Robert Redford Retiring From Acting After Nearly 60 Years

It’s the end of an era: Robert Redford has confirmed that he is retiring from acting.

The 81-year-old originally announced that he had plans to stop acting two years ago, but only after he finishing the last two films he had in production, Our Souls at Night, released in 2017, and The Old Man & The Gun, which will be released Sept. 28.

“I’m getting tired of acting. I’m an impatient person, so it’s hard for me to sit around and do take after take after take,” he said, according to NBC News. “At this point in my life, age 80, it’d give me more satisfaction because I’m not dependent on anybody. It’s just me, just the way it used to be, and so going back to sketching–that’s sort of where my head is right now. So, I’m thinking of moving in that direction and not acting so much.”

‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ (1969) Directed by George Roy Hill. Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) lead a band of outlaws. A robbery goes wrong & they find themselves on the run with a posse on their heals. With Kathryn Ross, & many others pic.twitter.com/nAB4o0Iy4D

— Classicman Film (@classicsman70) July 31, 2018

Redford said that he will “never say never ” to performing. But at this point, he “pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting, and [I’ll] move towards retirement after this, ’cause I’ve been doing it since I was 21. I thought, ‘Well, that’s enough.’ And why not go out with something that’s very upbeat and positive?”

Robert Redford announces he’s retiring from acting at 81 years old after 60 years of career ?? #RobertRedford pic.twitter.com/4c3OrOkBJP

— Cinemapassion (@filmartcine) August 6, 2018

When asked if he would continue to direct feature films, Redford said, “We’ll see about that.”

Redford started his professional career in the 1960s. He won an Academy Award in 1982 for directing Ordinary People, and won another Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. He founded the Sundance Film Festival. In 2016, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.