Close and Redford played love interests in the 1984 baseball drama “The Natural.”

Glenn Close once went on a date with Robert Redford without realizing it: ‘I was too clueless’

Close and Redford played love interests in the 1984 baseball drama "The Natural."

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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December 10, 2025 7:31 p.m. ET

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Glenn Close in Paris on Oct. 21; Robert Redford in Monaco in 2021. Credit:

Edward Berthelot/WireImage; Arnold Jerocki/Getty

Actress Glenn Close says she and the late Robert Redford, her leading man in the 1984 drama *The Natural*, came close to becoming a couple in real life, but she didn't understand what was going on.

"After we did *The Natural*, Robert Redford invited me to a very romantic restaurant where we had dinner together," Close told Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Wednesday's episode of Lemonada Media's *Wiser Than Me* podcast. "And I was too clueless and unknowing and unsure to even consider that I might have dated him... I didn't get it."

So a romance between the two never happened, but, as the star of *The Big Chill* and *Fatal Attraction* explained in January, she and Redford did share a passionate *moment*.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.******* When Close was asked about the best onscreen kiss she's had over her five-decades-long career, she immediately answered, "Robert Redford... in *The Natural.*"

She lamented that she "only got to kiss him once," though she thought, "maybe we did two takes."

In the movie, Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a middle-aged baseball phenom who boosts his team, while she portrays his love interest, Iris.

Close received the third of her eight Oscar nominations for her work opposite the easy-on-the-eyes actor, director, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival.

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Redford died in September at 89.

Following his death, Close told CNN that the actors had stayed close over the years.

She said the star of films including *The Great Gatsby*, *All the President's Men*, and *The Horse Whisperer *was "a man who put his money and his life into what he believed in."

Glenn Close and Robert Redford costar in 'The Natural' in 1984.

Close has served on the board of trustees for the Sundance Institute behind the famed festival.

"He was a great friend. I learned a lot from him," she added. "He had the heart and soul of an artist — a true artist."

Redford seemed to be equally beloved by his other costars. Following his death, he was mourned by notable names including Barbra Streisand, Scarlett Johansson, and Meryl Streep.

Listen to the full conversation above.**

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