Sylvester Stallone can’t give enough praise to the “Tulsa King” cast. He’s the star of the Paramount+ show, playing a mob boss with a big heart who is forced to build a new life in Oklahoma. He’s also an executive producer. That means he helped pick the ensemble and he’s proud of how every piece fits together. “I know that it happened once in my life and that was with the cast of ‘Rocky’ where everyone was perfect,” he said.
One of those “Tulsa King” cast members is Jay Will, a 27-year-old actor who plays Tyson Mitchell. The character has evolved from a chauffeur for Stallone’s mobster, Dwight Manfredi, into something of a surrogate son and criminal understudy. In the same way that he’s taken him under his wing onscreen, the 79-year-old Stallone has done the same offscreen with a castmate who is more than 50 years his junior.
“Ten other guys, you put them in the spot and they’re all the same,” Stallone said during a recent Zoom interview, speaking about Will. “But him, you become riveted to. And I find that with very few actors. They just have it. They don’t have to work at it. You can’t teach it. They didn’t get it from Juilliard. It’s just part of their birthright, their character.”
Will did, in fact, attend Juilliard, the prestigious New York performing arts conservatory. After graduating in 2021, he was looking to land his first major role when the opportunity to audition for “Tulsa King” came up.
He studied Stallone in his landmark roles in the “Rocky” and “Rambo” movie franchises in preparing to audition in front of him. To his surprise, he found himself at ease after greeting Stallone, leaving him relaxed for the tryout.
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The post Sylvester Stallone Takes Jay Will Under His Wing, Onscreen and Off appeared first on New York Times.
