Sylvester Stallone and Robert Patrick’s past working relationship made for an “easier” time on the Tulsa King season 3 set.
“Because we know each other, we can speak in shorthand,” Stallone, 79, told Us Weekly exclusively ahead of the Paramount+ show’s premiere on Sunday, September 21. “Robert is one of these actors — which I love — he doesn’t always walk around angry in the mood, winding himself up.”
Stallone said Patrick is able to “go right into” a scene because he’s “that good” of an actor.
“To me, that is the earmark of a good actor,” Stallone continued. “He could turn it on and off without always walking around hyperventilating, so by the time you get to the scene, you’re exhausted.”
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Stallone has played mobster Dwight Manfredi on Tulsa King since the show’s inception in November 2022. Patrick is coming on board as Jeremiah Dunmire, a “terrifying” liquor kingpin in Tulsa who creates trouble for Dwight and his crew in the third season. (Stallone and Patrick previously worked together in the movies Cop Land, Spy Kids and D-Tox.)
“He was fantastic,” Stallone said about Patrick. “It is fantastic.”
Stallone also told Us there’s “no comparison, at least in the way I perform,” between his past experiences on film sets and developing Dwight over the past three years.
“We’ll do a movie, it’s a 40-day shoot — it used to be, sometimes a 100-day shoot — but somehow it just didn’t have the intensity or the frantic, frenetic pace of working in streaming,” he explained.
Stalonne admitted to previously thinking that TV stars had it “easy,” but now he stands corrected.
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“There is no time to rest. They’re constantly flipping the script,” he shared. “You memorized your lines, you get there [and hear], ‘Yeah, we changed everything.’ It’s hellacious, it really is. But films prepared me.”
He explained, “There’s film acting, and then there’s TV acting, which is much more concise [and] faster. So a lot of times you don’t really get to emote the way you would in a feature film. But because of streaming, some of these shows are getting so dramatic, you’re seeing better acting on streaming.”
For Tulsa King specifically, Stallone not only stars but also serves as an executive producer and writer — and he never knows when inspiration for a story line will strike.
“I was on The Kelly Clarkson Show, and in the middle of the show, I got a good idea for Jay Will, who plays Tyson,” he told Us on the Tulsa King season 3 red carpet on Tuesday, September 16. “You’re always trying to think, how do you make this group of misfits work as a family? Because without that, we don’t have a show.”
Tulsa King season 3 airs new episodes on Paramount+ every Sunday .
