Robert Redford Discusses "The Horse Whisperer."

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: MAY 19, 1998
Time: 12:00
Tran: 051901NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Robert Redford
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:06

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Robert Redford is a movie star with a successful directing career as well. He directed "Ordinary People," "Quiz Show," and "A River Runs Through It." But until his new film, "The Horse Whisperer," he'd never directed a film that he also starred in.

The Horse Whisperer is about a 14-year-old girl named Grace who was in a riding accident which leaves her and her horse emotionally and physically wounded. Her distraught mother, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, is a high-powered editor at a trendy magazine in New York. She takes a leave from work to drive her daughter and the horse to Montana in the hopes that a horse trainer she's read about can heal the horse, which in turn might reverse her daughter's depression.

Here's the trainer, played by Redford, trying to talk with grace about her accident.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "THE HORSE WHISPERER")

ROBERT REDFORD, ACTOR/DIRECTOR: Hey Grace?

ACTRESS: Hmm.

REDFORD: What went on out there with Togo (ph)?

You see Grace, I got a problem. When I work with a horse, I like to know its history, and most of the times a horse in its own way can pretty much tell you the whole story, but sometimes they get so messed up in their head that we need more to go on.

And I don't know how you feel about talking about it -- you know, if you don't feel like it, I understand. But if I'm going to figure out what's going on in his head, it sure would help me if I understood exactly what happened that day.

You know, not today; whenever you feel like it. I'll leave that up to you.

GROSS: The movie is adapted from the bestselling novel by Nicholas Evans (ph), but the movie rights to the novel were purchased before the novel was even finished. I asked Robert Redford why he'd option a book before he even knew what the ending would be.

ROBERT REDFORD, ACTOR\DIRECTOR: There used to be some separation between Hollywood and filmmaking and the publishing business. There used to be some margin in between. Now, there's none. And this was probably the greatest and most recent example of that collusion coming to a straight business head, because what happened was that the author had not finished his book and he was in doubt.

And he asked a friend to read the manuscript -- what he had done so far -- and his friend read it. He said: "please tell me, you know, honestly what you think, 'cause if it's not working for you, I don't have any objectivity. I'm gonna probably bag it because I'm running out of money and I have a family to support."

So the guy read it and said: "gee, I think it's OK, but I'm going to the Frankfurt publishing convention tomorrow, why don't I just take it along and get better heads on it." So he did, and quickly the word spread like a wildfire that there was this love story set in the American West. And instantly, Hollywood began to bid on this thing without even -- many people weren't even aware of it except some thin synopsis about the elements that were there so far.

And before you knew it, the thing went into this bidding frenzy, and all the studios got into it. And so anyway, it went that way and the next thing you knew, that thing sold for a lot of money Disney Studios won the bidding -- bidding for me. But, I did not bid personally for it. So when I spoke to the writer, I said: "well, how are you going to end this?" He said: "well I don't really know yet." So I said, well OK -- "keep me posted." And he kind of outlined a possibility, but he said he wasn't sure. And then, he wrote the ending of the book and that was that.

GROSS: I understand you ended your film differently than he ended his book.

REDFORD: I did -- yes.

GROSS: So does that feel OK to you, after you spend so much money optioning -- optioning the novel, to change the end?

REDFORD: Well, of course, you know, it can be tricky when you're working with a book. I believe in honoring the author and the author's intentions, and certainly the essence of the work. In this case, he was very generous about his role in it, 'cause I'd asked him to -- how much do you want to be involved with it? I would give him that option. He said "not at all." He said "it's yours. And as one artist to the other, it's yours to do, you know what you need to do with it."

And so you -- have to make it your own in some way. And as I worked through it in development of the script, I realized that there was a voice inside me that was pointing in a different direction for the ending, looking for a little bit tougher, perhaps more bittersweet ending, that did not rely on death to let the characters off the hook; rather than having them have to live with their sacrifices, with -- when love is the issue. That -- that became more interesting to me.

And then finally, it was the only movie I could really make.

GROSS: Have you ever met a horse whisperer? I mean, the idea behind horse whispering is in part that the trainer is kind of so sensitive to horses and so knowledgeable about horse communication that the trainer is almost able to use the language of horses to communicate to a horse, instead of using, you know, a whip or punishment or even just traditional food pellets to help reward a horse's good behavior.

REDFORD: Yes, the film attempts to show, and there's a section of the film that attempts to give a very brief history of the relationship between human and beast, and even going back into the mythological aspects of it.

And somewhere along the line, as it says, the relationship got off track, when humans decided to reduce the animal to either meat or servitude, and do so by whipping them, beating them into submission, something about the relationship that involves trust and understanding began to disappear.

And so this new wave of -- they call them horse whisperers, but it's really just a euphemism for a way with horses that has to do with a particular connection that you make with the soul of the horse, and of course, your soul has to be pretty well centered to do it. And there's a group that's -- it's growing considerably.

The fellow that I used as a technical adviser on the film, his name is Buck Branneman (ph). And he's pretty close to, I would think, to being called a magician. He's so highly evolved in the work that he does that it's like, you know, "C above C" -- that sound dogs hear that we can't hear. He's beyond into some other realm, which is very powerful.

GROSS: There's a scene early-on in the film in which two teenage girls are riding their horses in the woods and they have a terrible accident. And you show what happens to the girls and the horses. It's a very painful scene to watch, and well, fairly explicitly shot. You really see the damage being done. And I'm wondering what you -- what your approach was to shooting that -- what maybe some of the alternate scenarios were in your mind?

REDFORD: Well, the alternate scenarios, of course, would be to go right inside the -- the crash itself. Those are alternates that some filmmakers would -- would employ, getting -- literally getting right inside the wound or the impact; being as graphic as you possibly can for shock effect.

Normally, I don't normally go for the explicit choice because I'm more interested in the subtle ones, but in this case, it had to be traumatic. One had to feel this accident -- not just see it; not just watch it; but feel it. And so, where I went with it was to draw somewhat on my own experience.

I've been in a fair amount of accidents, and some of them pretty serious, where I could say I'm lucky to be here as a result of them. But I remember that in my own experience, that there was this flashing, blurring, kind of journey through the accident, with just moments that are still frames, where I can remember. They're indelible. I'll never forget them as long as I live. They're probably scars now of some kind.

And I wanted to try to put that feeling on film. I also was trying to do something that I think we all experience. I think when you've had an accident, and they usually are very, very quick and you sometimes -- while it's happening -- and then certainly right after, you can say: "just a moment ago, everything was fine. And now look what's gonna happen -- that my life is gonna be changed." And it's happening while you're thinking of it.

GROSS: What are the accidents you've had that you've based this scene on?

REDFORD: Well, I wouldn't want to bore you with all of them. The most recent one -- serious one -- was a motorcycle accident about seven years ago. I went around a hairpin turn and a truck coming -- four-wheel drive coming around a hairpin was not following the hairpin, but decided to cut across it, and I -- there was no time, absolutely no time, to do anything but make a quick choice of either letting go of the bike and sailing right over everything, which would have pitched me off on this -- on the downside of sort of a cliff side -- or going right into it, laying the bike down, going right into it, which is what I decided to do.

So I laid the bike down, went into the front, underneath and into the grill, and the tire of the truck -- the tire is what I think actually saved me. And got pretty well hammered and -- but I remember it well. I remember details. I remember the expression on the driver's face, looking profile, and seeing that he didn't see me. I thought: he should be looking at me 'cause he's coming around the bend. But he's not -- he's looking profile. That's trouble.

Then I remember the tire coming at me, and the grill coming at me, and being conscious of putting my head away from as much of the impact as I could. Then what had happened -- I remember hearing the woman scream -- in the car; I guess, the wife. And being focused on the fact that my loafer -- I had loafers on -- dumb, to be riding a motorcycle -- but I had loafers on and I -- the loafer was pinched under the tire and I couldn't get my foot out of the loafer 'cause it was pinched under the tire; and struggling to pull my foot out of the loafer, I got totally fixed on that.

And then the woman's voice changing when she saw who it was -- and then she got all excited.

LAUGHTER

That -- those bizarre moments don't leave you.

GROSS: That is bizarre, yeah.

REDFORD: Then she got all excited about -- yeah, look who we hit. And all I was conscious of was wanting to get out from under there and get on my feet to see if I could. And get moving as quickly as possible.

GROSS: So, were you hurt?

REDFORD: Yeah, yeah -- pretty banged up. I'm all right now.

GROSS: But nothing...

REDFORD: No, nothing.

GROSS: Did you ride away afterwards?

REDFORD: No, I walked away. The bike was not in great shape, but I walked away. No, I'm fine.

GROSS: My guest is Robert Redford. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

We're talking to Robert Redford about his new film The Horse Whisperer.

You know, I'm thinking when you're working with a person and the people are falling in love or something, the actors know how to express visually that sense of love, so it communicates on screen. When you're working with a horse, you can't say to the horse: "no, you know, act more affectionate toward me. You're not -- you're not being affectionate enough."

How do you get the horse to show its kind of respect or appreciation of you?

REDFORD: Well, but -- yeah, it would help if you were working with Mr. Ed or something, but...

GROSS: Exactly.

REDFORD: ... I don't have that option. The -- it was a real challenge, to be honest with you, and one that I was actually excited about. I had never seen, really, a film involving a horse. There have been many wonderful films involving horses, but I'd never seen one that tried to get inside the soul of the horse and treat the horse cinematically like a soul -- a soul -- a person.

And so that was a challenge that was quite exciting to me to work. A lot of it had to do with the eye -- working with a horse's eye and how you use the eye. And a lot of it had to do with the way a horse would turn to look at you or not turn to look at you; the physical action of a horse when it goes into fear and becomes quite violent, and starts to express and realize the full potential of its power -- just the power of his body and he's coming out of fear -- the kind of wild energy that can be extremely violent and destructive -- to use that and learn how to work with it; to be able to rope a horse, which I did, to get a horse into some kind of balance.

Those were all areas. And then -- and then the connection where you make some direct contact with a horse that simply says: "I'm here. I'm not going to do anything to you." You have to let the horse know that you're not going to hurt him. That's the first thing that has to be done to break this wrong tension that's crept into the relationship between horse and human being.

And so you have to let the horse know, first, that you're not going to hurt the horse. And then, the horse will usually what they call "hook on." You can move this way or that way, and the horse will follow you because he feels comfortable doing so. But you have to first earn it by establishing a connection. And it usually has to do with this feeling inside yourself, that has to get transmitted -- a kind of center, you know, without getting "new age" about this -- a kind of spiritual center inside yourself to communicate to the horse.

GROSS: You mention shooting the horse's eye, and what the eye has to communicate in the scenes where the horse is kind of going mad, and I'm wondering what kind of state you had to get the horse in so that the eye genuinely registered the fear, agony, and madness that you wanted to register on camera?

REDFORD: That was not easy. And it look a lot of time and working with it -- one of the difficulties in the film was working with the horses because it is so time-consuming. And I worked from an expression that had madness in it and fear, like he would kill you. And to do that, you had to get the horse to rear back, and you would shoot at an angle that had the horse rearing back, and you'd focus on the eye because the horse did not -- the horse is rearing back for a reason. He didn't want to come forward.

So, the eye is going to reflect his fear, and you would get closed in on the eye as the horse was being forced backward. And that would translate as anger, fear, craziness. And then you'd get the horse in a gentle, calm state and work with him very closely, and that horse, when settled down, has a kinder eye.

GROSS: Robert Redford is my guest. We're talking about his new movie The Horse Whisperer, which he produced, directed, and stars in.

I'm sure you know you're getting some criticism for casting a considerably younger actress opposite yourself. You know, the criticisms that actors are able to play leading men roles when they're 60, and women are considered through when they're -- or before they're 40. And so, I'd like for you to just comment on that.

REDFORD: Well, I wasn't aware of the criticism, but I suspect it's out there. I guess it's what people will focus on. I didn't think a lot about it, because that relationship was similar in the book. There was an age difference in the book. I don't believe in forcing something that's unnatural, or that's just too odd.

But this didn't feel odd or seem odd at all -- you know, playing an older person. It's still within the realm of possible relationship with a younger woman. She's in her late 30s. She's about 40. And I'm about a 20-year, you know, 17-year difference, something like that. And her husband is, you know, 50.

It seemed to be in the realm of not only possibility, but also what would work in terms of developing the complexities of those relationships; that that's -- that's what was of interest to me. Here is a man who had had the experience. He had been on life's journey longer; carried a certain kind of wisdom. She was a character who was in a pretty unconscious state in the beginning, who was brought to consciousness by virtue of their relationship and the healing that goes on.

And to have the age difference used in that sense seemed perfectly fine to me. I never thought about it. I never heard anything about it.

GROSS: The Horse Whisperer is the first movie that you've both directed and starred in. Did you evaluate your performance differently than you usually do if you're just performing and you're not the director?

REDFORD: Well, it was a little different because as an actor, I always appreciated just sort of getting lost in the moment and being there in the space that I was supposed to be in as a character, with the situation or the other person, and not really occupying my mind much with the technical stuff around it, like camera, lights, and so on. I mean, I had some knowledge of it, of course, but I didn't -- didn't make it a practice to learn it intensely so I could use it.

Some people do that, and they do it very well. They have a more calculating mind for that. I -- I -- that was not enjoyable to me. What was enjoyable was to be sort of lost in the moment and not worry about that; not think about it.

As a director, there is more -- I think that was -- there is more of a connection as a director to what I'd started out in life to be, which was an artist. And I love the idea of standing back and looking at the whole canvas and imagining what I was going to put together and how and watching the rhythms of the actors because I love actors. And those two didn't seem to blend very well together.

So when I did this, I had some anxiety about it, some self-consciousness about it. It wasn't hard. It was exhausting because of having to do, you know, the two things, but it wasn't -- it wasn't hard. It was comfortable enough when I was doing it. What was uncomfortable was the in-between of having to step over to a monitor, which I don't like -- I don't like that mechanical intrusion on the experience -- and then look at it and judge yourself. That felt weird.

But I did it and I got through it. It turned out to be OK, just exhausting.

GROSS: Well I'm sure that it's a relief that The Horse Whisperer is finished now. It's out of your hands. It's done. What are you moving on to next?

REDFORD: Well, I'm moving on to a big break. You know, just taking some -- 'cause that's the way I've always liked to do it. You work very hard and you give it 100 percent. Then you move away and you move completely away so you can reconnect with other things that will sort of rejuvenate you and get your batteries recharged and to take a break and do the things you love to do.

Residence in the mountains where you can get out in nature and move around, or travel -- whatever it is, so that you can get away from your experience. I feel it's very important not to stay hounding your experience -- don't follow it too far; don't follow it too long; don't pay a whole lot of attention to it once you turn it over to the public. It's really their business. It's no longer mine.

And the better way for me, anyway, to go is to move away from it and not look back and move onto the next thing. And there are a few projects that are into development -- one from the book "Time and Again"; another dialogue I'm having with Robert Pirsig on "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," which is a book I've always been very, very intrigued by; wanted to just see if I could make work.

GROSS: You're still riding a motorcycle after your accident?

REDFORD: Yeah, well, it's a gentler ride. I learned a lot...

LAUGHTER

GROSS: Well, I wish you good luck with the new projects and I want to thank you very much for talking with us today.

REDFORD: Thank you.

GROSS: Robert Redford directed and stars in The Horse Whisperer. From the album of songs from and inspired by the film, here's Steve Earle.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, SOUNDTRACK TO "THE HORSE WHISPERER")

STEVE EARLE, SINGER, SINGING: `In dreams there's a horse
He stands 18 hands high
He's as white as the snow
And there's fire in his eyes
And he'll bear onto me
Though others have tried

And together we'll travel
Up across the divide
Some mornings will find us
Up above the timberline
Lonesome don't seem like much
Once you're this high
But when it's all said and done
I usually find
That me and the eagle are of the same...

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Robert Redford
High: Actor and director Robert Redford. He discusses his latest film, "The Horse Whisperer" which he directs and stars in. It's based on the bestselling novel.
Spec: Movie Industry; Robert Redford; The Horse Whisperer
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1998 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1998 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Robert Redford
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.