We lost a true giant this week. Some thoughts on the passing of Robert Duval.

We lost a true giant this week. Some thoughts on the passing of Robert Duval.

As actors, we spend a lot of time studying the work of those who came before us. I know I did and still do, trying to understand what makes their work so truthful, so alive, so unforgettable. As I have been revisiting Robert Duvall's performances online and on social media, I have found myself thinking about the invisible threads that connect one generation of actors to the next.

Robert Duvall trained under Sanford Meisner, a true legendary director and teacher whose roots traced all the way back to the legendary Group Theatre. From the Group Theatre came The Actors Studio, where actors like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Marlon Brando emerged. From the Group Theatre, we also got teachers like Elia Kazan, Stella Adler, and Lee Strasberg, who shaped many of the legendary actors of the 1940s and 1950s and inspired the actors we admired so much in the 1970s, 1980’s, and 1990’s. Actors like De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, and, of course, Duvall. It was a style of acting that was subtle, honest, and raw.

The teacher and director whom I have spoken so much about, who trained and shaped me as an actor, was the legendary teacher Wynn Handman. I will always feel lucky to have been accepted into his class, and that is where I truly became an actor. Understanding the art of creatinga. character.

Wynn was taught by Sandy Meisner, and he became Sandy's assistant and eventually took over his class after Sandy passed. Wynn's class was in Carnegie Hall, one floor down from Marlon Brando's apartment when he was doing "A Streetcar Named Desire" directed by the famous Elia Kazan in the early 50's, and Elia was a student of the Group Theatre Company.

I love being so connected to that theatre history!

Wynn often spoke about Sandy Meisner and Duvall, especially Duvall's work as Boo Radley in "To Kill a Mockingbird.” He would talk about the honesty of it. The stillness. The humanity. How truth on stage or on screen does not require noise or dialogue, which Robert did not have in that role, just presence and no dialogue. That performance by Duvall is the epitome of the saying we all hear as actors, that there are no small parts, only small actors.

Those lessons and that history shaped me so much as a person and, of course, as an actor.

But the connection does not stop there. There is an iconic scene in Lonesome Dove that has been circulating a lot recently. It is the moment when Gus McCrae, played by Duval, demands respect in a saloon. It is an iconic scene in the TV series. He slams the bartender's face onto the bar and breaks his nose.

What many do not know is that the bartender in that legendary scene was Brandon Smith, a gifted, well-known Texas actor who gave me my first break in Houston and cast me in my first play after graduating from Ole Miss. He was the son of acting greats Chris and Jim Wilson, who both worked with Paul Newman in a few films. I had the blessing of studying with Brandon for a few years before heading off to New York. He too had a very vast film and theatre resume. If you watch No Country for Old Men, he's the border guard at the Mexico-Texas border.

Brandon was a legendary Texas actor who left us in 2025.

Then, once in New York and a few years after I left Wynn's class in 2006 or 2007, I was introduced to Tim Phillips, another Meisner-based teacher who had worked with Duvall on several films and was good friends with Robert Duvall. Tim was an amazing actor and is a gifted teacher and director. I was lucky to be directed by Tim Off Broadway in True West, and he still continues to coach me on auditions.

Tim loved Duvall's work and always talked about his truth, his simplicity, and his honesty. Being simple is the hardest thing to do in the craft of acting: being truthful without pushing or trying too hard. I struggled hard with it as a young actor and at times still do.

As Shakespeare says in Hamlet, "suit the action to the word, the word to the action." And that is what I am reflecting on now with Duvall's passing, my gratitude for the proximity to greatness!

Grateful to have been trained by directors who were trained by teachers who believed deeply in honest, truthful acting. Gratitude that the lessons passed down were not about ego or image, but about listening, responding, and living moment to moment under imaginary circumstances.

It does feel like a chapter closing for me as an actor. The era that produced actors like Duvall feels distant now, but that is the nature of art, I guess. The individuals pass, but the work remains. His performance in The Godfather as Tom Hagen will always be his best in my mind. So simple. So truthful. So GOOD.

The scene when he tells Brando that Sonny was shot on the causeway will always be the most powerful to me.