Tulsa King, the hit Paramount+ series from creators Taylor Sheridan and Terence Winter, is back for its second season. Sylvester Stallone stars as Dwight Manfredi, a New York City mafia boss who gets “rewarded” for serving a 25-year prison sentence by being put out to pasture in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not ready to retire and feeling slighted by his crime family, Dwight ultimately decides to form a new empire and make a new crime family to call his own.
One of Manfredi’s most trusted lieutenants is Mitch Keller, the owner of a local bar that becomes the de facto headquarters for Dwight’s budding operation. Mitch is played by Garrett Hedlund, the earthy hunk best known for roles in hit movies likeFriday Night Lights, Tron: Legacy, andTriple Frontier. He brings a sense of authentic, home-grown Americana to the series, with his character, an ex-con and former rodeo star, reinforcing theWestern aesthetics ofTulsa King.
Tulsa King Season 1’s Cliffhanger Ending Explained
Tulsa King season 1’s ending leaves Sylvester Stallone’s Dwight “the General” Manfredi in a tricky situation via a major twist. Let’s break it down.
Screen Rant interviewed Garrett Hedlund about his work inTulsa King. The actor shares stories about working with Stallone, and the comfort that comes with being able to bring his real-life personality to his character. He talks about how his character has evolved since season 1 and teases a little bit of what we can expect fromTulsa Kingseason 2 and beyond.
Tulsa King’s Garrett Hedlund, A Real-Life Singing Cowboy Playing a Singing Cowboy
“It’s nice when something’s a little more close to home.”
Screen Rant: I got to talk to you a few, actually, a bunch of years ago now, for Triple Frontier, so it’s nice to have another chance.
Garrett Hedlund: Fantastic, fantastic. One question, did me or Charlie Hunnam look better in that movie?
Man…
Garrett Hedlund: I mean, more handsome, better.
Garrett Hedlund: Yeah, yeah. (Laughs) Good, okay. There’s been a poll.
I don’t know if there’s a more handsome cast than that movie. All the girls were just like, “Oh my God, everyone is so beautiful.”
Garrett Hedlund: Yeah, I agree. No, it was! The junket was a lot of fun. We definitely had fun with it, for sure.
Fast forward all these years later, now you’ve gotTulsa King, my favorite new show. Your guy, Mitch Keller, is a real cowboy. He sings. He grew up on a farm. You’re a real cowboy. You sing. You grew up on a farm. Was this role made for you, or how did this come across your desk?
Garrett Hedlund: Oh, man, it’s the easiest work I’ve ever had to do! Look, it’s fun. It’s nice when something’s a little more close to home. I mean, from the get-go, no, it wasn’t really that similar to me. He was freshly out of prison. He was a bull rider. I’d done neither of those, and I think, slowly, some integrations evolved a little bit. It’s fun when you can bring a little bit of yourself into something instead of everything always being extremely challenging or having to really be something other than just your human self.
Look, my roots are… You could probably scrap all of that and just say, look, my roots are in the country. That’s where I feel at home most often, and so it’s nice to do something that’s rooted in the landscape of Oklahoma, something that’s gripping as a little bit of mafioso mixed with turf war, mixed with some drama, danger, thrills, excitement, and to cap off the end of the day with maybe a few tunes, I’m in!
Stuff like in the season finale when you’re singing The Band’s “I’ve Never Been to Spain,” one of my favorites, wasn’t necessarily baked into the character from the onset? There’s a scene where a band plays, and someone on set goes, “Well, Garrett sings.”
Garrett Hedlund: It was closer to that than you’d think! It was probably around episode 4 or 5 that I think either the creators had played Sly some tunes, or maybe I’d told Sly, but somehow it got back to him, and he said, “Mitch should play in this.” Initially, I was going to sort of scoff it off, but then I said, “Well, why the hell not?” So, all of a sudden, there I am at the finale singing, Never Been to Spain, and a little bit of Three Dog Night… But it’s fun. It’s interesting. I mean, you can’t spell Oklahoma without music.
Tulsa King’s Garrett Hedlund on Working With Legends Like Stallone & Barry Corbin
“My father would have flipped his lid if he’d seen I was working with Barry Corbin.”
You talked about the dynamic a little bit behind the scenes. I know everyone’s professional, you gotta get your shots in, you gotta meet your deadlines so they don’t kill you off or recast you. But do you try to find time at some point togo to Sylvester Stalloneand be like, “RememberFirst Blood?” Do you get to be fans of each other? And with someone like Barry Corbin; what a career that guy’s had!
Garrett Hedlund: Barry Corbin, absolutely! I mean, geez, my father would have flipped his lid if he’d seen I was working with Barry Corbin. With Sly, it’s wonderful. You know, I’ve known him since I was 18 years old. And he was so sweet and supportive of me. Even before I shot my first scenes on Troy. And so there was always this kinship, you know. I still always idolized him. But the fact that he would, would give his time and be curious or listen and tell stories, because we were at a trainer’s facility, it meant a lot to me.
Oh, you trained together.
Garrett Hedlund: When they came to me on this, you know, I just want to get on set and enjoy it, and sit there with somebody like Sly, and be a part of Terence Winter’s writing and Sheridan’s world. It just seemed like it was the dream team. And the guys are f***ing outlaws, all of them. They’re all great. I respect all of them. I like working with people I respect.
If season one was about like, getting this ragtag family together, like a Mafia 2.0, without the shackles of the tradition of the New York way of doing it, I feel like season two, having only seen the premiere myself, is kind of about seeing how these guys actually mix and match. I think we’re gonna see a lot of pairings that we haven’t seen before. Can you tell me a little bit about maybe getting to do scenes with actors who you didn’t get to work with in season one?
Garrett Hedlund: Yeah, it was a little different this year. I mean, in a good way. Last season, Mitch and Dwight’s characters had conversations and involvements together that were very singular, very mano a mano. They’re at the bar having an end-of-the-day discussion, or trying to configure how they were going to go about this next mission and what their obstacles were going to be and how to overcome them.
For this one, Mitch is much more involved because he’s a much bigger part of this empire. Now that the empire has been established, he’s a part of it; he’s responsible for it. And so now it’s much more of an all-for-one, one-for-all kind of journey for all of them, which I think is enjoyable to watch. They’re all in it together. Whereas in the first season, they were trying to figure out if they could still trust everyone.
Garrett Hedlund On Trading Oklahoma Heat For Georgia Sun
“It’s really just going from one degree of, of absolutely fing hot to another degree of absolutely fing hot.”
From what I understand season two, you’re shooting on the other side of the country from season one, right? Season 1, you shot in Oklahoma, and now it’s in Georgia. When you have to pack up roots and rebuild everything elsewhere, is there an acclimation or does yourTrontraining kick in where you’re like, well, ya know, I wasn’t really in a computer. Or is it, like, “Hey, this is just acting, whether it’s a black box or on location?”
Garrett Hedlund: It was more similar than you would think. It’s really just going from one degree of, of absolutely fing hot to another degree of absolutely fing hot. I loved every bit of Oklahoma. I love everything it has to offer as a state. I absolutely love it. Georgia, I’ve worked in many times. It was an easy transition for me. Um, the only thing that was really different is, because Atlanta is a Delta hub, there were just a few more flights.
Mitch wears a lot of flannel. I feel like that was probably a challenge in the heat.
Garrett Hedlund: No, no, no. (Laughs) The flannel wasn’t that that tricky for me! If you look, you know, yes, there I am. I’m in long sleeves. They happen to be a little rolled up, but if you look right there, every other sorry sucker is wearing a three piece suit. So I had it easy!
Mitch was more “plot-relevant” than “character-relevant” in season 1. I feel like this will be the season where we’ll learn about him. Whatever’s going to happen to him and whatever characterization he has, was that stuff that you knew in season 1 you were ultimately going to be building towards? Or is it like, “So, what are we doing this time?”
Garrett Hedlund: During season 1, there were ideas passed around constantly. Everything that, that we explored in this season could not have been known back then. We definitely tossed around ideas. We tossed around directions we’d love for the characters to go on set, with banter and daydreaming and this and that.
But also, at the same time, so is the studio, and so is the writer’s room. And so you lend it to the powers that be and hope that you’re just wonderfully surprised. What I can say is that I think there will be some wonderful surprises in this season, some wonderful new directions, and what I’m excited about is, a lot of it lends itself to some fun humor, which, I don’t think we’ve really gotten to see from Mitch.
More About Tulsa King Season 2
In season 2, Dwight (Stallone) and his crew continue to build up and defend their growing empire in Tulsa, but just as they get their bearings, they realize that they’re not the only ones who want to stake their claim. With looming threats from the Kansas City mob and a very powerful local businessman, Dwight struggles to keep his family and crew safe while keeping track of all his affairs. Plus, he still has unfinished business back in New York.
Tulsa King
Cast
Tulsa King follows New York mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi, who, after 25 years in prison, is exiled to Tulsa, Oklahoma, by his boss. Faced with the possibility of betrayal, he assembles a crew of unlikely characters to establish a criminal empire in unfamiliar territory.
