Sylvester Stallone Bonded With Taylor Sheridan Over Their Struggling Acting Careers Long Before ‘Tulsa King’ [EXCLUSIVE]
Sylvester Stallone’s Hollywood origin story is the stuff of legend. As a struggling actor in the 1970s who couldn’t get his foot in the door, Stallone turned to writing. Which led to his Oscar-nominated script for Rocky. More than four decades later, Stallone says he bonded with Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan because they had a lot in common as actors who turned to writing to advance their respective careers. That’s how the seeds were planted for Sheridan’s new mob drama Tulsa King — which will see Stallone in his first-ever lead role in a TV series.
Sylvester Stallone met Taylor Sheridan long before ‘Tulsa King’
In Sheridan’s new series Tulsa King, Stallone plays New York City mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi. The series begins with the character getting out of prison after serving a 25-year sentence. Upon his release, his boss exiles him to Tulsa to set up shop. As a fish out of water in the south, Manfredi begins to realize that his mafia family has left him for dead. So, he builds a crew of his own in Oklahoma to start a new criminal empire.
In an interview with Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Stallone said that the moment Sheridan asked him if he wanted to play a gangster, he didn’t even care about the rest of the story. The 76-year-old explained that he’s wanted to play a gangster his whole life, so there was no need for Sheridan to go further with his pitch.
Sylvester Stallone bonded with Taylor Sheridan over their struggling acting careers
Years before Stallone got the call from Taylor Sheridan about starring in Tulsa King, Stallone says he actually met the Yellowstone creator at a barn riding horses at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center. He says that Sheridan “hadn’t quite made it yet” as a writer and producer, and was still working on his first script, Sicario. Still, Stallone says he bonded with Sheridan because they had a lot in common.
“It was just a guy who, I identified with him because I had a hard time making it as an actor. And that’s why I decided to diverge into writing. And it seemed to be obvious that I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t become a writer. And Taylor, I guess because he wasn’t satisfied with his acting career,” Stallone said.
“I actually opened up the door to a whole new world that probably never would have been presented. So we had a lot in common. We also rode Western horses together and we kind of competed in these arenas, nothing high-level. Just to try to hang on for dear life. And little did I know that four years later I get a phone call like, hey, remember me? Yeah. How are you doing? You want to play a gangster?”
The ‘Tulsa King’ creator didn’t start writing until after he turned 40
While Stallone’s transition to writing happened early in his career, Sheridan worked as a struggling actor for two decades before he made the leap. The Texas native landed the biggest part of his career in 2008 — Deputy David Hale on Sons of Anarchy. But, he abruptly left the series in season 3 because he was insulted by their contract renewal offer. The Sons of Anarchy execs offered him what he thought was “a very unfair wage.”
Sheridan told Deadline, “It was less than virtually every other person on the show, and not enough for me to quit my second job.” After realizing that the industry didn’t think he was “worth” much — and he would never be higher than number 11 on the call sheet — that’s when Sheridan quit acting. Instead, he says Hollywood was telling him he was supposed to be a storyteller behind the camera.
Tulsa King premieres Sunday, November 13 on the Paramount Network before moving exclusively to Paramount+. New episodes will drop every Sunday.
