After playing the iconic outlaws and then cons in The Sting, Newman and Redford explored opportunities to work together on a third film, but it never came to fruition.
It almost happened in A Walk in the Woods, the 2015 film adaptation of Bill Bryson’s 1998 book of the same name. Another buddy movie, the story follows two out-of-shape older men and their goal of hiking the rugged Appalachian Trail.
Redford, who starred and produced the film, selected this script in 2005, with his real-life buddy Newman in mind.
Speaking with Yahoo in 2015, Redford said, “It started with Paul, because Paul and I had been looking for a third film to do together. A lot of time had gone by, and I just couldn’t find it. When I read this book… I thought of Paul right away.”
Redford, 79 at the time of the interview said he sent the book to Newman, who wasn’t confident he could meet the physical demands of the role, which was later given to Nick Nolte.
The connection between Newman and Redford, both highly acclaimed actors, grew considerably since they first filmed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Becoming like brothers, the actors lived in Connecticut, only one mile apart from each other, and their families are also close.
Speaking after his buddy died, Redford said, “We both got to know each other’s flaws pretty well. Of course, I outweighed him on that front. But knowing each other’s flaws, we just played them to the hilt and we’d try to trick each other. We’d try to surprise each other, and it was so much fun that it became like–it became like a scenario unto itself.”
He added, “Paul really likes to have fun and he loves to laugh and he really especially loves to laugh at his own jokes, and some of them are just really awful. So the fact that he enjoyed them so much, you forget about the joke and you’d start to laugh with him because you’re so caught up in his enjoyment of them.”
