Meryl Streep freaks out over Robert Redford in ‘Out of Africa’ hair-washing scene
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Meryl Streep commented on her undeniable spark with Robert Redford as she revisited one of her most iconic on-screen romances.
Decades after “Out of Africa” went viral, Streep still remembers one scene with Redford as something more than scripted.
Streep stars as a Danish mistress who falls in love with a game hunter, played by Redford, while running a coffee farm in colonial Kenya in the historical romance. During the film’s most memorable scene, Redford carefully washes Streep’s hair by the river while reciting lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
“Was he the most divine person in the world?” Streep gushed about rewatching some of her most famous films with Vanity Fair.
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Meryl Streep remembered the love scene of her movie “Out of Africa” with Robert Redford. (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
“It’s not a sex scene. It’s a love scene … He was really amazing,” she recalled. “It was so good … I didn’t want that scene to end. It was so much fun.”
Streep has long been passionate about her film and this scene with Redford. He touched on the iconic moment back in 2024, the year before Redford’s death, at the Cannes Film Festival, according to Variety.
“It’s a sex scene in a way, because it’s so close,” he said at the time. “We’ve seen a lot of scenes of people f——g, but we don’t see that touch of love, that care.”
The “Devil Wears Prada” star revealed that filming the scene was not fun at all. He said the two were warned by the brand to be aware of potentially dangerous wild animals nearby.
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Robert Redford and Meryl Streep star in Sydney Pollack’s “Out of Africa.” (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
“We had lions, but they were brought from California, and they were said to be good. They were not,” he said in Cannes, according to Metro.
“The second thing we were told is that the animal that kills the most people in Africa is the hippopotamus, if you get between the hippopotamus and the water,” he added. “So we were shooting in the river with a hippopotamus on top of it. I don’t know if they show that in the film, I don’t remember, but I noticed!”
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Robert Redford and Meryl Streep during the production of the movie “Out of Africa.” (Hemdale/Getty Images)
Redford, concerned about safety, had trouble washing Streep’s hair until longtime hairstylist and makeup artist Roy Hellund stepped in and demonstrated how he normally washes the actress’s hair.
“Redford took the lesson, and he just got into it, and he was great,” Streep recalled. “By taking five I was very much in love! I didn’t want that day to end, even though there were hippos.”
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Robert Redford and Meryl Streep later starred together in “Lions for Lambs.” (Jason Merritt/FilmMagic)
Redford was already a major Hollywood powerhouse when he replaced Denys Finch Hatton. He rose to fame in the late 1960s and 1970s with films like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Sting.” By then, Streep had achieved fame with “The Deer Hunter“ and “Kramer vs. Kramer” when she replaced Karen Blixen.
“Out of Africa,” directed by Sydney Pollack, followed Blixen’s life running a coffee farm in Kenya and her difficult romance with Redford’s Finch Hatton. The film won seven Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, and is often cited among the outstanding achievements of both actors.
