Robert Redford brings a tired, almost haggard appearance to his role as kidnapped businessman Wayne Hayes in the suspense drama The Clearing.

The showbiz pecking order, at least when it comes to pop culture icons, begins with attractive starlets, the young male actors who date them and finally, Hollywood veterans like Robert Redford.

Redford, big screen leading man for close to 40 years and founder and creative CEO of the Sundance Film Festival, is old enough to be the father of actor Ryan Gosling, 23, who's been at Sundance in recent years to promote his roles in the independent films The United States of Leland and The Believer.

Gosling shares the type of scrubbed all-American good looks that helped launch Redford's acting career way back when. Now, at the height of Spider-Man 2 mania, Gosling stars in a rare summertime drama, the period romance, The Notebook. Redford also has a new movie out, The Clearing, director Pieter Jan Brugge's thriller, currently playing in art house theaters nationwide and scheduled for limited release in Cincinnati this Friday.

Redford has a long career behind him so it's no surprise that he claims better recognition than Gosling, who out of choice, has yet to appear in a Hollywood blockbuster.

In fact, Gosling's current attraction to mature fare reflects some of Redford's best acting choices: The Candidate, All the President's Men and Three Days of the Condor. One might say Gosling is cut from Redford's cloth, at least on Redford's best career days. Gosling and Redford have yet to pair professionally. Until that fated intersection happens, if it happens at all, their projected selves currently cross paths at nation's theaters.

Redford shows his haggard side for 'The Clearing'
Robert Redford, once and forever Hollywood's golden boy, is used to receiving plenty of attention wherever he goes, especially at the Sundance Film Festival, the annual celebration of independent film he helped found 22 years ago. This year, there is extra attention, and not for entirely good reasons.

Veteran film journalist Peter Biskind's book Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film, released just two days before the start of the 2004 Sundance Festival, is exceptionally critical of Redford and his management of Sundance. Redford hinted at a lower profile at this year's Sundance Festival. But Biskind's book, a warts-and-all history of American specialty cinema, demands a response.

Redford also has a new movie to promote, The Clearing, a thriller where he plays a kidnapped businessman. It's the first time that one of Redford's films plays the festival. The Motorcycle Diaries, a Spanish-language drama Redford produced about the young Che Guevara, also makes its world premiere at Sundance. His initial public comment to the book is a playful jab.

"Joining Harvey Weinstein at a book signing later," Redford tells the laughing crowd at the opening night film, the surfing documentary, Riding Giants, before walking off the stage.

The largest festival crowds I witnessed at this year's Sundance Film Festival swarmed Park City, Utah's Eccles Theatre on a cold Sunday night in January for the premiere of The Clearing, proof that Redford still attracts crowds, at least on his home turf.

Redford, who turns 67 in August, looks decidedly older in The Clearing, a bold departure from his golden boy days in the early '70s. But his tired, almost haggard appearance brings the film a boost of emotional credibility. This is not the Redford who moviegoers know, but this is what the role demands.

In the film, Wayne Hayes (Redford), a wealthy businessman, confronts his kidnapper (Willem Dafoe) as they hike through isolated woods to a chosen hiding spot.

Brugge, the veteran producer of numerous films including The Insider and Bulworth, makes his feature filmmaking debut with The Clearing. He keeps the story streamlined and subtle, sometimes to the extent of losing tension. Brugge knows he has ace drama whenever Dafoe and Redford share the screen, and he wisely keeps them there for most of the film. If you're going to make a Robert Redford movie, even one starring a bruised and beaten Redford, at least keep him in the spotlight.

In Redford's eyes, he's always been an independent
The morning after the debut screening, at an extravagant, two-floor white tent adjacent to the Park City ski lifts, Redford joins Dafoe and Brugge for interviews. Asked if he feels uncomfortable appearing so haggard in the film, Redford says his worn appearance is one of the things he liked best about the script. The honest look of his aged character reflects the honesty he's come to admire in independent film.

"One of the things I like about independent film is the scale of it," he says, sitting alongside Dafoe. "What an actor has to go through in a large film, it's like turning an ocean liner around in mid-course ... you have to sit and wait, and the waiting is hard."

"I know I wanted to do something different after my last picture, Spider-Man," Dafoe chimes in. "Listen, I had a good time making Spider-Man, but you crave balance in your work. It's a natural thing."

Redford takes a beating in The Clearing. He also takes a beating in Biskind's book, but Redford's argument is that both punishments are make-believe.

"Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but this guy has never been to Sundance, which I think says something. He (Biskind) took a swipe at Sundance 10 years ago for a magazine article, and now he's back at it again. When you're successful you open yourself up to criticism, and I think the festival is more organized, on firmer ground, better than ever."

Outside the state-of-the-art tent where Redford sits, looking across the crowds milling around the festival's various venues, one suspects that every copy of Down and Dirty Pictures has found its way to Park City. On this one occasion, you could argue that a book has trumped, if only briefly, a Hollywood celebrity. Surely the Redford mystique is too solid to be taken down by a book. All it takes is a new film for people to reconnect with Redford the actor and pay less attention to his role at Sundance.

Asked if The Clearing points to a new era in his acting career, one where he turns his back on Hollywood, Redford disagrees. In his eyes, he has always been independent.

"I wouldn't turn my back on anything. I just move in a direction, rather turning my back on something. The mainstream has been very good to me. I've had a good time doing larger films, and I have been selective. I've always done independent films -- Downhill Racer Jeremiah Johnson, The Candidate -- they have just been within the studio system. Studio people would say, 'We'll let you do this if you do this other film, The Great Gatsby.' That was OK and as I look back on it, I probably had more fun."

Back then Redford had to make compromises to make the movies he wanted to make. Today, he appears to be in complete control. He can look ragged on-screen if he wants to. Still, he remembers times when he couldn't get his way.

"I tried to play Rasputin once and got laughed out of the office. I flew all the way to London to meet Sam Spiegel, who was making Nicholas and Alexandra and he let me fly over there just to see if it was true. He said, 'You wouldn't do this. You are crazy.' It was so unthinkable. Nobody took me seriously."

Of course, that's the way it's always been for golden boys. ©

Ryan Gosling is young, serious and fighting showbiz gossip
If a dramatic actor could choose a film to introduce himself to audiences, he could do no better than director Henry Bean's 2001 drama, The Believer. In that acclaimed movie, actor Ryan Gosling gives a courageous performance as Danny Balint, a troubled young Talmudic scholar who becomes a neo-Nazi skinhead.

The Believer also tells us everything we need to know about the 23-year-old Gosling. Others might say it, but Gosling lives by these clichéd words: Acting in good films, even if they're small, independents, is more important than fame and box-office success.

In The Slaughter Rule, Gosling's 2002 follow-up to The Believer, he plays a loner in a Montana town who joins a rugged six-man football team. Like The Believer, The Slaughter Rule was a Sundance Festival hit that only received a minor theatrical release.

In the 2003 juvenile detention drama The United States of Leland, another Sundance feature, Gosling plays a teenager who murders a 15-year-old autistic boy.

More than any of his peers, Gosling reaches out to challenging characters, and he wouldn't have it any other way. This might also explain why Gosling has yet to become a household name.

It's a mid-June Tuesday afternoon, and Gosling is busy promoting his latest role in his biggest film to date, The Notebook, a period romance set in small town North Carolina, based on Nicholas Sparks' best-selling novel.

It does not take long for Gosling to discover what reporters primarily want to know: What was it like kiss Pop singer Britney Spears at age 11 when they were both actors on Disney's TV's New Mickey Mouse Club?

"Don't you want to talk about the Mickey Mouse Club?" Gosling asks the moment he picks up the phone. "Don't you want to know if I kissed Britney Spears?'

Told that I had completely forgotten about his Mickey Mouse tenure with Spears, Gosling's voice jumps a beat.

"Oh, wow, what a treat."

As Noah, a working-class boy who falls for a wealthy debutante, actor Ryan Gosling stars in his biggest film to date, the period romance The Notebook.

Granted, The Notebook is not Gosling's first Hollywood movie. He enjoyed a supporting role in Remember the Titans, playing one of the high football players under Denzel Washington's hard-as-nails coach.

Gosling played a young criminal in Murder by Numbers, a thriller from director Barbet Schroeder starring Sandra Bullock. But The Notebook is the young actor's first studio film in a lead role. He plays Noah, a laborer in a local lumber mill who falls for Allie (Rachel McAdams), a pretty debutante. Gosling gives a honest performance about love that remains resilient despite all the obstacles.

The Notebook is a lush Hollywood movie, but whether expensive or low budget, Gosling says he treats all roles the same. Affection, romance and passion are the hallmarks of his Notebook character, internal emotions often difficult to portray. Believability is priority.

"I don't know how to distill romance, but I think in order to be romantic you have to put reality aside, in a way, and romanticize ideas." he says. "What's romantic about Noah is he means what he says, and he has big gestures to prove that. He does not put a lot of stock into words. My impression from the movie is that she (Allie) responds because he was doing things as opposed to saying things, which I think separates him from the rest."

Gosling is polite, but always considers his words carefully. His career goal is simple: Do good work in good films of his choosing.

"I realized when I started to try and make movies that I needed to realize what I had control over and what I didn't. I don't direct the movie. I don't edit the film. I have no control over distribution, marketing, how the audience receives the film or other performances. So I can't discriminate against genre or studio vs. independent films, because then I'd be limiting myself, and I'm limited already.

"I guess I'm an actor and my job is to play characters. I'm trying to go wherever the character is, and that's what I do when I'm lucky enough to find a character I think I can play and is different from the work I've done before."

Next up, Gosling stars with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts in Stay, a drama from director Marc Forster.

"I'm not a business man, and I don't pretend to be one. If I see a character I think I can play, I do it. I don't care what kind of movie it is or what kind of money it has behind it. If I have to do it for free I'll do it. If it has a huge budget, I'll do it. I play the characters I think I can play until they stop letting me do it."

Where will his career take him? What types of roles will he play? The burden falls on Gosling, and he can bear it. ©