By Brooks Barnes Nicole Sperling

Copyright

And the patron saint of indie film was not above starring in the occasional blockbuster. “Indecent Proposal” was one. Released in 1993, it co-starred Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson and took in $267 million, or $590 million in today’s dollars. He played Alexander Pierce in two Marvel movies: “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” a 2015 superhero sequel that collected an adjusted $989 million and “Avengers: Endgame” which brought in $2.8 billion in 2019.

Yet his complex relationship with Hollywood remained, especially when it came to the commercialization of Sundance. “He was conflicted by the business part of the festival, because he thought it took away the spotlight from the films themselves. It was always a bit of a push and a pull,” Mr. Groth said.

The writer and director David Lowery worked with Mr. Redford on two of his final films, at a time when Mr. Redford’s resistance to Hollywood seemed to be waning. Mr. Lowery said Mr. Redford chose to act in Disney’s “Pete’s Dragon” because “he wanted to make a movie his grandchildren could watch.” “The Old Man & the Gun” was a passion project Mr. Redford had been developing for years.

When Mr. Lowery got on set with Mr. Redford for the first time, he was nervous that Mr. Redford would be judging his directing or giving him pointers. He did neither. Until Mr. Lowery asked for yet another take.

“I’m a director who likes to do a lot of takes, and he’s not,” said Mr. Lowery. “At one point, I said ‘Bob, that was great. Let’s go again.’ I gave him a direction, asked him to do something specific. And he said, ‘I was doing that, you just weren’t paying attention.’”