(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sun 12 October 2025 15:15, UK
A true champion of independent cinema, Robert Redford wasn’t your typical Hollywood leading man. He could’ve simply taken on roles and then bathed in the cash, but the star actively contributed to a landscape that made cinema slightly more accessible with his role in founding Sundance.
Sure, Redford was the golden boy of big Hollywood blockbusters, but he wasn’t above slumming it in the indie scene when the right project came along. Take The Clearing from 2004 – a gritty little crime thriller directed by first-timer Pieter Jan Brugge. It was a proper shoestring setup compared to the glossy stuff he was used to, but let’s be honest – with a cast like that, who gives a toss about the budget?
Alongside him were Helen Mirren and Willem Dafoe, two icons of the silver screen who, as usual, delivered impressive performances. The film might not have been the biggest success of any of their careers, but Redford got to work with some truly great actors, calling Mirren “impeccable”.
Discussing his experience of working with such a good cast, Redford told IGN, “You’re dealing with sometimes craft, you’re dealing with sometimes personalities… In terms of Willem Defoe, I can enjoy working with different actors, but this particular film was very enjoyable to me because all the actors were exceptionally crafted.”
While he loved working with Dafoe, too, he couldn’t speak more highly about Mirren, a stalwart British star who is truly a veteran of the game. Starting out in the theatre, as many great actors do, Mirren earned recognition on the big screen when she started to appear in some rather scandalous roles, like Age of Consent, in which she swam about naked in the ocean, and a decade later, the infamous Caligula.
With much of the 1970s taken up by roles in the theatre, Mirren’s crossover into Hollywood didn’t happen straight away, but a ‘Best Actress’ Oscar eventually came for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in 2006’s The Queen.
Mirren has been carving away at an incredibly impressive career for decades, and it’s no surprise that Redford was so blown away by the actor, whose talent comes from years of dedication honed in front of live audiences, which is something that some stars just can’t hack.
“Helen, in my mind, is impeccable. She’s an impeccable actress. She can do large things, small things, and be right on the money,” Redford explained. In fact, with Dafoe in the mix, he found it to be the perfect cast, adding, “Willem I just think is a very wonderful, very, very crafted actor. He takes his parts on as though he’s disassembling an engine and putting it back together. So, the combination of knowing that most of my relationship in the film is going to be with Willem, it was important who the other actor was. So I was very, very pleased with the work that both of them were doing.”
The Clearing is somewhat of a forgotten relic of these actors’ careers, but it at least gave us the great pairing of Redford and Mirren, two stars who were at the top of their game.
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