'Tulsa King' actor responds to alleged insulting comments during filming

politeness

Exclusive: It didn't bother Thomas Mooneyham that he saw Sylvester Stallone looking at him more than once, or how he was asked to leave the bar scene so he could be replaced by a younger cowboy and a “good looking cowgirl.”

What upset the 53-year-old Tennessee man who drove four hours on April 4 to serve as an extra in the Paramount+ series Tulsa King I was learning how Stallone described one of the background actors as a “tub of lard” and “the fat guy with a stick.” He never heard Stallone or the director utter disparaging words about the background actors that day, but he is convinced some of those comments were directed at him personally after he read about them on a private Facebook page for BG actors.

“I was sitting at a table with another guy, like we were listening to the band,” recalls Mooneyham, who told Deadline that he uses a cane because of “bone-on-bone” pain in his knee. “Stallone's table with the other main characters was diagonal from our table, about 12 feet away. I noticed he looked at me once or twice and talked to the director I think and laughed with him and everything. But I didn't put anything together.”

“Then we were moved from the scene and replaced by a younger cowboy and a good-looking cowgirl,” Mooneyham continues. “Now does that bother me? Not at all. What bothers me is that someone overheard him and the director. It's not even the part where I'm fat. I wasn't the only big one there. But I feel like I was singled out because they said 'an old tub of lard with a cane.' “And I was the only one there with a stick.”

Mooneyham talks about his 12-hour day on the Atlanta set of the series that led to the resignation of Rose Locke Casting, a local company hired to find key actors for the second season of Stallone's series. Deadline first broke the story on Monday; Representatives for the Paramount+ show and Stallone have not yet commented.

Luke told her agents that she left the series because of the offensive language Stallone allegedly used to describe the extras – an accusation made by director Craig Zisk. denied to TMZ after Deadline broke the story. Zisk told the outlet that Luke failed to do her job by not recruiting extras in the 20s and 30s range for a scene involving a hip bar.

A source close to the show told Deadline on Monday that producers were concerned about matching scenes from last season.

Mooneyham says the set he was working on that day was Bred-2-Buck, a fictional Tulsa saloon owned by Dwight Manfredi, Stallone's character in the series. “This is not the youth bar that others try to make it out to be,” he said. “It's just an old country cowboy bar. And the name of the bar, this is my point, is Bred-2-Buck. Tell me how many old cowboys ride broncos who aren't tied up or crippled? How could a gentleman with a cane not fit in?” But the main thing was that my stick wasn't even visible in the scene. I hid it behind my body.

Before Mooneyham came to work that day, he thought of it as his dream party Tulsa King It is a series that he and his son watch together. Mooneyham, a tax professional by day at H&R Block, has been working for two years as an extra and has already booked several movies and TV shows, including a two-day party around the upcoming film. Civil war.

“When I worked on… Civil war Two years ago, I weighed 390 pounds. “I could barely walk,” recalls Mooneyham, who appears briefly in the film The official trailer for the film. “I had to use a mobility scooter but no one on set told me anything about it or made a fuss about it. The producers did their best to help me load my scooter into the truck.

He tells his experience on Tulsa King It was a far cry from his motion picture experience. “I don't understand. I know there's been all this talk about old people. Old people, very old people. How do they explain that we're so old when he's almost 20 years older than us? I'm 53 years old. Stallone is 77 years old. Why the hell?” Am I too old?

“I've never encountered anything like this,” Mooneyham says, adding that he doesn't blame the casting director. He also has no plans to stop working in the background.

“Some people say I'm thin-skinned. People think I make a fuss. I never made a fuss until Rose called me about it,” Mooneyham says. “My feelings were hurt a little bit. But did you know? I'm more angry than hurt. This is only because of my disability.