Redford’s buddy film has message
A Walk in the Woods took long trip to screen
LOS ANGELES — At the end of a draining 12-hour day, Robert Redford strolls into a meeting room for a final interview.
The 79-year-old seems alert and is told as much as he takes his seat.
“I pretend like I am,” says Redford, flashing his famous smile.
The publicity-shy actor, director and producer has made himself available, weary or not, to discuss his film version of Bill Bryson’s popular travel memoir A Walk in the Woods.
In the movie, Redford plays a version of Bryson, who decides to rid himself of complacency by hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine with one of his former sidekicks (Nick Nolte).
Emma Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Kristen Schaal and Nick Offerman have costarring roles, but the comedy is really an odd couple two-hander featuring Redford and Nolte.
When Redford obtained the film rights to the book in 2004, the intention was to reunite with his good buddy Paul Newman, his partner in two classics, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting.
Unfortunately, delays meant Newman had to drop out by 2006 (he died in 2008). A determined Redford stayed with the project, patiently waiting for funding to arrive.
“There are a lot of elements that I liked,” says Redford of A Walk in the Woods. “There is the discussion of the environment and the part nature plays.
“And I love the fact that Bryson is such an interesting writer with a great sense of sardonic humour. And there is this wonderful premise about friendship lost and regained.”
He thinks about his observation before adding with a cheeky grin: “It’s like vision quest for males.”
Redford was serious about putting the right pieces together. He hired director Ken Kwapis, a veteran of film and TV comedies. Bill Holderman, who co-wrote the screenplay, worked with Redford on 2007’s Lions for Lambs and 2012’s The Company You Keep.
It was The Company You Keep experience of acting opposite Nolte that convinced Redford that Nolte would be a good fit for the key part in A Walk in the Woods
“Nick and I are about the same age,” Redford says. “We have that background where we were both a mess when we were young — I straightened out somewhat and he straightened out a little bit.
“There was a camaraderie we had in the film (The Company You Keep) a few years before so with A Walk in the Woods it all seemed to fall into place naturally. I felt a real synchronicity with him.”
They would also shared their hikers’ pain during filming on the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains and McAfee Knob, near Roanoke, Va.
“So we would go 100 feet up and they’d say, ‘Cut’ and we’d do it again,” Redford says. “Eventually, they’d say, ‘Print’ but by then we would have done the hike seven or eight times. It was very physical.”
Hiring doubles was never an option for the actor.
“All kinds of stunts were fun for me, but as you get older you get to a point where you just can’t do it,” he says. “But there’s an obligation to completely embody the role to make the performance complete.”
Nolte and Redford survived the exteriors with only some minor bumps, bruises and a few twisted ankles. The extra effort was worth it for Redford, especially if the film’s message of protecting the environment has an impact on moviegoers and the current environmental debate.
Detractors “are going to deny global warming for as long as they can but their time is running out,” he says. “And it’s running out for all of us, if we don’t acknowledge climate change.”
With the Sundance Group, including the film festival, running efficiently, Redford seems to be enjoying a movie resurgence over the past few years. He directed and starred in the aforementioned The Company You Keep. In 2013, he earned acclaim for his solo performance in All is Lost. And he co-starred in last year’s Captain America: A Winter Soldier.
The incongruous fact that it took the iconic actor and filmmaker more than a decade to get his $8-million movie made is clearly evident to him.
“It’s always hard and it’s going to stay hard,” he says of trying to get an independent film like A Walk in the Woods into theatres.
Like the Marvel movies, “Tom Cruise movies are big with big budgets because they get big returns, but the films I am inclined to like are not that big and don’t have big returns. I do what I can.”