Robert Redford.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW - Interview

Robert Redford uses his celebrity to advance the causes he cares deeply about, especially the environment and independent film.

He's been acting for fifty years now. He's starred in such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jeremiah Johnson, The Candidate, The Sting, Three Days of the Condor, All the President's Men, The Natural, Out of Africa , and The Horse Whisperer , among many others.

He's also directed several films, including Ordinary People , for which he won an Academy Award in 1980, The Milagro Beanfield War, A River Runs Through It , and Quiz Show .

To promote indie cinema and the film craft, he founded the Sundance Institute in 1981, which expanded to include the Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent festival in the country. Redford remains intimately involved with Sundance.

He's no environmental dilettante, either. He engaged in activism in Utah in the 1970s that brought death threats not only to him but to his family. And for the past thirty-five years, he's served as a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But Redford doesn't limit himself to these issues and forums. Recently, his writings have appeared on HuffingtonPost , and he occasionally pops up on Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC.

Redford was kind enough to come to Madison to give a keynote address at The Progressive's 100th anniversary conference. I picked him up at the Dane County airport. He was wearing blue jeans and a short-sleeve shirt and an orange cap. He got into my car, I took him to his hotel, and then we grabbed some dinner. I was immediately impressed by how down-to-earth he was, and how interested he was in stories: not only in telling them but in listening to them.

The next day, he foolishly agreed to sit still for a reception we held for him. Star-struck middle-aged women and men almost trampled me as they tried to get a picture with him. Afterward, I told him I'd rather be an accountant than a movie star. He said he was used to it, but admitted he thought it was a little much. It was that bemused stance toward his celebrity that I found so attractive.

Q: You received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2005 and had to go to the White House for a celebration with George W. Bush. How surreal was that, to have to be there with him?

Robert Redford: The first thing I asked was, "Could we do it another time?" But I was assured that this was going to be above politics, and that it was about celebrating art. And based on that, I went. Everyone was taking the high road, so I did, too.

Q: You behaved yourself?

Redford: I really did. I know my kids were nervous. But I did get some satisfaction. At one point, Beyoncé came out and was doing a song, and it was really rocking. And I looked over and I noticed that Bush was...