My Conversation With Robert Redford About Death

I had known this day was coming. I dreaded it, quite frankly. As a writer, I had taken some glee as I typed out the passages in which the character known as “Our Man” finally faces his own mortality after a life mostly well lived. But now, as a director, I sat across from an actual man, Robert Redford, as he struggled through shooting the first takes of the penultimate scene in our 2013 film, “All Is Lost,” the story of a lone man lost at sea.

We were sitting together in a small, mostly deflated life raft, floundering in a two-acre water tank perched high above the Pacific at Baja Studios in Mexico. We had been shooting for more than a month. Now the moment had arrived and, as 150 crew members stared at me, I realized I had completely failed to prepare my actor for this challenge — and as a result we were stuck.

The crew pulled the raft back to the edge of the tank so we could all take a break. I huddled with my producers, panicking in my realization: “He has absolutely no idea this scene is about his character finally for the first time in his life confronting his own mortality!”

After a long silence, their response was very clear: “Well, you have to go tell him.”

I slowly walked over to the small 1980s camper trailer we had brought in to keep Bob warm between takes and knocked on the door. As he always did, he kindly invited me in, and I sat down directly across from him at the dinette table. Our noses weren’t much more than a foot apart and as my heart jumped from my chest he calmly asked me what was on my mind.

“Well, Bob,” I said, “we need to talk about death.”

“Death?” he asked.

“Yes,” I responded. Death.

Robert Redford never gave up. Bob was caring, blunt, kind, frustrating, late, hilarious, brutally serious, sweet, acidic, beautiful, strong and the greatest creative collaborator I will ever have. But in the end what made his life so truly extraordinary was that he was completely and utterly relentless. He often loathed the power that our medium and his celebrity gave him but knew in his heart that great storytelling can be the ultimate equalizer for humanity. So that’s what he did.

He devoted his life to telling stories that he believed would entertain while also moving people toward awareness and hopefully positive action. He gave so much of his time and energy to creating and advancing Sundance because, I believe, he knew in the end that the thousands of storytellers from all over the world that he and the organization helped inspire and lift up would be one of his most lasting legacies. Each one of these endeavors existed only because he quite simply would not let them fail.

Back in that trailer, Bob and I sat toe to toe for well over an hour and forced ourselves to discuss the scariest and most unknowable questions a human being can ask. Did he believe in a higher power? What were his greatest regrets? What is the point of all of this? And, of course, what awaits us when we close our eyes and take our last breath?

That sort of contemplation didn’t exactly come naturally to either of us, as we were both raised in strict grin-and-bear-it traditions. But deep down we knew those questions were at the heart of the story we were all working so hard to tell.

As he was a deeply private man, I am reluctant to share too much of what was said that day. But I can tell you this: He did not obsess over death. It was all quite simple to him. Life was the ultimate gift and you should live and fight for every day till your last. When he laid his head down at night, all he needed to know was that he had given everything he had to all that he loved. His dear and treasured family; the many jobs and charities he worked so hard for; his friends and community; his beloved animals and the natural world. As long as you gave them everything you had you could be confident meeting whatever is waiting for us all on the other side.

The last time I saw Bob was two years ago, on the night of my 50th birthday. My family had taken me to Santa Fe for the weekend and fortunately he and his beloved partner, Bylle, were in town.

We drove down the long high-desert road to their house and after hugs and hellos our family’s favorite Redford stories started to flow: The way Bob and my toddler son would compete for the best doughnuts at the craft service table on set every morning; how he loved to charm my beautiful wife with his amazing Paul Newman stories, while of course always remaining the ultimate gentleman; the time he somehow arranged for a doctor at midnight in Paris to check in on my young daughter who had fallen ill while she was accompanying us on a promotional trip.

As the evening grew deep into the night, Bob finally nudged me and looked across the coffee table at my teenage son, who was starting to nod off. With his signature dry wit, Bob said, “Look at this kid — he wants to get the hell out of here.”

With that we all stood up and made our way to the door. As we trailed behind, Bob stopped me and looked right into my eyes. As he stood there on his fragile knees he seemed to know that this would probably be the last time we would ever see each other. He also knew I was no longer the fresh-faced, eternally optimistic young filmmaker he had gone on that crazy creative journey with a decade of summers ago. The harsh realities of our ever-changing business had surely seen to that. I finally tried to put him at ease and responded, “I’m OK, Bob.”

He smiled that wonderful smile, then looked away across the room at our families saying their final goodbyes. He then pulled me in for a last hug and whispered in my ear, “Don’t you worry, you have a lot more stories to tell.”

Bob, I thank you from all of us for the chance you gave us to witness an epic life lived.

J.C. Chandor wrote and directed the films “Margin Call,” “A Most Violent Year” and “All Is Lost,” which starred Robert Redford.

Source photographs by Gary Yeowell and todamo/Getty Images, Daniel Daza/Lionsgate.

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