He never needed permission. His gaze cut through rooms long before his name ever reached a marquee. They called him wooden, too tall, too stiff to carry a scene—until a cheap poncho, a borrowed revolver, and a nameless drifter rewrote the rules. But the real fracture line in his life wasn’t a gunfight. It was a quiet decision, a small-town ballot, and a private grief that still shadows every frame he directs, every pause he holds just a heartbeat too long, every interview where he dodges that one unasked question abo… Continues…