Robert Redford Announces Retirement From Acting

Robert Redford’s legendary career as an on-screen performer is at an end. Redford confirmed with EW that his upcoming film The Old Man & The Gun is his final acting performance. The decision makes good on a statement he made in 2016 that the movie would be the last film in which he would perform on screen.

“Never say never, but I pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting, and [I’ll] move towards retirement after this ’cause I’ve been doing it since I was 21,” the eighty-one year-old actor said. “I thought, Well, that’s enough. And why not go out with something that’s very upbeat and positive?”

Redford said of his role in the film of the real-life Forrest Tucker, a career criminal who was in love with his career of bank robbery, “To me, that was a wonderful character to play at this point in my life. The thing that really got me about him — which I hope the film shows — is he robbed 17 banks and he got caught 17 times and went to prison 17 times. But he also escaped 17 times. So it made me wonder: I wonder if he was not averse to getting caught so he that could enjoy the real thrill of his life, which is to escape?”

The Old Man & The Gun releases on September 28th.