Captain America: The Winter Soldier cast coalesces

Robert Redford was one of the biggest movie stars and sex symbols of the 70’s, but he has always worked very hard to prove he’s more than a pretty face. He’s proven himself a terrific director with Ordinary People and Quiz Show, and he’s done a lot of good for independent film with the Sundance Festival. 

Now Redford is making a return to acting, and the big surprise is he’s going to star in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as a major leader at S.H.I.E.L.D. Redford has never been known for genre, except for starring on The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents back in the sixties, so this is definitely a real departure for him. Yet as Total Film reports, Redford admits he “wanted to do something different.”

As Redford continues, “The Captain America thing is just a very simple thing, I wanted to do something just to be different. Something bold, different. And that felt like a good thing to do. That was it, nothing more to it than that. Well, it’s bold in terms of expectations, I guess….I like the idea of stepping into new territory. I’m excited by it. I also think it’s a good bunch of people who really know what they’re doing.”

As Collider reports, Marvel executive Kevin Feige considers the next Captain America film a “political thriller,” and if you look at the movie that way, it could definitely be something up Redford’s alley. He starred in two of the best political thrillers of the ‘70s, Three Days of the Condor, as well as the big screen adaptation of All the President’s Men. 

While you wouldn’t think Redford would want to be in a comic movie, he told the L.A. Times, “I think these films are really powerful. I think they’re great. This is the kind of film I would have loved to see as a kid.”

Captain America: The Winter Soldier hits theaters on April 4, 2014, and it’s part of Marvel’s Phase Two movies, along with the sequel to Thor, and Guardians of the Galaxy, which is also starting to come together for an August ‘14 release as well.