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Nothing sparks creativity like some real-life source of inspiration. Experience and humanity combine to conceive a masterpiece of imaginative content that has the fans running to the first person they can find to relay to them the next good series recommendation.
Taylor Sheridan was one such object of the audience’s awe and admiration for combining his obsession with the cowboy ranch lifestyle with the world of television entertainment. His original works that now populate the Paramount network have not only revived the Western genre but also sparked a global fascination with bringing back the near-extinct farm and ranch lifestyle.
Now, his right-hand man in the Sylvester Stallone series takes a page right out of his book of childhood memories, finds some real-life inspiration from the streets of Brooklyn, and injects them into the crime-comedy drama,Tulsa King.
Taylor Sheridan Series Finds Real-Life Inspiration
While the world found itself marveling at the perfection of HBO’sThe Sopranos, writer Terence Winter credited his rough neighborhood with giving him the right environment to nurture his darker creative side. The Hollywood-bound Winter had enough material to work with after gaining some first-hand experience of how crime families operate in the streets of New York.
Soon enough,The Sopranoswas a hit for the premium television network and Winter became one of the most prized assets in the entertainment industry. His resume then fueled the scripts for high-profile projects likeBoardwalk EmpireandThe Wolf of Wall Street. In 2022,Tulsa Kingbecame the next big notch under his belt for using his street experience to craft a perfect on-screen story.
“This fits me like a tailor-made suit”: The Reason Sylvester Stallone Even Agreed to Play Dwight in Tulsa King is to Undo the Damage from Rambo and Rocky
After theSylvester Stalloneseries rocketed up in critics as well as audience scores onRotten Tomatoes, Winter knew he had chosen the right path in using his (somewhat) dark and shady past to explore the genre of storytelling instead of hiding his memories away in a far and distant vault.
Tulsa KingHits Too Close to Home for Its Writer
For the Emmy-winning writer ofTulsa King, inspiration always came from the strangest of sources. In his youth, the subject of crime fascinated him for the first time when he expressed interest in playing the part of the Artful Dodger after watchingOliver, the musical. It didn’t take long for his childhood fascination to take root in his mind and burrow into his creative sensibilities.
Talking about his experience writing the story forThe Sopranos, Winter claimed in an interview withIndieWire:
When I was a teenager, I worked for a butcher shop that was owned by Paul Castellano, who was the head of the Gambino crime family. So by osmosis, I understood how mobsters act and talk in real life, and I was a fan of the genre. It was a very natural fit. I know how those people act and talk and think, so it was fun.
Tulsa King Season 2: Taylor Sheridan Series Has Sown the Seeds for a Traitor Inside Team Dwight
However, his experience on the sets of Taylor Sheridan’sTulsa Kingwas relatively different. Despite being a perfect fit for the subject matter of Sheridan’s series, Winter felt like a fish out of water when writing about crime in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Like Sylvester Stallone’s mob boss Dwight Manfredi, Winter too needed to adapt to the quaint and peaceful lifestyle of the Sooner State before he could begin composing the everyday caricaturish events surrounding the General and his posse.
Tulsa Kingis now streaming on Paramount+.
Diya Majumdar
Senior Writer
Articles Published :2410
Diya Majumdar is a Senior Content Writer at FandomWire with over 2000 published articles on the website. Since 2022, she has been working as an entertainment journalist with a special focus on films and pop culture.Among the countless genres and themes of Hollywood, the ones that particularly favor Diya’s tastes include Game of Thrones, DC, and well-aged thrillers and classics.
