HOLLYWOOD • Fans of Robert Redford can relax.

The 80-year-old star is not yet done with acting, his publicist said, following Redford's announcement last week that he planned to quit acting soon to focus on directing and on his first love - art.

In the interview published last Thursday for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Redford had told his grandson Dylan: "I'm an impatient person, so it's hard for me to sit around and do take after take after take. Going back to sketching - that's sort of where my head is right now."

Redford, who has never won an Oscar for acting despite a storied 50-year career, still has two more acting projects in the works.

Our Souls At Night is a love story for older people with Jane Fonda, his co-star in the 1967 romantic comedy Barefoot In The Park; and the other is a lighter movie, The Old Man With The Gun, with Casey Affleck and Sissy Spacek. Both are expected to be out next year.

"Once they're done, then I'm going to say, 'Okay, that's goodbye to all that', and then just focus on directing," he had said.

But his spokesman Cindi Berger later told Deadline Hollywood that the actor has several projects in the pipeline and would not retire even after his two forthcoming movies.

The Sundance Film Festival founder recalled that his first love was art and that he spent time in Europe as a teenager "exploring story-telling through painting".

REUTERS