Robert Redford's Favorite Movie Roles Have Two Major Things In Common

The late, great Robert Redford had an impressive film and television career that spanned over 60 years, with numerous truly excellent roles, but there were two that he claimed to love above the rest. In separate interviews in 2011 (with Piers Morgan) and 2018 (with The Telegraph), Redford revealed that his two favorite roles were in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting." Both are truly excellent films and bona fide classics, but they also have two pretty big commonalities: They each star Paul Newman and were directed by George Roy Hill. 

Casting on "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was a chaotic event that really kicked off Redford's career, and he attributed a great deal of that success to Newman. In an interview with Esquire in 2017, he said that Newman helped get him cast as the Sundance Kid and that his generosity changed everything. Redford and Newman had a great working relationship and became close friends while filming "Butch Cassidy," which certainly helped him appreciate the movie even more. The duo would go on to appear together in "The Sting" just a few years later, though Newman's casting wasn't originally a given since Hill worried that audiences wouldn't believe his character's double-cross due to his and Redford's real-life friendship (not to mention, their previous on screen outing as Butch and Sundance). 

"The Sting" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" are both easily two of Redford's best films from an audience perspective, but his reasons for loving them so much were a bit more personal.

In 2011, Robert Redford told Piers Morgan that his favorite film role was in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" because he had so much fun making it. "In other words, I love to ride, I like doing the stunts, you know?" he told Morgan of the experience, also mentioning that it was the beginning of his friendship with co-star Paul Newman. And while he had a lot of fun playing an outlaw in "Butch Cassidy," Redford later shared that perhaps his best role was actually in "The Sting" instead. Redford told The Telegraph in 2018 that he enjoyed making both films, but "The Sting" was perhaps objectively the better film. He explained:

"I think 'The Sting' is one of the finest films ever, and that belongs to [director] George Roy Hill. He's the guy who designed it, who came up with the music and did everything. I hadn't seen it for many, many years until recently when my daughter wanted me to see it again, and when I did I realized, 'God, this is a really good movie. Really well made.'"

It's a testament to Redford that he was so complimentary of his co-star and director instead of focusing on himself, though it's a real shame that we never got to see Newman and Redford reteam for a third movie together. George Roy Hill plus Robert Redford plus Paul Newman equaled movie magic, so maybe we're just lucky we got to see it twice.