Meryl Streep admitted Robert Redford was the ‘best kisser’ she met while acting | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV

Robert Redford made headlines after tensions between him and The Way We Were co-star Barbra Streisand made came to light in a new book released earlier this year. The 86-year-old had to wear two tight pairs of pants during sex scenes with the now 80-year-old actress to “protect himself” as she was “infatuated” with him, according to Robert Hofler’s The Way They Were book. His relationship with Meryl Streep on set also caused “ripples” in the past — but because the pair got along “too well”, unearthed reports show.

The 86-year-old actor starred in the 1985 romantic drama Out Of Africa, based on the eponymous book by the Danish author Karen Blixen, alongside Streep for the first time. 

The pair, who were love interests in the film set in colonial Kenya, got on like a house on fire off-screen but this was not appreciated by the director Sydney Pollack. 

In fact, they “probably got along too well”, Redford later admitted in the 2019 book Queen Meryl, and according to his biographer, Michael Feeney Callan, their feelings affected the production. 

Pollack was not happy about how “well” the pair — who also starred in the 2007 film Lions for Lambs — got on and how much they had in common, so actively sought to discourage them wherever possible.

Redford said: “It caused ripples. We liked to talk. We’d be off-camera, between takes, taking it easy. We had a sense of humour in common. But Sydney didn’t like that. He would break it up.

“It bothered him that I was connecting with her in some way that didn’t fit his picture of me or us as a team. That wasn’t easy to deal with, because I felt I was in a vice and I became resentful.”

Streep, who plays Karen, a Danish Baroness and coffee plantation owner, has a love affair with a game hunter, played by Redford, after she discovers that her husband is unfaithful.

Karen is later forced to choose between her newfound romance and her future.

READ MORE: On-set tension between Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford exposed

Streep later admitted that she had a “big crush” on Redford, who she described as a “heartthrob”, while they were filming, which she said might have affected her opinion of him. 

While some slammed Redford’s performance, describing him as “wooden”, Streep disagreed, instead arguing that it was “subtle and just right”. 

While critics may have disliked the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid star’s performance, the film was a success, amassing seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Pollack.

Not only did she admit to being infatuated with her co-star, but she also revealed that Redford was the “best kisser” she had “ever met in the movies”.

At the time of filming, Redford was 13 years older than Streep and passed on a great deal of experience about fame and having a family, just as her career was reaching new heights.

The then 36-year-old had already amassed five Academy Award nominations and two wins for the Deer Hunter and Sophie’s choice.

She had young children at the time, and Redford, who had two adult children, passed on advice about how to juggle family and fame. 

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2003, she said: “Robert Redford taught me that when they were babies, ‘they are not your props.’ I really admired the way he protected his family. It’s something I consciously emulated.”