Robert Redford (Actor)

"Bob is a minimalist, he withholds, he never seduces his audience but makes them come to him."---film director Sydney Pollack to Los Angeles Times December 9, 1990

"Celebrity is a big part of the American social system. I'm certainly grateful for what it's done for me, but I do think that celebrity is overdone in our society. I think it's got a dangerous side to it. I think that people should be paying a lot more attention to other issues, rather than who's the top 10 this or... who's the sexiest or the most beautiful."---Redford to NPR September 9, 2003

"Everyone in Tinseltown is getting pinched, lifted and pulled. For many it's become a sick obsession. They lose some of their soul when they go under the knife and end up looking body snatched. People should preserve their time in history. I'm happy to make the best of what I've got."---Redford to US January 2002

"Hollywood is a formula industry. It's all about business and profit, and that's why they're always looking at a formula for guaranteed success. You can't make $100 million on a small black-and-white love story or anything that tells about our lives and the diversity out there."---Robert Redford quoted in USA Today, May 8, 1995

"I gave up a long time ago the idea that a film can change people's lives, let alone their politics. I discovered we Americans enjoy the distraction of entertainment but aren't really interested in the deeper message." - Redford to Playboy magazine, November 2007

"It's become harder and harder each year to maintain our course, because of the overpowering force -- what I would call the more external factors -- like celebrity, fashion, and the media's obsessions with who is there and whether people are wearing black," Redford on Sundance indieWIRE January 26, 2001

"It’s not that I have a short attention span but I do have a low boredom threshold. For me, the joy of acting was in the spontaneity of expressing yourself – and being part of what makes a play ‘happen’ is pretty exciting – but after nine months of doing the same thing every night… you just want it to move to a new place,” he says.---Redford quoted to London Times, November 2007.

He received an honorary LHD from the University of Colorado (1987).

He was honored with the 1996 National Medal of Freedom from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Redford on his transition from sports to art while in college: "It had to do with defining a lot of emotional stuff that was never formed right. For some people it's therapy. Maybe it is for all of us. For me it was anger and finding a place to put my disappointment and frustration with a lot of things. I was a mess. I was somewhat in trouble socially. I lost my (basketball) scholarship pretty quick after I discovered drinking. When I left (college) and got into art, that got me out ... finding my place in the world had a lot to do with acting."---Redford quoted in Los Angeles Times December 9, 1990