"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" | Photograph of Paul Newman and Robert Redford on set

One of Hollywood's most iconic duos. Robert Redford credits Paul Newman—who at the time Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was cast was already one of Hollywood’s biggest stars—for giving him his break. “It was really Paul that made that happen, because when I met him — George Roy Hill took me to meet him in New York — and we just hit it off. So from that time on, Paul said, ‘OK, I’ll do it with Redford'” (Means).

"The studio wanted Redford to play the easygoing Butch," Sean Means wrote in a 2019 interview, "rather than the brooding Sundance. 'I had done a comedy on Broadway, Barefoot in the Park, so I was the comedic actor,' Redford said. But 'I didn’t relate to [Butch] as much as I did to The Sundance Kid.' Hill agreed, and together they approached Newman — who had played smoldering, strong-but-silent characters before, and thought the loose-lipped Butch was closer to his own personality" (Means).

REFERENCES:

Sean P. Mean, "Robert Redford talks about becoming ‘The Sundance Kid,’ 50 years after the movie’s release," in The Salt Lake Tribune, 12 October 2019: https://www.sltrib.com/artsliving/2019/10/13/robert-redford-talks/