Rolling Stone
The Last Word: Robert Redford on Activism, Fighting Climate Change, and the Importance of Truth
The acting legend talks founding Sundance, the moment he became an environmentalist, and what ‘All the President’s Men’ was really about
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Illustration by Mark Summers for Rolling Stone
Long before it was fashionable to embrace environmental causes, Robert Redford was fighting the good fight, using his celebrity status to bring attention to causes ranging from keeping power plants out of Southeastern Utah to the use of “clean energy” to combat carbon pollution. He’s been on the board of the National Resources Defense Council for decades; helped facilitate a “greenhouse glasnost” by inviting the Soviet Academy of Sciences to an environmental summit at the Sundance Institute, the independent-filmmaking haven he established in 1981; and has lent his name (and money) to a wildlife preserve in Utah. And though the 84-year-old has technically retired from his day job, i.e. directing films and being one of the single most recognizable movie stars of the past 50 years, Redford is still active in overseeing aspects of the Redford Center, the organization he cofounded with his late son James Redford and is dedicated to, in his words, “using storytelling to help reimagine environmentalism and expand the idea of what it means to be an environmentalist.” He continues to beat the drum that “this is the only planet we’ve got. What could be more important than protecting it?”