Flashback: Gloria Steinem's 1986 Interview With Robert Redford | TODAY

Gloria Steinem, editor of Ms. Magazine and today contributing correspondent, is here with a really rare conversation. It's with Robert Redford. This is, I guess, his third television interview ever and only his first in the last five years. Why do you think he said yes? Well, he said he was afraid he was beginning to seem distant and he's not a distant person at all. But for somebody who's one of our most famous actors and who won the Academy Award for directing the very first time out with Ordinary People, he simply leads a very independent life. It was a perfect sunny day when we drove far into the mountains of Utah to see Robert Redford. For the 25 years of his acting career, this has been his personal retreat from Hollywood and from public life. It's a very different world from crowded, chaotic New York, where Legal Eagles, his new sophisticated comedy, is set. I love New York and New York is a city that I've always admired because it's not trying to be something other than what it is. It's honestly tough. It's honestly dirty. What's different about doing comedy? What do you miss when you don't do it? Well, I don't think there's a lot different. I mean, if you're an actor, you should be able to do both. There's not a lot different in doing comedy unless you do a certain kind of comedy. If you play the situation and you use yourself, it shouldn't be a whole lot different. Also, it's not anything really new for me. Is it true that this character was based on you partly? That is, that there's some klutziness in you that means you also lock your keys in the car and bump into things? Absolutely. A lot of that's autobiographical. A lot of it was improvised. The ideas were improvised, taken from personal experience. It's true, yeah. Is it true that you're personally very funny? People keep telling me that you're the funniest person. Well, I'm waiting for it. That you do elaborate, practical jokes? Oh, yeah. That I love. That I like. I do. Oh, April Fool's a big day. I don't want to talk too much about it because too many people will get queued in. But I do like it. I like kidding people. To me, that's a sign of affection. And sure, but being funny is a, I think it's a natural thing. You either are or you aren't. It comes out of situation. But that's kind of a new Redford, no? Well, I don't think so. I mean, I imagine some people do based on what, you know, shows up on the screen. But for me, it's not. I mean, you know, I gotta live with myself. Politics is more than just running for election. His comedy is subtle, too. This is a nice moment with his screen daughter, who is about the same age as his own younger daughter. Then what's sexual politics? Sexual politics? Well, that's when you have sex. You also said that most of your best friends and the people you trusted were women. Is that still true? It is true. Why do you think it's true? I don't know. I really don't. It's just the way it was. I mean, a kind of trust developed, a confidence developed through associations with women that go way back. That's not to say I didn't have good male friends. I did and still do. But there was just a real special connection there and an acceptance of the strength of women that goes back a long way. Who would you count as your role models? I mean, Paul Newman has gone... He's too old. He's too old? I'd like to find somebody, a contemporary. How do you feel about being 49? And having a daughter who just got married? I felt good about that. I mean, I guess I'll have a delayed reaction, you know, like an accident. You wake up and feel differently about it later. I mean, it was kind of a state of shock. I just wasn't ready. It just seemed to be happening so fast. Suddenly there it was and I was looking at a little girl. I used to carry her around on my shoulders and suddenly there it was, getting married. That was tough. But I'm happy for her. I know this is going to sound like I've been taking vitamins or something or been doing a Revit class. I feel great. I mean, I don't feel any different, you know, things creak and break and, you know, do this as fast or that. I just don't feel radically different than I have in the past. So I can't relate to age and I don't, I think so much is in the mind anyway. I don't, I really don't think much about it. I suspect I should, but I don't. So what does a male sex symbol do who's about to turn 49? Well, if he's Robert Redford, I mean, he just stays a sex symbol and, of course, it's okay for him to play against with young women in roles. You know, he just can keep on doing that forever. But he also has a lot of other interests and, as we'll see on Monday, the Sundance Institute, which is something that he started and I think might become to movie making what off-Broadway is to plays, is really very important in his life and ours were the first cameras to ever see that institute too. Well, we look forward to that on Monday.