Director: Classic Redford wasn’t goal

Director David Lowery and Robert Redford discuss a scene on the set of The Old Man & the Gun, which will reportedly be Redford’s last film role.
Director David Lowery and Robert Redford discuss a scene on the set of The Old Man & the Gun, which will reportedly be Redford’s last film role.

There aren’t many actors I would feel nervous upon meeting. This isn’t to say I’m impervious to the warming glow of celebrity, but for the most part, actors do their jobs, interpret their lines, and are excellent at visual emoting, and being famous, neither of which I find particularly intimidating.

Where you will see me get nervous is before meeting a revered director (or writer), feeling the need to blurt out how much I truly, truly, truly loved one (or more) film of theirs or other. It’s a process I’m sort of used to at this point – and I have to say, most directors react favorably to such nakedly sincere admiration – but David Lowery is a bit of another story. A Ghost Story was one of my favorite films of the last few years, and its effect on me was instantaneous and irrevocable.

Having gotten this bit out of the way with him early on (his reaction “That’s the thing I set myself up for, for the rest of my life, perhaps”), we settled in during the Toronto International Film Festival to talk about his new film, The Old Man & the Gun. In it, Robert Redford plays Forrest Tucker, a real-life “gentlemanly” bank robber, who went on a late-age tear, hitting small, neighborhood banks all over the South and West. The stockpiled cast also includes Casey Affleck playing the cop trying to track him down, and Sissy Spacek as his love interest. It plays as a kind of Redford retrospective, which fit perfectly as the venerable actor announced in an interview before shooting it would be his swansong role. We spoke about Redford, his connection to frequent cast member Casey Affleck, and, yes, a word or two about Ghost.

So, it sounds like you made these films very close together. Did making Ghost affect Old Man?

A Ghost Story was unique: It was a very personal movie, and it changed me. I look at it as the beginning of a new path forward for me as a filmmaker. It’s my favorite thing I’ve made, and to go into Old Man & the Gun after that was strange. Then to do press for Ghost Story after we shot Old Man, but while we were editing it, was also strange. I still feel the best movie I’ve ever made is a short film called Pioneer and I’m completely at peace knowing that it might be the best thing I ever make and I’m lucky that I get to keep making movies.

It’s also interesting you made them so close together since they have such strong thematic linkage: The idea of mortality and what we leave behind when we go. Was that a conscious connection?

[Ghost] changed things a lot for me. And in the few months between wrapping photography on it, and starting photography on Old Man & the Gun, I tried to back out of the movie. I was terrified. I knew everyone wanted a classic Robert Redford cops and robbers film and outlaw movie, and I didn’t know if I could do it. I was doubting my own skill set. But I love Bob, and I wanted to make this movie with him. That’s the reason I signed onto it. And, so I tore the script apart many times, but eventually put it back together in the most minimalist fashion possible, taking a page from A Ghost Story, which had a 30-page screenplay, and thought, well, I’m going to do my best to make a really fun outlaw film starring Robert Redford, but I also have to carry with it some of the aesthetic choices I feel I’m growing into. So there is a through line, both aesthetically and thematically, and it really comes into play in the last 10 minutes of the movie when all the music goes away, there’s no dialogue and it’s very contemplative.

Did you know going in this was his last role?

He’d announced it matter-of-factly in an interview in November [before] we started shooting the movie the following spring. I don’t think anyone expected him to say that. I think at this age, it makes more sense, perhaps, to move into producing and directing. When you’re an actor, you spend so much time waiting for things to be ready, and I feel like at this point in his career, he doesn’t want to do that anymore. I hope he does another movie. I’d love to see him act a little more. He’s definitely still got it, but if he were to choose to hang up his hat now, I understand and I’m glad that he felt this movie was a suitable conclusion.

It does feel as if you made part of the film to be a kind of career retrospective for him.

That became more predominant toward the end of the writing process. The thing that made me want to make this movie was the fact that it was a Robert Redford movie; not that it was a movie about cops and robbers: It was a Robert Redford movie. And, without getting too metatextual, I wanted to celebrate him on film. And, so certainly the slideshow of photographs of mugshots was meant to remind us of where he’s coming from, and then the escape montage at the end includes a clip from one of his earlier films. I wanted to encompass his body of work without ever throwing too overt a nod to it. We don’t end on a freeze frame, but we do have a little Sting reference here and there. And, of course, him on a horse, you just think of the Sundance Kid right away.

The saddest part for me was that kind of Don Quixote moment when he’s on the horse on the hill and he sees the police cars streaming down the street toward the house, and he lowers his head because he knows what’s coming.

The weight comes crashing down in that moment. Bob’s an amazing actor, but it’s hard to get him to turn off the charm. He naturally exudes a love of what he’s doing, like a scene with him and Sissy in prison, we really had to tamp it down, so that he wasn’t just charming her once again. On the horse, I think he felt the end, the culmination of something. And we never talked about his retirement ever, except when he finished doing that scene and I was like, you know Bob, if you stick to your plans, you’re never going to have to get on a horse in a movie again. And, he just paused and you could tell he hadn’t thought about the finality, I think, of some of those decisions in that context. And he was just like, “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” and nodded and walked away. It was a really bittersweet moment. Because, you know, he became a star on a horse, so to speak, and all of a sudden, there we were, a sunrise on a Tuesday morning, and seeing the final line of that chapter being written

Speaking of actors, you obviously have a special affinity with Casey Affleck, who has been in a majority of your films. What does that connection bring?

The short hand that I give — which always annoys him — is we’re both vegan, so it’s really easy to go out to eat together at night. But, I was a fan of his since Gerry. That really hooked me, and made me a fan of both him and Gus Van Sant. I was a fan and when I cast him in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. I like what he did, his affectations, the way he carried himself. I have to admit, I liked the baked-in sibling aspect of his career, because I have many brothers, and there’s something I saw that reminded me of my own relationship with my brothers when I would see him and Ben. He’s also really fun to hang out with. He really cares about what he does. And, he has a way of consistently elevating what I’m trying to do without ever making me feel like I’m not smart enough to come up with the good stuff. Everything he does in Old Man is a twist on what was on the page. He is making it shine in a way that I wasn’t capable of doing. He could see through the writing enough and add his own little twist to it. I’ve come to count on that.

This also gave you a chance to work with Sissy Spacek, who’s wonderful in the role.

I mean, for me it was just an opportunity to work with heroes. It’s really a chance to become friends with people I have revered for so many years and to build a working relationship that I hope can continue. I obviously like working with the same actors over and over again. So, I’m lying in my hotel room at night these days just thinking what can I write for Sissy. What movie can I make with Sissy where she’s the lead and just give her an amazing role that she can take center stage in? Those are the things that occupy my mind now.

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