Robert Redford's Marvel Role Was A Throwback To His Work In These Paranoid Thrillers

The late Robert Redford leaves behind a diverse body of work, but many fans associate him with some of the best thriller movies ever made. With "Three Days of the Condor" (a spy movie about CIA conspiracies) and "All the President's Men" (the greatest movie ever made about the Watergate scandal), Redford is synonymous with some of the genre's most paranoid and thought-provoking flicks. So, when Marvel decided to make its own paranoid thriller with the game-changing "Captain America: The Winter Solider," it called upon Redford to play a character who wouldn't feel out of place in "Three Days of the Condor" and "All the President's Men."

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" exposes corruption within the S.H.I.E.L.D. organization, which has been infiltrated by the villainous Hydra. Redford plays Alexander Pierce, a high-ranking government official who has been working for the enemy the entire time. In one crucial scene, he meets with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) to enquire about Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) visiting his apartment before he "died," but he arouses Rogers' suspicions when he starts talking about tearing down the old world to build a better one.

The scene is reminiscent of the paranoid thrillers that taught viewers not to trust anyone — especially politicians — in the 1970s. "Three Days of the Condor" and "All the President's Men" also inspired "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," so it just wouldn't have felt the same without Redford's presence.

"Three Days of the Condor" inspired the story of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" from a thematic and structural standpoint. Both films are rife with themes of institutional corruption and political intrigue, but they are also concerned with shadowy threats. In particular, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wanted to convey the idea that Steve Rogers is being targeted by a threat whose identity isn't revealed until mid-way through the movie — an idea they borrowed from films like "Three Days of Condor" and "The Parallax View."

In a 2014 interview with Topless Robot, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" co-director Joe Russo spoke about the influence of Robert Redford's thrillers on the movie, as well as how good it felt to have him join the project. In his own words:

"It was very-you know, this movie, we've joked that you could call this movie '[Three] Days of Captain America,' because it owes a huge debt, creatively, to '[Three] Days of the Condor,' structurally. And to get Redford to us was just, for us — one, not just as a brilliant actor and brilliant screen presence, but two, philosophically, there was a continuity between the last time we had great political thrillers and our movie."

"All the President's Men" Easter eggs are also peppered throughout "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." During the film's infamous elevator scene (which occurs right after Cap's aforementioned meeting with Alexander Pierce), we catch a glimpse of the Watergate complex in the background. What's more, eagle-eyed viewers might have spotted a copy of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's "All the President's Men" book on Cap's book shelf early on in the movie, so it's clear the folks at Marvel had the story on their mind when they made their movie.