Bob Woodward says Robert Redford's star power made dating harder after All the President's Men hit theaters in 1976. Woodward, 89, said women opened the door expecting the actor who played him and then looked disappointed when it was just him.
Woodward revisited that memory on April 5 while discussing the film's 50th anniversary. He said he was unmarried when the movie came out and would call women to ask them out for Friday night dates, only to run into the same awkward moment at the door more than once.
“The door would open with a real smile and then she’d look at me, realize it’s not Redford and it would go from this high expectation to bargain basement low expectation,” Woodward said. “I’ve seen disappointment a number of times.”
The film was released in 1976 with Redford playing Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein, turning the pair's Watergate reporting into one of Hollywood's most enduring political dramas. Woodward and Bernstein had written the 1974 book that inspired it after Redford first approached them while they were covering Watergate, then kept calling and pressing the idea that the story should be told through their search for the truth.
Woodward said he and Bernstein were not persuaded at first. Redford bought the rights to the book, Alan J. Pakula directed the film from a script by William Goldman, and Pakula later visited Woodward's home, asked to photograph his apartment and even bought his chair, table and lamp for the production.
That push for authenticity shaped the movie's legacy. Woodward said the process felt like “realism on steroids,” reflecting Redford's, Hoffman's and Pakula's “quest for realism.” All the President's Men was nominated for eight Oscars and won four, including best supporting actor for Jason Robards, best screenplay based on material from another medium, best art direction and best sound. In the end, the film made Woodward a household name for reasons that had nothing to do with his dating life — and everything to do with the portrait of him that Redford helped create.
