Special screening of ‘Tulsa King’ held for extras

TULSA, Okla. — After months of filming in locations across Tulsa and Oklahoma, the show starring Sylvester Stallone has finally hit tv screens. In Tulsa, there was a special premier screening for the extras who were in the show.

There was lots of excitement from the extras ahead of the screening.

Tom Septor was extra in ‘Tulsa King.’

“I was standing this close to Sylvester Stallone in one of the bar scenes, but it’s just surreal you know, it’s exciting to be part of something like this,” he said.

Dell Wilson was also extra in ‘Tulsa King.’

“It’s something totally different for us people who are just common citizens round here,” he said.

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There were more than 2,000 extras in the show, including a group of Tulsa firefighters. Matt Lay, the president of Tulsa Firefighters, was one of them.

“You realize there’s about 500 people just to shoot a couple minutes of footage, very great for our economy, great for our city, to actually have that much invested here locally, it was a very impressive operation to watch,” he said.

In the show, Slyvester Stallone plays a New York mob boss who moves to Tulsa. The show is the largest scripted TV series that’s ever been filmed in Oklahoma. There are also some big Tulsa landmarks in the show, including the Mayo Hotel and the Golden Driller.

Kayvon Taghizadeh and Katigan Barksdale were both extras in the show. They said it’s great see Oklahoma on the big screen.

“I’m happy to see it here, I think everyone’s going to learn a learn a little bit more about Oklahoma and know that it’s got a little bit more than just you know, cowboys and coach wagons,” said Kayvon Taghizadeh.

“I see like kind of the sets and stuff and like, ‘Oh I know where that is!’ like whenever they’re in the mall like, ‘Oh that’s Crossroads I’ve been there since like I was a kid,’” said Katigan Barksdale.

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There’s hope that ‘Tulsa King’ will bring a boost the Tulsa film industry and the economy.

The Oklahoma Film and Music Office said the production spent more than $56 million in the state from March to September as they filmed across Oklahoma.

Renee McKenney is the president of Tulsa Regional Tourism. She said she’s hoping Tulsa will get a big economic boost from the show.

“‘Tulsa King’ is, it’s got our name in it, and I’m so excited about that because from a tourism stand point people love to go and visit a place that has a name in it, so that we’re super excited about,” she said.

The crew spent time filming in downtown Tulsa back in the summer, but the show was mostly filmed in Oklahoma city. Officials said this is because there was already a sound stage in Oklahoma City.

McKenney said she hopes more filming will come to Tulsa as well as the city is now building more sound stages.

“I want to look at the positive that the name is ‘Tulsa King,’ but the state you know, provides incentives and we are continuing to grow sound stages here and locations here and crew here, so the real opportunity I see is that you can start filming here, even if it’s down the road a little bit, we’re training crew and we’re going to add more sound stages here, Cherokee film just opened their office here and that’s very recent, so you’re going to start seeing more and more productions here and we’re going to really build that,” she said.

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Special screening of ‘Tulsa King’ held for extras