times of cholera is a great love story.

What types of books, or stories are you drawn to?
Part of me is drawn to the nature of sadness because I think life is sad and sadness is not something that should be avoided or denied. It's a fact of life, like contradictions are.

What you want to be remembered for?
I've thought about that. I would like to be known for the work I've done in films and the work I've done as a citizen. And that's fine with me, and with my family, I want to be known as a good father. And that's it. Beyond that it's just don't stop me. Let me keep doing what I want to do. Because there's a lot to be done, there are a lot of things I'd like to do, and I'm enjoying it. So that's all I have, I don't ask for title or award or anything like that. It's just to be acknowledged for what you do, maybe rather what you symbolize.

What do you do when not working?
I have a lot of interests. The Sundance Film Festival commands a lot of time. I have other interest that I like but there's nothing more interesting for me than the work I do in film, whether acting or directing. That is the most, that's' my day job. I also have the other life, an alternative life, just in the mountains and nature, and you therefore want to enjoy that. Then you build a mechanism for new artists, a community for artists, in theater and film and music, and eventually dance. Travel is another of my passions. There's nothing I love more than driving across this country.

How is independent film these days?
Independent film is getting better and better all the time, as are documentaries. I think documentaries are now at a place where they absolutely deserve an equal place in the market.