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One could sum up Robert Redford's career by listing his job titles. There are quite a few of them:

Actor. Director. Producer. Ski-resort operator. Entrepreneur. Environmental champion. Political activist. Founder of the Sundance Institute. Icon of independent film.

Tonight in Washington, D.C., an audience of dignitaries in arts and politics will see the Sundance Kid's career celebrated at the 28th annual Kennedy Center Honors, an award given to people who have amassed a life of achievement in the arts.

Receiving the honor alongside Redford are singers Tina Turner and Tony Bennett, actress Julie Harris and ballet dancer Suzanne Farrell.

Tonight's ceremony will be taped for a Dec. 27 broadcast on CBS.

This week, from his home in California's Napa Valley (where he lives when he's not home in Provo Canyon, at Sundance), Redford talked about his career, celebrity, politics and other subjects with Salt Lake Tribune movie critic Sean P. Means.

Salt Lake Tribune: What does receiving this Kennedy Center honor mean to you?

Robert Redford: It's obviously a big honor, that cannot be denied.

I had never paid a lot of attention to it. I've always kind of shied from the awards scene, because there's so many of them. Very often, I've felt that giving somebody an award was an attraction to bring people in and raise money. Throughout much of my life, I've had kind of a mixed feeling about awards.

In this particular case, I wasn't enough aware of what exactly it was. My initial confusion was whether it was in any way tied to government, and I didn't know it was free of that. Because there's all this State Department [dinner], and then there's a White House reception with all that going on, I couldn't help but wonder what it was wholly about. Once I realized it was an honor above politics, I breathed easier. . . .

They asked me to submit a whole rash of names of people I knew in the business, it's quite a healthy list, and out of that they would select a few. And they'll come and give testimonials, I guess. But you don't know who they are. It's supposed to be a surprise, kind of like a version of “This Is Your Life.”

Tribune: And you received an honorary Oscar in 2002. Are you concerned that awards like this are the entertainment equivalent of the gold watch at retirement?

Redford: Yeah, it's like you suddenly feel like you're being bronzed. I don't feel ready for that yet, myself. I've got some nice projects ahead.

There's one in particular I'm excited about, about the real story about how Jackie Robinson got into the major leagues . . ., and then there's the Bill Bryson book A Walk in the Woods. I've got three projects I'm pretty close to going forward with. So in no way do I feel in the mood to retire. Sometimes when you get a lot of awards, you begin to feel like, “Why don't you wait a little bit?”

Tribune: And the movie business tends to use people up and toss them aside. How do you achieve longevity in that circumstance?

Redford: First of all, you don't get too embedded in Hollywood. You get a little bit free of it and develop your own pathways, like Sundance, to keep going.

The business has changed so drastically in the last 10 years, forget 20. It's just accelerated to a huge change, following the youth market, so you get these formula films out there. They get less and less attractive to the films you want to make, so you have to carve your own path to do it.

Also, Hollywood as a business has pretty well disappeared. The studio system isn't what it was. They don't ever single-handedly finance films any more they're always trying venture partnerships with businesspeople here and there. . . . It's not the same business, and the product isn't the same. So it means if you want to continue, you've got to find your own way with it.

Tribune: When in your career did you realize the business was at the point where if you wanted to have the roles you wanted to do, you'd have to go out and get them yourself?

Redford: Well, not to seem prophetic, but the reason for starting Sundance had a little bit to do with seeing this coming. And that was 1980.

The original purpose was to start something that was an opportunity or a vehicle for new artists a place to develop new voices in the business. And I focused on independent film because I thought that was the category most likely to sustain the kinds of films I and others liked to make. The business was already showing signs back in 1980 of moving toward more formulaic, higher-budget stuff, starting to make big cartoons like “Superman,” “Dick Tracy” and all that stuff. The technology was coming on fast, the distribution channels were exploding in 1979 with cable and video.

You could see that it was not going to be too long before there was going to be a drastic change. Hollywood is just a business, it's nothing more than that. It's about money, like most everything is, so it was going to follow the money and the money was going to go younger. And they would probably be abrogating that space that they had during the '70s, when studios were doing both kinds of films.

I guess you could say that I saw this coming, so I started to focus what kind of an alternative track could be developed that was going to benefit other people mostly, but then at a certain point I thought it might be one I could step into.

So, 1996 or so, that's when I began to see that all the suppositions in the early '80s were in fact coming true. But also the hope of what Sundance could provide as a separate alternative was also coming true. Now where it all goes remains to be seen. . . .

Tribune: In the 1980s, when you were getting Sundance off the ground, you directed two movies “Ordinary People” and “The Milagro Beanfield War” and only acted in four. Did you have to sacrifice that part of your career to get Sundance going?

Redford: Yes. I did. I didn't imagine that was going to happen, but once I was committed I was committed. I had to spend 10 years literally trying to sustain Sundance and build it, keep it going, putting my own energies and money into it. It was not easy to raise money for Sundance. It was nonprofit, and was a little bit off the grid. There was no support from my industry at all. So it was kind of a tough road, and I had underestimated how much of my personal energy it was going to take. So yes, it cost me a lot of career time. . . .

I was in movies I enjoyed being in, like “Out of Africa” and “The Natural.” And I wanted to direct after “Ordinary People,” I wanted to go into a completely different direction with “The Milagro Beanfield War,” and do something kind of light-hearted and more about magical realism, and yet still tied to something real that I had experienced, which was the multicultural situation there in New Mexico. It was a story that I felt was a wonderful mythological story.

I enjoyed making it immensely, because it was a totally different film than “Ordinary People,” and I was trying to branch out and test myself. The joy of making that film was extreme.

But what I found out, kind of the hard way, with two films that were similar one was “Milagro,” the other was “The Legend of Bagger Vance.” This country is quite OK at importing magical-realism films, or fantasy-based films that deal with extraordinary ways of thinking, that come from other countries but not will support ones that come from our own. . . . I realized our country has a pretty strong Puritanical root.

Tribune: When you were starting out, doing TV and stage in New York in the '50s and '60s, was being handsome a help to you or a hindrance?

Redford: It wasn't an issue, because I was a character actor. There wasn't any leading man stuff until Broadway.

I did the last “Playhouse 90” that was probably the greatest show ever on television, in terms of drama anthology. To me, that was probably one of the highlights of my career, that I got my start doing the last “Playhouse 90,” the last Rod Serling script. . . . That was 1960, and that was immediately followed by “The Iceman Cometh” in New York, and those were two major, major events where my career really started. . . .

I had such a great time in those early years, from 1960 to when I did “Barefoot in the Park” in 1963. . . . Most of the characters I played in those years were killers, rapists, deranged people on shows like “Naked City” and “Route 66.” And they were so much fun. . . . There were occasional comments about my looks, but nothing like when I did film. The earlier films moved more into leading-man stuff.

Tribune: Was it difficult to adjust to having people judge you by your looks?

Redford: It took me by surprise. I have to be human, of course, to be flattered by it. How could you not be? But it gets pretty intense when people are going after your clothes, and mobbing you in the streets, and you have to hide. That's kind of amusing, and kind of mind-boggling when it happens you kind of go with it and have fun with it. Then it gets tiring, and then it gets worse when you realize you're being robbed of a vital part of your life, which is your privacy. And you also know what's coming your way is artificial, because those people are reacting to something they saw on the screen, not you as a person. . . .

I grew up in Los Angeles, near Hollywood, so there was no magic for me about Hollywood. It was kind of ironic that I would find myself back in the place I left and didn't want to come back to I left as an artist and came back as an actor and found myself in that category that I'd never been impressed with as a kid.

Tribune: Did working with Paul Newman help you deal with those things?

Redford: Yeah, it did. When we did “Butch Cassidy,” there was a vast difference in our positions and careers. He was like 13, 14 years older than I was. He was a well-established name, had done many movies. I had done a few. Nobody wanted me in the film because he was a big star and I wasn't known. It was really the director, George Roy Hill, who fought for me, and then Paul himself, because he said, “I want to work with an actor.” It was pretty brave of Paul. They had to fight the studio, they tried to do everything they could to keep me out of it, including deciding that, once that was the way it was going to be, never going to pay me anything.

I had just turned 30, so it was a big deal. I had not had the experience, except in minor ways around New York, where there might be some recognition, but nothing like what was going to come in the next year. When we'd go out to eat, everybody would be paying attention to Paul, and I'd just kind of breeze along. But I did pay attention to how he handled it, and I suspect some of that went down with me.

Tribune: How did he handle it?

Redford: He was probably a little stricter than I was. He would either ignore it, or politely excuse himself and say, “I don't do that.” He'd be eating, and if someone comes up to the table, he'd say, “I'm very sorry I don't do that while I'm eating.” And I adopted that. . . . Somebody comes up to you and says, “I don't mean to bother you,” but they do. Otherwise they wouldn't walk up to your table while you're eating with your family. It means it's more important to them to get some symbolic sign that they saw a celebrity than it is to let you maintain your privacy. . . .

You should prepare when you go to a public event to be public. That's when I will sign autographs. But not when you're going about your normal business. Paul sometimes went a little bit further he would not answer fan mail at all, he would not acknowledge things coming his way. He would just shut it down, and go into kind of a zen place.

Tribune: How did your political voice develop?

Redford: It started in Provo, in 1969. I was sort of minding my own business, and I noticed they were putting trucks at the base of the road to Provo Canyon. . . . A group came to me and says, “We need your help.” It was a local group of fishermen. They said,” [the state] was planning a big road in here that doesn't need to be here. It's going to disrupt the stream. We're fishermen and we love this stream. And we need your help.” I said, “Why me?” They said, “Because no one's listening to us.” . . . And two other groups came to me. . . .

I kept saying, “Why don't you just go to your elected officials?” “Because they won't listen, they're turning a deaf ear, they won't hold public hearings, they won't do anything.” I told them to go to the governor. They said, “We can't get an appointment with him.” That's when I stepped in. I thought due process wasn't being followed here. . . .

I began to take some action just to help these local groups, only because they claimed they couldn't get a voice. Finally I called the governor, Cal Rampton, who I had a great relationship with. He said, “Bob, that's in the hands of our elected officials.” I said, “Yeah, they're not listening.” . . . It got a little testy. That's [started to change] my arrangement with the state which had been up to that time pretty rosy, because it was just me bringing films into the state and them being glad. . . .

Tribune: Does celebrity make a good soapbox?

Redford: Well, I didn't think so for many years. That situation with the road led me into environmental activism on a broader scale.

I learned early that you'd better know what you're talking about. You'd better realize that certain issues are going to be so hot no matter what reason, what logic you apply to it you're going to be met with an opposition just because their viewpoint is different, and there's no way they're going to accept your reasoning. Furthermore, they're going to attack you because you will be portrayed as not being credible: “You're an actor. What do you know?”

I understood that. Just because you go with a political candidate, and show up at an event, you draw maybe 3,000 or 4,000 people there, doesn't mean they're going to vote for him. They're coming to see what you look like. I learned that the hard way early on, so that's why I'm a little dubious about political events.

The biggest event that put me crossways with the political elements in the state, and the more conservative elements down in south and eastern Utah, was the Kaiparowits thing the coal-fired power plant that would have polluted the whole [area]. I went against that [in 1976], went on “60 Minutes” to expose what these energy companies were going to do. I got nailed, I got really hammered pretty bad. By this time, Garn and Hatch were in, and the whole state politically had turned completely conservative. When I came to the state, it was mixed you had about three or four congressmen who were Democrats, you had a Democratic governor. . . . In no time at all, it became almost entirely Republican and very conservative. I got pretty well creamed by the press and the state legislature. It was kind of rough for awhile.

But my feelings just grew stronger over time, that we were desecrating one of the greatest assets we had. As far as I was concerned, [Utah], of all the states in the union, boasts the greatest natural assets and it was making me crazy that they were willing to squander those assets for short-term profits. . . .

I kind of went underground in the '80s, and developed an organization at Sundance called the Institute for Resource Management. We had a series of conflict-resolution conferences, where we bring industry together with the environmental groups and work out problems. Then our global-warming conference in 1989 with the Soviets. That was also going on while I was building Sundance, that also took time out of my work.

But this year, I've sort of made a pledge this year is 25 years in, I've done it, I've given to that office, I've done everything I can. I think it's moving well on its own. I can have a supervisory role, and a creative role now. But it's time for me to move back into my work, and let go of some of that.

Tribune: Do you feel that Sundance is succeeding in what you set out for 25 years ago?

Redford: Yes. In some cases, it's gone beyond. I would say that just about every one of the eight [filmmaker's] lab participants that come through [each summer], their films get made and get into the marketplace. . . . Even the theater programs we had three Pulitzer prizes just coming out of plays coming to Sundance. I would say the success ratio has gone beyond what I had imagined.

Tribune: You say the politics have shifted in Utah. Do you feel politically alien when you're in Utah?

Redford: Not really. I think I've moved away and above it. I was more in the middle of state politics in the '70s, when I was supporting Wayne Owens and Ted Wilson, people like that. I kind of moved away from that when I started focusing on Sundance. I put those energies there.

I do a lot of political work around the country, but not so much in the state, just when it comes to issues of preservation and the environment. I figure at a certain point, actions speak louder than words. If the words are coming from someone who's perceived as a privileged person, like myself being an actor actors, I think, are perceived as being privileged they're not going to have a lot of traction in the marketplace. “Who the hell is this person coming and telling me what to do with my life because they're privileged?”

Moving away from that and more into action, like putting your energies into creating something active to demonstrate what you feel. Having conferences, starting Sundance, seeing your political thoughts out into supporting films that are about free speech things that come under threat when you have totalitarian elements in government, which we now have.

Once you start seeing the effects of a single-minded narrow ideological way of thinking, then you see the results where you start to get freedoms cut out: freedom of speech, debate, dissent, all those things that are healthy for democracy. You see those cut back, then you say, “Hey, somebody better put some energy into exposing the dangers to this.” so that can come through film. So you support films that deal with those issues, rather than going out there talking about them, or you make the films yourself, like “Quiz Show” or “All the President's Men.” You just go put your energies into that, and a little bit more behind-the-scenes.

In terms of state politics, it's pretty much of a one-color die-cast in the state at the moment. I think that will change, because that's the only thing that does continue is change. Right now, it seems to be pretty much, for the most part, a one-note political thinking in the state. And there's not any real purpose for me to engage in it, one way or the other.

Tribune: Do you see many younger actors taking up the role you've established as actors with a social conscience?

Redford: Yes, I do. You've got Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz. There's a few actors out there that are working in smaller areas.

The reason I've kind of shied away from aligning myself with my own industry in the celebrity issues, I felt it was tricky because there is a tendency in Hollywood to be fickle about your commitments. Then it becomes a question: Is this commitment coming from an ego, when the actor says, “I want to be taken seriously, so I'm going to attach myself to a cause,” and it lasts for about a year. That fades away, and when it's no longer in the limelight, they fade with it and move onto something else.

I remember when they had the Chico Mendes thing down in South America he was suddenly a martyr, and the rainforest was an issue, and it suddenly became a cause celebre. And people were flying down there in jets from Hollywood, joining to the Rainforest Brigade. That lasted about a year because it was a hot issue. I watched that get flaming up and fade out so fast, it was forgotten in three years.

You've got to be careful, because I believe if you're going to commit to something, you've got to commit to it and stay with it. There's a lot of fickleness. People say, “I'm not as interested in that anymore, it's not so much a big issue, so I think I'll move over to animal rights” or whatever. On the other hand, there are a few people who are legitimate, and the way you can usually tell is how long they stay committed. Ed Begley Jr. there's a guy who's very committed to the environment, has been for a long time. So there those people who exist, but it's a tricky landscape.

Tribune: You say you're going to let the Sundance Institute run more on its own now . . .

Redford: Yeah, because it can. It is established very well. It's doing good work, it will continue to do good work, and I can just play more of a creative role and not have to be in the center of so much. Particularly at the festival.

Tribune: Does that mean we're going to see you acting more and directing more?

Redford: Yes.

Tribune: Is the sequel to “The Candidate” still developing?

Redford: Yeah, I was developing that, and that's still going forward. I had to put that on hold, because truth was beating the hell out of fiction. I said, “Wait a minute this is Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. We can't top this. We'd better hold up here and see where this goes.” It just kept getting more and more bizarre, to where it is right now, which is really like Alice in Wonderland. It's so completely off the charts of sanity. I said, “Let's just wait and see where all this comes out before we move forward.” Yeah, that thing is still in development.

Tribune: At the Kennedy Center, you'll be sitting in a box with George Bush for a couple of hours. Is that an opportunity you'd want to take to say something to him?

Redford: No, it's not worth it. It's really not worth it. I'm playing this above politics. I'm going there accepting the place I'm asked there to come in, which is about art and your work and your career, and that's where I'm going to be. I don't want to make it about politics, so I probably won't unless it's brought up, then that's a whole other ballgame.

I also feel this is an administration that just doesn't care about opposing points of view. They're going to so-called “stay the course” and the course is going so far downhill so fast that it's sort of pointless to get into any kind of a discussion. It holds no merit. There's no point in it.