(REUTERS) - Robert Redford's career continues to flourish as he celebrates his 80th birthday.

The actor, producer and director, best known for films such as Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and Out Of Africa, is showing no signs of slowing down or retiring.

He is currently back on the big screen in the critically-acclaimed Pete's Dragon, a remake of the 1977 Disney movie of the same name.

"This was a chance to return to my own childhood experience and remember times when I was a kid that I loved stories that were about fantasy, that I loved stories that were about adventure, I love stories that had magic in them and then you grow out of that when you're older and you miss it so this was a chance to play a role in a film which allowed me to step back into that time," said Redford.

Redford got his big screen breakthrough in 1967 with a role in Barefoot In The Park opposite Jane Fonda and he cemented his stardom with roles in classic movies such as The Sting and All The President's Men. In 1980 he won an Academy Award for his directorial debut, Ordinary People and in 2002 he received the Lifetime Achievement Oscar at the 74th Academy Awards.

"I think probably the high points are ones where I was able to make a film that I was told I couldn't, All The President's Men was one, The Candidate was one, Quiz Show was one, Ordinary People was one, A River Runs Through It was one, so I think it's kind of a collective. There are performances that I am pleased with but I'd rather not get into that, but the films that I've made, probably the ones I love most favorably, are the ones I was told would never get made but by perseverance they did," he added.

As well as being known for his environmentalism, he used the millions he made at the box office in the 1970s to launch the influential Sundance Institute and Festival in support of independent filmmaking.