..Lese Dunton..
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Short Interview with Robert Redford
One question asked at press conference

Lese Dunton: During the filming of the The Company You Keep, did you have any special thoughts come up, or positive kinds of thoughts about journalism or the country?

Robert Redford: ...(pause)... Positive? (Audience laughs) I don't know about positive as much as valuable. I consider journalism so valuable and... I don't want to be too much ego here... but I would almost take it personally if journalism failed itself. That's the one avenue we have to the truth, so if I'm going to portray journalism in a film it's a tricky business. You want to at least give it its due and maybe describe the threats that are against it.

So in this case, the idea of Shia's character was to me more interesting if it was complicated by the fact that – is he going after the story for his own personal aggrandizement? Is he going after it for the pure reason of getting the story? There's a dance between that as he moves forward. But then what should be unmistakable is what he learns about himself.

In his pursuit of finding something about somebody else, what does he learn about himself that may change him? That was exciting to me. But you have to be really careful when you're dealing in journalism, not to be pedantic, not to be academic about it. You have to test certain things and then back away and let the audience go with it, if they're going to go with it.

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Photograph: Robert Redford with Stanley Tucci, who plays a newspaper editor the film, at a press conference on April 1, 2013 at NYC's Parker Meridien Hotel.