“Just after we wrapped, I went back to Los Angeles,” Truth director, James Vanderbilt, tells FilmInk. “I was watching TV one night and Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid was on, which I hadn’t seen in years. It’s one of my favourite films. I came in right at the end when they’re being shot in Bolivia. I was alone in the room, and I had this surreal moment where it all crashed in on me. And I went, ‘Oh my god, I directed Robert Redford in a movie!’ I had this ‘all of this really happened’ moment, because I had to keep that side of it at bay for so long in order to do the job.”
While screenwriter (Zodiac, White House Down) turned first-time director, James Vanderbilt, was shooting his true life drama, Truth, he kept it together. Sure, he had Cate Blanchett in front of him playing TV producer, Mary Mapes, and Robert Redford right next to her as legendary US newsman, Dan Rather, but Vanderbilt’s internal monologue (“That’s Cate and Bob that I work with”) allowed him to keep his mind on the job, and get the film done with a minimum fan-boy over-enthusiasm. The fact that Truth is a media story – detailing the controversy that Mary Mapes and Dan Rather kick-started with their 60 Minutes story about President George W. Bush avoiding being drafted to Vietnam through his father’s political connections – made Redford’s involvement all the more profound considering that he produced and starred in All The President’s Men, one of the greatest films about the media ever made. “I wrote Robert Redford a long letter telling him in no uncertain terms why I would love for him to do the film. One of the things that I talked about was All The President’s Men, and how much it meant to me growing up. There would be a certain power in him playing a journalist again in this film; and that if we did this well enough, there would be similarities between the films. I thought that it would be wonderful for him to do it.”
James Vanderbilt wasn’t the only one starstruck by Robert Redford. Young actor, Topher Grace, who plays 60 Minutes researcher, Mike Smith. “I met him somewhere in Los Angeles in some lobby in a hotel, and we talked about All The President’s Men the entire time,” Grace smiles. “I think I saw some actor in the lobby, and I was like, ‘Oh, he’ll get the role.’ So I just went over and wanted to talk about certain shots in All The President’s Men. He was such a part of talking to Woodward and Bernstein, and convincing them to write the book, All The President’s Men, from their point of view. They were going to write it all about Richard Nixon, and he was so involved, and he was saying, ‘You are both so different, how did you crack the case?’ I think he was visiting them when they were breaking the story. This is how amazing Robert Redford is – if they really made the movie right, they should have had an actor playing Robert Redford! Warren Beatty should have played an actor from Hollywood who’s coming in to talk to them about writing the book. It would have been a little bit too meta!”
That meeting had a lasting effect on Topher Grace, as did the time that he and Redford shared together on the set of Truth. “I remember walking away from the meeting, and thinking, ‘Wow, there are very few actors who really put their money where their mouth is, and who really create great cinema like him.’ And then when we were on set, not only was I talking to him about that, just think about all the other movies that he’s starred in! The first movie that he directed, he won an Academy Award for with Ordinary People. And then, Sundance! Think about all the movies that wouldn’t have been made, if he hadn’t created Sundance himself, which he was telling me, people didn’t like for the first ten years. They were all going, ‘What are you doing out there?’ Think about all the directors who got their start there. So, the fact that he said, ‘Call me Bob’ was just amazing. Now when I bump into him, I get to call him Bob. It’s the ultimate honour. That’s it. I can announce my retirement. I mean, to do a journalism thriller with Robert Redford? I wouldn’t even have thought to dream that. That’s pretty high up there.”
