Sylvester Stallone's Manfredi looking angry with his hands swirling each other in Tulsa King season 3
By
Grant Hermanns
Published 54 minutes ago
Grant Hermanns is a TV News Editor, Interview Host and Reviewer for ScreenRant, having joined the team in early 2021. He got his start in the industry with Moviepilot, followed by working at ComingSoon.net. When not indulging in his love of film/TV, Grant is making his way through his gaming backlog and exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends.
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Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Tulsa King season 3!The war between Sylvester Stallone's Dwight Manfredi and Robert Patrick's Jeremiah Dunmire has come to a fiery end in Tulsa King season 3, and one star was quite surprised to learn how it would end. Dunmire came into view as the key antagonist for the latest season of the Taylor Sheridan series when Dwight learned from Garrett Hedlund's Mitch that a local distiller was looking to sell their family business off amid threats from Patrick's character.
Dwight, with his smooth talking and large resources, successfully outbid Dunmire for the distillery, putting a target on his and his crew's backs, with Jeremiah sending his son Cole to frequently torment and try and disrupt their efforts to start it anew. Despite his control in the area, though, Dunmire's power began to wane in Tulsa King season 3 as Manfredi continued to convince those under Jeremiah's thumb to his side, leading to his crew kidnapping Annabelle Sciorra's Joanne and setting up a tense finale.
In honor of the episode's airing, ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns interviewed Robert Patrick to discuss the Tulsa King season 3 finale. The star opened up about saying goodbye to his villainous character, including how he didn't learn about his character's fate until well into filming, and going toe-to-toe with Annabella Sciorra for some of Dunmire's more vulnerable moments.
Stallone Gave Patrick A Unique Note That Made His Death Scene All The More Impactful
Robert Patrick's Dunmire looking worried while aiming a rifle in Tulsa King season 3
After much of Tulsa King season 3, episode 10, "Jesus Lizard," saw Patrick's Jeremiah Dunmire having mental games of chess with Joanne, things get explosive when Dwight and his crew conduct an assault on the Dunmire estate to save her. After successfully avoiding some of the gunfire and just narrowly missing a chance to shoot Dwight, Jeremiah and Manfredi find themselves in a hand-to-hand brawl near the former's distillery equipment.
Despite getting some good hits in, Manfredi would ultimately win the fight, dragging Dunmire out to a nearby hook and hanging him up above a bonfire pit. Chastising Dwight and attempting to take the high road on him, Jeremiah's fate becomes sealed when Manfredi sets him on fire, bringing his arc full circle as he dies the way he killed Theodore Montague at the start of the season.
Looking back on this demise, Patrick explains that while there "was so much consideration given for that sequence," he "didn't put too much thought into it before" shooting. The reason for this, he explained, was a desire to "get into the environment and see what was going to happen" rather than putting too much preparation into the scene to the point of not being flexible.
"From an actor's point of view, I was trying to just let it happen and see how I thought I would react to finding out what was going to happen to me, and the reality hit me," Patrick shared. "I would find that out in the situation as we were doing it, so I wasn't sure how they were going to do it."
The star also went on to reveal that his fate was not decided from the start of the season, with Stallone having a conversation with Patrick at some point while filming Tulsa King season 3 that he was "really trying to come up with a great way to kill you," which Patrick was also pondering the possibilities of. However, when he learned Dunmire was going to be burned alive, he immediately had the thought, "F--k, what a way to go."
The more he thought about it, the more Jeremiah's death scene made sense to Patrick, given his character "burned [his] best friend, Montague" in a very similar fashion, while also having "stood there and watched his house go down," much in the way Stallone's Manfredi does in the ending. Patrick even pointed to an early clue of Dunmire's eventual death from earlier in the season, which he didn't think about until after his fate was decided:
Sly has that scene at the funeral where we meet for the first time. He says, "Wow, burning alive. You know when you burn your finger, and you know how that feels. Imagine what that must feel like when your whole body burns." Foreshadowing! It made sense that that's how they would do that.
Sylvester Stallone's Dwight walking away from Manfredi being on fire in Tulsa King season 3
For the actual shooting of the Tulsa King season 3 ending scene, Patrick shared that "it was funny" and that he and the crew "were having a ball doing it." He did go on to praise Stallone for the intensity he brought to the scene when he came into being part of its filming, particularly give it "was late at night" during the shoot, and yet he "came in with that monologue" and "was on it."
Patrick even recalled Stallone, with whom he previously worked on James Mangold's Cop Land and the action thriller Eye See You, giving him a suggestion going into the filming of his death scene to "be defiant" in his performance. This came as something of a flip from how Patrick initially envisioned playing the scene, with "a part of me [having] even thought about screaming out for mommy."
"I thought that would be interesting — all of a sudden, Jeremiah screaming for his mother," Patrick described. "That's crazy, but it could be real. No one knows how anybody's going to react. But Sly suggested defiance, and I liked that. Once I went into that, I agreed with him and went for it."
With Dunmire's death scene suddenly becoming more of a "mano-a-mano" conversation between him and Manfredi — with the latter even ominously telling his enemy, "I'm gonna light you on fire, let's see how you react to it" — Patrick agreed that was "the way to go." He even got the opportunity to change up his approach a touch in the ADR process, in which "I did add a couple of different screams" and being "happy with the one they chose."
Patrick Loved Exploring The Vulnerability Of Dunmire Near The End Of Tulsa King Season 3
ScreenRant: We last spoke just before the Love Ride. How was that, by the way?
Robert Patrick: That was fantastic. We had about 10,000 riders there. Gene Simmons was great, and the Chevy Metal band was great. It was a wonderful time with a really good turnout. And we had beautiful weather, dude. It was 90 degrees here in California!
ScreenRant: There's a lot to unpack with this Tulsa King finale, so I want to dive right in. One of my favorite scenes in the episode is the dinner scene Jeremiah has with Joanne, because there's a great game of mental chess going on. She mentions Jeremiah having regrets, which causes that explosion of anger. We know he's got this sadness about his wife and son, but do you think there are any other regrets he's holding onto?
Robert Patrick: Yeah, and I think they're all coming to a head. It's not like I can give you exactly what they are; they're all kind of unexplained. I think multiple things that have happened to him throughout the years: the loss of his son, and whatever happened to his wife among them. He's obviously very disappointed in himself. At this point near the end, he's realizing that he's losing his grip on his son. I think he was raised a certain way. The environment he came from must have been incredibly brutal, and that was passed down, so he's been using those tactics raising his own sons. And I think he's coming to the realization that his old ways are dying out, and he's confused by it. He's losing his footing. He's losing his grip on his son; he's losing his grip on reality. It's just all starting to go.
Annabella Sciorra's Joanne looking intensely while sitting in a chair in Tulsa King season 3
Those scenes are with Annabella were vulnerable because he really opens up to her. He admits that, "I've never beat a woman." I had ad-libbed a line where I said, "But my daddy did," and they cut that. But I thought it was good! II's not i there, but I wanted the idea to be that maybe my father had been brutal with my mother, and there was a level of brutality that I wasn't willing to go to. It ties into the disappointment my wife would have in me and all that. It's a very strange scene, but I loved those scenes with Annabella. We were in Copland together, and we didn't have a chance to be onscreen together and work together. Working with an actress of her caliber is just great because she's so wonderful. We were having that dinner sequence, and I ad-libbed that part, "Do you want to say grace?" And then I took it a step further and said, "Well, you're a Catholic, aren't you?" And they cut that because he's a Protestant.
That just shows you the level of psychosis! [Laughs] I was walking the dogs with my wife this morning and saying, "I don't really think I'm that bad a guy [on the show]." She's goes, "Honey. You're a f--king psycho." You kidnap this woman, and then you ask her to say grace? You're out of your mind. But I'm always defending my guys. As an actor, you have to be willing to fight for your character. I find the more that an actor can find something to ground themselves in when playing a villain, the more terrifying they are when they come to life on screen. Yeah, and the other thing I don't want to gloss over is the fact that we all witness the level of brutality that Manfredi is capable of. There's not a lot of difference from what I did. I mean, he witnessed it and walked away from it, you know what I mean? The stakes are even higher for him now. He's kind of like, "I'll show you brutality, buddy."
That reminds me, there was a scene in an earlier episode where I break down the still, and I'm losing it. I take that axe and put it in my boy's face, then I realize what I'm doing and walk off crying. They kept it, and I was really glad they did because it showed a little bit of humanity and complexity in this guy, albeit in a whacked out way. It's so much fun acting, man. Doing all this stuff is so much fun. That was the whole thing with Jeremiah Dunmire that I really enjoyed doing. I think he's one of the more complex characters I've played. I think the more you kept diving into it, the more you could have pulled out. I just had a ball. I was hoping they'd let me stay on for season 4 and keep going with my villainy, which would have been interesting, but I had to go. It was time for me to go. And now they've got my buddy Gretchen Mol coming on the show, and she's so terrific. God, what a great actress. She's going to be so great on that show, and they're going to have such a good time. I wish I was there! But, hey, maybe I somehow survived. I come back, and I'm a crispy guy. I don't think so, but it'll be interesting to see what happens to my son, Cole. The interesting thing to note is that Jeremiah goes to his grave not knowing that it was his son that betrayed him.
ScreenRant: That's a pretty big thing for Cole to have to reckon with.
Robert Patrick: They shot Cole in the woods, watching his father burn, but they didn't put it in there. Editing is where you make the show. That's where you make the show, so you shoot all these different things to have. But I thought that was interesting. There was another scene that Cole and I had shot which really just demonstrated the level of brutality that I had towards my son. He was carrying these rocks on this yoke, and he had to carry the weight of his brother up this mountain. I'm whipping him with a stick, and he's just carrying this weight. They didn't use it, but I thought they needed it. I thought they needed it to really justify the brutal way they were going to kill me; to make me even more awful. Evidently, it was awful enough!
Be sure to dive into our previous Tulsa King coverage with:
- Our start-of-the-season interview with Robert Patrick
- Our start-of-the-season interview with Sylvester Stallone
- Our start-of-the-season interview with Martin Starr, Jay Will and Annabella Sciorra
- Our start-of-the-season interview with Garrett Hedlund & Bella Heathcote
- Our start-of-the-season interview with Kevin Pollak & Dana Delany
- Our guide to recent updates on Tulsa King season 4's development
All three seasons of Tulsa King are now streaming on Paramount+.
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Tulsa King
10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed TV-MA Crime Drama Release Date November 13, 2022 Network Paramount+ Showrunner Dave Erickson, Terence Winter Directors Allen Coulter, Benjamin Semanoff, David Semel, Guy Ferland, Joshua Marston, Kevin Dowling, Lodge Kerrigan, Jim McKay Writers Joseph Riccobene, David Flebotte, William Schmidt, Taylor Elmore, Tom Sierchio, Regina Corrado, Stephen Scaia, Terence Winter
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Sylvester Stallone as Dwight Manfredi flanked by Jay Will as Tyson Mitchell and Mike Walden as Bigfoot in Tulsa King season 3
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Dwight 'The General' Manfredi
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Lawrence 'Bodhi' Geigerman
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