NEED TO KNOW
Sylvester Stallone sees himself in Tulsa King creator Taylor Sheridan.
The 79-year-old actor — who stars in season three of the hit drama series, premiering on Sept. 21 — says there’s a “very interesting similarity” between his own career path and Sheridan’s experience in Hollywood.
“There was a crossroads where I knew I was always going to be ‘thug number three’ coming through the door,” Stallone tells PEOPLE. “I saw the handwriting on the wall and knew I had to pivot, big time, and the same thing happened with him.”
“He was a serious actor, but no one was giving him his break,” Stallone continues of Sheridan, 55, who appeared in projects including Hell or High Water. “He realized the clock was running out, and he had to learn to write. He was always kind of a lonely kid, like I was. I was always making up fantasy stories in the mirror and all that stuff. But I get his dilemma. I get the reason he pursued another career. It isn’t because you wanted to, you had to, or you’re gone. He’s a survivalist.”
Ethan Miller/Getty
Although it didn’t happen overnight, both the Rocky star and the Yellowstone creator eventually found their footing.
“When we finally met — unwittingly at a barn, both riding horses — I started to talk to this kid,” Stallone recalls. “I go, ‘Why don’t you help me write Rambo, the fourth one?’ He says, ‘I’m working on this thing called Sicario.’ So he went off in his own direction, and so did I. About ten years later, here he comes with this idea.”
That idea became Tulsa King, and the role of mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi arrived at the perfect time in Stallone’s career.
“My career started out dramatic, then it got very physical, and I wanted to stay in that action genre for a reason,” he explains. “I thought it was kind of like modern mythology. Since we don’t really have new heroes like Achilles or Hercules, these were the characters we created.”
Rob Kim/Getty
“But as time moved on, I thought, ‘I want to go back to something like Rocky,’ which was a drama. There’s only six minutes of fighting outta two hours, that’s it,” Stallone adds. “So I thought, ‘But what am I going to do?’ Then Taylor Sheridan called me and goes, ‘You want to play a gangster out of water in Tulsa, Oklahoma?’ I go, ‘Oh — now there’s a challenge. Absolutely.’”
Now in its third season, with a fourth on the way, Tulsa King has become another high point in Stallone’s storied career.
“I’m kind of caught up in the fury of how I made it,” Stallone reflects. “I mean, literally coming here knowing no one from ground level, not a friend, not a dollar. I didn’t even know where to sleep. A couple of years later, you’re holding an Oscar. I thought, this is an unbelievable morality tale — and a cautionary tale, and every other kind of tale.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Season 3 of Tulsa King premieres on Sept. 21 on Paramount+.
