Redford Envisions A Younger Legend

When Robert Redford's latest directorial effort, The Legend Of Bagger Vance, hits theaters on Nov. 3, it will feature Will Smith as the titular caddie and Matt Damon as a fallen golfing great who subscribes to his mystical guidance. Yet, at a very early point in the process, Redford envisioned himself and Morgan Freeman in the lead roles.

"That was not a very long consideration," the Academy Award-winning director admits to TV Guide Online. "Once I got focused and started to develop the piece, I got off that [thinking] because it bore for me too much resemblance to The Natural (Barry Levinson's 1984 baseball drama which starred Redford). That terrain I had sort of touched on."

Instead, Redford opted to enlist a different generation. "I got far more interested in going with a very young cast," he shares. "I thought it might be a more affecting story."

Enter Smith and Damon, two of the hottest young commodities available today.

"You expect Bagger Vance to be this wise old sage," Redford suggests, "But I thought, 'Let's go the other way with it. Let's make him this completely unpredictable character.'"

While acknowledging Smith's penchant for creating memorable wise-crackers, Redford saw a different potential. "Will's talent is obvious. He has a large, very outgoing persona, and I had seen that," he notes. "But what I hadn't seen are the things I thought we might do in this film — things that would take Will into a new territory."

As for Damon, who plays the awesome golfer who has lost his "authentic swing," Redford says, "He's got a great disposition, but he's also a solid, intelligent actor who looks unmarked and All-American — extremely important requisites for that role."

Yet the film's youngest star — and Redford's Savannah-area casting-call find — was then 12-year-old newcomer J. Michael Moncrief, who portrays Hardy, the lad who lures Damon back to the fairways. "He looks like a real kid," Redford states, "and not some pretty face that looks like it was bred for the Hollywood screen. He's very natural, and has a lot of spunk in his personality.

Redford says that spunk served Moncrief well on the star-studded set. "He's just enough full of himself to be able to stand the pressure of working with known people like Will or Matt," he observes. "And he did."