Sylvester Stallone lifts lid on Paramount+ TV drama Tulsa King

Hollywood action hero Sylvester Stallone has lifted the lid on his new TV drama Tulsa King, how it left him feeling insecure, and the bizarre wardrobe situation he faced.

It’s Sylvester Stallone – but not as you know him. The Rambo and Rocky actor is playing a misplaced mafioso in new Paramount+ TV drama Tulsa King. He’s gone from king of the ring to king of the cowboys.

Stallone, 76, blazes on to the small screen as mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi, who, after serving 25 years in prison, is unceremoniously packed off by his ungrateful boss to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to set up shop there. As Dwight realises his old crew don’t have his best interests at heart, capers ensue as he sets about proving them wrong.

Stallone is great in the role and looks and sounds the part in his retro suits. Which is just as well, the actor says, speaking from New York, because he was unsure about taking such a different direction.

“I did love the script,” he says, “but I was very insecure about it, because I was going, am I pushing it a little too far – is anyone going to buy this premise? This is uncharted water for me. It took a lot of thinking. I wasn’t sure about it, believe me. I still haven’t seen the first episode yet.”

Looking tanned and fit, Stallone says a wardrobe setback led him to pull off a styling coup that ended up making the show.

Slyvester Stallone as Dwight Manfredi in the Paramount+ original series Tulsa King. Picture: Brian Douglas/Paramount+

In the series, Dwight sports a range of sharp Italian silk suits and ties from the 1990s and stands out in a landscape of checked shirts and lizard cowboy boots.

“No one knows this, but I didn’t even have a wardrobe – everything came in and it was too big, or this and that, and we were ready to shoot and I went out and borrowed my wardrobe that I had in mothballs from Get Carter,” he says.

That 2000 movie – a remake of the Michael Caine classic - also featured Stallone as a Las Vegas mobster, heading to his hometown.

“It was 25 years old and I figured that works because I’d been in prison for 25 years, so I wore my 25-year-old wardrobe for a month and a half,” he says.

Domenick Lombardozzi as Charles “Chickie” Invernizzi with Sylvester Stallone on set. Picture: Brian Douglas/Paramount+

“I said to the wardrobe person, Dwight has to bring back what the alpha, ultra-masculine look is in his mind, what it was back then.”

Fitting into your 25-year-old suits is no mean feat for anyone, let alone when you are in your 70s, but Stallone pulls it – and the role – off in this fun show co-starring Veep’s Andrea Savage and Ray Donovan’s Max Casella, and created by Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan.

Stallone still pulls the punches, quite literally, as every bit the action hero in this drama, which involves plenty of fist fights.

And unlike Hollywood scripts of old, which paired mature leading men with preposterously young love interests, refreshingly, Dwight’s age is addressed head-on.

Stallone supplied his own wardrobe after nothing fit ahead of shooting. Picture: Brian Douglas/Paramount.

“It is embracing it,” he says. Dwight is “proud of what he’s accomplished”.

Stallone, who has homes in Florida and LA with wife Jennifer Flavin, has also accomplished more than most actors could ever aspire to – with a five-decade career and hit franchises Rocky, Rambo, Creed and The Expendables.

While Tulsa King was a first for him, he’s also about to appear in his own reality show with Flavin – who hit the headlines in August for filing for divorce and then reconciling – and daughters Sophia Rose, 26, Sistine, 24, and Scarlet, 20. The show will also air on Paramount+.

So, is there a genre left he hasn’t done, that he’d still like to tackle?

Yes, he says. “Dare I say it, I haven’t been in space yet. I’m fascinated with sci-fi – I don’t know, perhaps the pleasure won’t be worth the pain because I’m sure a lot of it is CGI, but when I see things like Alien … I’d love to do something like that.”

Tulsa King premieres on Paramount+ tomorrow.