One of the most legendary actors of all time has made a surprise comeback from retirement. Robert Redford has returned to the screen, and you’ll never guess who his scene partner was, either.
Fans of AMC’s Western thriller series Dark Winds were in for a surprise this Sunday when Robert Redford popped up as an incarcerated man playing chess behind bars in the season 3 premiere. Oh, and the person he’s playing against happens to be Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin.
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The series is based on the Leaphorn & Chee detective novels, which are set in the 1970s. It stars Zahn McClarnon and Kiowa Gordon as two Navajo Tribal Police officers, and counts Redford and Martin as two of its executive producers. Chris Eyre, the director of the episode, told Variety that a cameo from the respective acting and literary legends has been “in the air” since the first season, but schedules haven’t lined up and Martin has been hesitant to appear. “I was never really sure it was going to happen until it happened,” series showrunner John Wirth said.
This time, Martin approached Wirth with an idea of him and Redford in an intense chess match behind a cell—which the series ultimately ran with, and shot last year on a closed set.
“I never thought I could get to a place in my life where I would actually know Robert Redford, let alone be in a scene with him,” McClarnon says.
It’s Redford’s first time on screen since his cameo in Avengers: Endgame in 2019. He retired from acting after completing his final role in the 2018 film The Old Man & The Gun, a crime drama about real-life prison escape artist Forrest Tucker. However, he has still continued working behind the cameras, like with his executive producer role on Dark Winds.
The third season of Dark Winds airs every Sunday at 9 PM on AMC.