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Robert Redford filmed his directorial debut, Ordinary People, in Lake Forest, Illinois. The film is based on the 1976 novel by Judith Guest, which is set in the Chicago suburb. Redford said he had a good experience filming in Lake Forest. Still, he felt it was necessary to apologize to the city’s residents after filming concluded.

Robert Redford filmed a movie in Illinois

Redford made his directorial debut with Ordinary People, a film that follows an affluent family in Lake Forest. He filmed on location despite trepidation from Paramount.

“The rest of the people at the studio — Michael Eisner and some of the others — they didn’t want to do it. Barry [Diller] said, ‘Let him go away and do it,’” he told Esquire. “I went to Lake Forest, on the north side of Chicago, and made the film. Nobody bothered me.”

Ordinary People was a commercial and critical success. It picked up wins for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars.

Robert Redford apologized to Illinois residents for disrupting their lives

Redford said that when he was making the movie, he was very aware that people might think he was borrowing parts of their lives for the story.

“I feel a bit like a reporter, I guess, because I like to mix research with the story,” he told Rolling Stone. “Bob Woodward once told me that the most dangerous thing about reporting is that you come into people’s lives when they are at their most intense and exciting. And in making every film, there’s somebody who’s out of joint, who thinks you’ve violated his life.”

This happened after the release of Redford’s film The Candidate, and he disliked the feeling it gave him. He also knew he had to be cautious about the way the production treated the town. It was rare to shoot in the place where a film was actually set, and Redford was grateful. 

“So I was very careful about shooting in Lake Forest,” he said. “These days, you can’t even shoot a western in the West — too many power lines. You’ve got to go to Spain to shoot Texas. So Lake Forest was a find — like finding the elements for a Norman Rockwell painting. But too often film companies sweep through communities like the blitz. They figure, ‘We’ve got what we want, let’s move on.’ It’s like a boomtown mentality.”

After the production left Lake Forest, he put out an ad in a local newspaper and apologized to residents for the inconvenience.

‘Ordinary People’ made him reconsider his career

Ordinary People was a resounding success, and it made Redford examine his career path.

“I thought, Wait a minute — success has a dark side to it,” he said. “This is a high point, and it should be a cautionary time. Don’t just roll off this. Stop, take a year off, go back to zero. Where do you want to go with your work?”

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He decided he wanted to give back to the industry in some way. He noticed that high-budget, youth-centered films were increasingly becoming Hollywood’s focus and wanted to spotlight smaller films.

“I thought, Uh-oh, we’re going to lose this opportunity to give voice to new work,” he said. “Okay, there’s a space here where we can take new artists who are independent — who have skills but need help. We can provide mentoring and help them develop their skills to the point where they can get their films made. So that’s how it started.”

He founded the Sundance Institute in 1981, which eventually began to put on the Sundance Film Festival.

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