Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan's dramedy Tulsa King is hitting all the right notes. The Paramount+ series, which just aired its fifth episode, stars Sylvester Stallone as New York mafia capo Dwight "The General" Manfredi, who's released from prison after 25 years and sent (read: exiled) to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The series premiere on Paramount was the biggest cable TV debut of the year, prompting the network to greenlight a second season of the Western-gangster crossover.
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The success of Tulsa King is just one more feather in the cap of prolific producer (and obvious workaholic) Sheridan, whose web of Yellowstone spinoffs, dubbed the Dutton-verse, knows no bounds. What's the secret to Sheridan's mastery of both the small and big screens? Tulsa King stars Garrett Hedlund (Mudbound) and Jay Will (Evil) weighed in in an interview with Collider. The pair revealed their thoughts on what makes Sheridan's dramatic concoctions so addictive, and whether we can expect a Tulsa King-Yellowstone crossover.
Garrett Hedlund as Mitch Keller in Tulsa King (Paramount+)
"Taylor's an outlaw. He writes outlaw characters," Hedlund said. "You can't help but want to watch these guys, want to root for them, all their struggles, all their conflicts. I mean, he writes outlaw gold. Hell or High Water, Sicario, creating Yellowstone, now this."
And Hedlund's strong and silent Mitch Keller is as outlaw as outlaw can be. The owner of the Bred 2 Buck Saloon is just about the coolest former bull rider, ex-con and friendly neighborhood bartender around. It's the type of character, in the kind of hard-knocks Western world, that Sheridan is so adept at shaping.
According to Jay Will, who plays Tyson, the young cabbie who gets wrapped up in Dwight's criminal world, Sheridan and series writer Terence Winter (of Sopranos fame) are otherworldly hitmakers.
"Terry, Taylor, they both keep their ears to the streets to know what the world wants to see, what we crave for," said Will. "Somehow it always hits. It's like the sage who always knows what the lottery number is going to be, and you go to them and get the secret lottery."
Jay Will as Tyson Mitchell in Tulsa King (Paramount+)
It's true that Sheridan, in particular, seems to be on a lucky streak, starting with the too-good-to-be-true story of how the show came to be. Hedlund explained that Sheridan wrote and sold the project with remarkable speed. It all started with one fortuitous conversation between executive producer David Glasser and Stallone.
"It was [David Glasser] and Sly sitting down [and] talking about doing something like this. Two days, 40 minutes later, Taylor pitched David Glasser the story. Next morning, he pitched how the story ends. Two days later, he had the script. The next day they took it to the studio, sold the idea," Hedlund recounted, adding that he's just happy to be along for the ride. "That's just who Taylor is. That's how he works, that's how he operates. That's why his material's irresistible to watch. It's got determination, it's got grit, it's got brass, it's got a massive amount of integrity. He's on a wonderful roll, and it's just the beginning, and I'm proud to be a part of it."
Just the beginning indeed. We're only halfway through Tulsa King's 10-episode first season, and already there are calls for a Yellowstone crossover. I mean, can you imagine Stallone going up against Kevin Costner's John Dutton? Hey, maybe season 2 will feature a little bit of that Montana magic. But Hedlund and Will are keeping mum on what's to come.
"That's for us to know and y'all to find out maybe," said Will.
Tulsa King streams Sundays exclusively on Paramount+
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