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He was the driving force behind making the big-screen version of All the President's Men, but from the start Robert Redford did not plan to be in it. In fact, Redford thought another actor would play his part until Warner Bros. told him: "Either you star as Bob Woodward or the cameras won't roll at all."
See also: Robert Redford's 10 great roles
For once, the studio was right. The chemistry between Redford and Dustin Hoffman (as Woodward's Washington Post colleague Carl Bernstein) was the linchpin for arguably the finest newspaper drama ever made. Now, 37 years later, Redford, 76, figures heavily in two new films that cast a fascinating spotlight on how drastically journalism has changed since the Watergate era.
In The Company You Keep, a young reporter (Shia LaBeouf) digs for the truth about former members of the 1970s terrorist group the Weather Underground — and links it to a small-town lawyer, played by Redford.
All the President's Men Revisited, a Discovery Channel documentary produced by Redford and airing on April 21, combines scenes from the 1976 film with archival footage of Woodward and Bernstein as well as previously unseen footage of President Nixon in the Oval Office. Redford is also interviewed in the film. (Watch a trailer at the end of this page.)
Redford calls himself "a big supporter of journalism." Here he talks about his fascination with the Fourth Estate and shares a little gossip about All the President's Men.
Q: The Company You Keep is your ninth film as a director. What drew you to the project?
A: I'm fascinated by journalism. I put a keen eye, not a negative eye, on its role, particularly how it is changed by the times we're living in. The big moment for me was making All the President's Men. It was not about Watergate or President Nixon. I wanted to focus on something I thought not many people knew about: How do journalists get the story? The Company You Keep shows a journalist getting the story, too, but his motives are more ambiguous than Woodward and Bernstein's.
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