Robert Redford - Michael Feeney Callan [140]
Finally happy with their script since, crucially, “it made some affirmative statement and not another negative commentary about Watergate,” Pakula and Redford sat down to cast the movie. Redford had several old friends he wanted to work with, among them Penny Fuller from Barefoot in the Park, Jane Alexander, another theater actress who had made the transition to film and had recently been nominated for an Academy Award, and Hal Holbrook, Carol Rossen’s husband, who would play the role of Deep Throat, the reporters’ White House informer. Redford’s initial concept had been a cinema verité black-and-white film in which he would not perform. But a distribution deal had been done with Warners, and Ted Ashley’s concerns were primarily the commercial realities. “Ted didn’t beat around the bush,” Redford recalls. “He told us he needed to sell my name on the marquee, so the movie he was funding must have me in it.” If he was to act, Redford felt the obvious role for him was that of Woodward. “I thought I could do something with those little nervous mannerisms, like his always shredding paper. I could make up an accurate picture because I’d spent weeks and weeks with him.” For Bernstein, his first choice was Al Pacino, an actor he much admired. “But then I chewed it over, and for some reason Dustin Hoffman seemed more like Carl in my mind’s eye, so I called Dustin and asked him if he was interested. That was a very short phone call.”
Hoffman had, in fact, followed every facet of Watergate and knew about Redford’s sessions with the journalists. Hoffman recalls: “While I was shooting Papillon in Jamaica, all the Watergate hysteria was unfolding. I did what Redford did. I kept tabs. My brother worked in the administration in Washington, and we were on the phone every single day, debating it. I always wanted ‘in.’ I only felt pissed that Bob got involved with the project before I did. If he hadn’t gone after it, I would have.”
Since his experience with Jason Robards in The Iceman Cometh, Redford had wanted to work with him again, if only to repay the kindnesses Robards showed him. In 1972, after years of alcohol problems, Robards was almost killed when he crashed his automobile into a roadside wall in California. He was badly disfigured in the accident and needed reconstructive facial surgery, which was carried out by a plastic surgeon who was a Mormon and a friend of fellow Utahan Gary Liddiard, Redford’s makeup artist since The Candidate. Through Liddiard, Redford monitored Robards’s recovery. Discovering he was on the mend, he offered him the role of Ben Bradlee, which was gratefully accepted.
The most important relationship for the producers was the one with the resident senior staff of The Washington Post. It was common knowledge that a general air of skepticism hung around the executive offices, but Pakula, a naturally sociable person, proved to be the production’s best asset as he created relationships with Ben Bradlee and the paper’s owner, publisher Katharine Graham. In their memoirs, both Bradlee and Graham speak with the glow of Hollywood awe about Redford’s arrival on the scene. Bradlee was amenable, happy to show Redford off to his family and to converse with the production team led by coproducer Walter Coblenz. Graham, on the other hand, agreed to breakfast with the Redfords but wanted no part of the movie. “It’s understandable,” says Redford. “How could she know how we’d end up presenting The Post? She was cautious and protective, which was what you’d expect of a caring proprietor.”
Redford wanted Geraldine Page to portray Graham in the film. Graham refused the offer, though she later regretted her decision and wrote a note of contrition to Redford. “Contrary to what’s been written,” says Redford, “she did not block us filming at The