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.
