Robert Redford's tense new drama, "The Clearing," opens in a couple of weeks. When we sat down with the star, he revealed that, for the first time, this film made him an entrant in the Sundance Film Festival, the premiere independent film festival that he himself created.

"I had nothing to do with it," Redford told us. "When it came in there I said, 'Guys, you have to be kidding.' They said, 'No, we really want this in the festival.' I said, 'Oh my God!'"

Redford told us that the big lure to make "The Clearing" were the chances to work with Willem Dafoe and Helen Mirren.

"I really enjoy him," Robert said of Willem. "He's an actor that fully commits to a part, and he's got a wonderful imagination, and a precision about what he does."

Redford and Dafoe spend much of the movie slugging it out in the forest -- and Willem tells us that, in a weird way, this made their jobs very simple: "You'd get minimal makeup on, a very simple costume, and head up the mountain. You'd do your day's work, and when it got dark, you'd head down!"

And while compared to Redford's superstar standards, "The Clearing" is a small, lower-budget movie, it's hardly his first independent film experience. "'The Clearing' looks like it might be the first one I've done, but the truth is, probably the most independent film I've ever made was 'A River Runs Through It,'" Redford admitted. "Because Hollywood, at that time, they wouldn't make it. They said, 'It's Redford's fishing movie.'"

Helen Mirren told us she jumped at the chance to play Redford's worried wife, saying, "It was, to me, obviously something very, very exciting -- and I also felt, you know, that he and I would be a credible couple as well."

But Redford confirms that the film has its twists and turns that uncover darker secrets about the couple's lives: "You're supposed to be the perfect couple. It's what's underneath, what gets revealed in this crisis, is where the story is."

And all will be revealed, "The Clearing" hits theaters on July 2nd.