To many, it still doesn’t. Out in Penguia, there is scarcely any police presence, though I did find a solitary officer sitting at a single battered table with a wilting logbook in a lightless, mud-walled station. For an outsider weighing a financial commitment, it is difficult to tell what, if any, legal system prevails. (Practically speaking, you have to pay, personally, for any form of security — police or military — that you might want.) In the capital, the signs of government corruption, and therefore the unpredictable cost of doing business, begin upon landing at the airport. As soon as my passport was stamped, a policewoman strode over, said she had a text message for me and, though I laughed at her scam, requested a tip.

The country has come a long way since its civil war. In 2012, it held its third peaceful presidential election since the conflict officially ended in 2002. The gross domestic product has grown remarkably, mostly with the revival of an iron mine that was defunct for decades. But the national budget is a tiny $640 million, and as recently as two years ago, more than half of that came from foreign aid. The country’s progress is at once profound and profoundly fragile. To anyone aware of Sierra Leone only from afar, warfare is still its defining characteristic, partly because of “Blood Diamond,” an AK-47-filled adventure movie set during Sierra Leone’s worst mayhem. Wright reviles the film as yet another example of Hollywood’s self-serving presentation of Africa. “So much of the hurdle facing people here is the way they’ve been branded,” he said about the country and the continent.

His words were echoed by Mike Elliott, a mining-industry specialist at Ernst & Young, who said that Sierra Leone’s reputation for diamond-induced anarchy might take a long time to fade. But he also emphasized that its reputation was not the only problem. “The reality is that while Sierra Leone may be more stable now, it’s not a country of political stability,” he said. When you factor in that the price of gold has tumbled in the past year, that the financial world has generally grown more cautious about investing since the global crisis of 2008 and that African mines, from a vast platinum operation in South Africa to a diamond site in Sierra Leone, erupted in deadly protests and police shootings in 2012 (leaving 34 dead in the South African incident and three in Sierra Leone), then betting heavily on mining at the border of Sierra Leone and Guinea might not look very enticing.

Still, Wright felt confident that if he could get the foreign mining company to join with him, and if their partnership could succeed in producing, without strife, perhaps billions in gold over the next decade or so, he could contribute to the rebranding of the country. He hoped other foreign investors would flock to Sierra Leone and emulate Taia’s communal ideals; he emphasized that he was following the capitalist path only “to an extent — because it’s inclusive capitalism.” Penguia owns a 7 percent share of the company through an entity Wright set up and named the Taia Peace Foundation. Until a local board can be trained, the foundation is governed by Wright and a few other Westerners. On top of the ownership share, there is the 2 percent to 3 percent of operating expenses that will be funneled through the foundation to community projects, a greater percentage than many mining companies devote to what is generally referred to as corporate social responsibility. (In addition, Wright’s celebrity may attract donations to Taia Peace.) All this could well bring improvement to a place where the nearest hospital — its operating room lit by hookup to a car’s battery — is a seven-hour drive in the rainy season, and where the closest secondary school is just as distant.

After 25 trips to Sierra Leone over the past decade, Wright says his goals as a miner have displaced his drive as an actor. “I’ve turned down a lot of work,” he said. “There was a movie Robert Redford was directing, a play Edward Albee wanted me to do.” While filming “Quantum of Solace,” a James Bond movie, a few years ago, he drafted a prospectus for a possible Taia investor between takes of his scenes. This year’s sizable roles in “The Hunger Games” and HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” have brought a pleasure he describes in muted terms — nothing like the passion he feels for Taia and its mission.