‘Tulsa King’s Frank Grillo Details Bill’s Fiery Reunion With Dwight & That Severed Head Reaction

The Season 4 premiere of Tulsa King was deadly in more ways than one. In addition to taking out a pair of fan-favorite characters, last week’s episode also saw the demise of someone we never got to meet: the head (pun intended) of the Buffalo crime family.

Quiet Ray Renzetti (James Russo) set a meeting for all of the heads of the major mob families in the United States, including Dwight Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) for Tulsa and Bill Bevilaqua (Frank Grillo) for Kansas City, with one attendee making what you might call a fashionably late arrival.

After Ray’s show of force and brutality, he shored up the votes to become the official new boss of the Invernizzi family and left Bill scrambling a bit. First, he told Dwight not to trust Ray, whom he’d just made a deal with, and then he told Ray the same thing about Dwight (using the same phrase, “I wouldn’t trust him to water my cactus,” in both cases).

Bill had reasons not to trust Dwight, of course. He’d previously confronted the General over his own unexpected detention by FBI agents and didn’t seem terribly satisfied with Dwight’s excuse. So what’s Bill’s mindset in the season opener? TV Insider caught up with Frank Grillo to find out.

In the premiere, we finally get to see Bill confront Dwight over his abduction by the FBI. When he confronts him, is he truly satisfied by what Dwight says about the money, or is he just playing along? 

Frank Grillo: One hundred percent playing along. I think Bill, having gotten out, is now just [thinking], “Listen. Just take it all in, and then we’ll assess — have to make some phone calls, have to see what’s what, and then kind of assess what happened to me, and what really was the genesis of this whole thing?” I mean, if you remember [in Season 3], I leave his house after accusing him, and then they pick me up. So if you put one and one together, usually, it’s two.

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So why do you think he holds back, though? Is it because he doesn’t want to lose the money, the distribution of the Fifty?

I think part of that is you really do, in this world, you can’t trust anybody, so you never really are sure — if you’re a smart gangster, and Bill Bevilaqua is. I mean, he’s a boss. He understands what this is, and he understands what’s at stake. And the most important thing is not to go back into jail, but it’s about the money. So I want to keep that alive, and it’s “touché” for him. Like, “Now, I got you. Now, I know I’ve got to be careful. Now, I know how dangerous the snake is.”

But he becomes a bit of a snake himself as a consequence, maybe, when he goes behind his back and plays both sides with Quiet Ray and repeats that speech about wouldn’t trust him to water the cactus. What do you think he’s doing there?

Yeah, I think he’s triangulating this because I think there is a level of trust. I hate to use that word in this situation. There’s a level of familiarity with Ray and with Dwight that I think they despise each other, and there may be a way for me to manipulate this situation to my benefit.

He says that he’s hungry for power. You said a minute ago that it’s all about the money. Which do you think weighs more for him?

Ultimately, I think it’s the money… I agree with these guys. They both have power, and in their respective ways, I think it’s the money. I think it’s always the hustle.

When they have the bosses’ meeting, and Quiet Ray pulls out the Buffalo head’s head, it didn’t seem like Bill flinched too much, but do you think he was scared? 

No. I think these guys, you can’t look at it [like we do], when we, as audience members, watch things and we go, “Oh my, that’s what I feel. That’s what he must feel.” I think these guys are sociopaths. I really do. They’re all fairly sociopathic. You can’t not be, and be in that world. Do you know what I mean? You can’t cut someone’s head off and then eat a bowl of spaghetti, and that’s normal. You’ve got to be devoid of empathy, and so I don’t think fear in that way is the same as the way you and I experience it.

Steve Swisher / Paramount+

Yeah, it’s interesting. It must be fun to play then. 

It is. It is because … I did those movies, The Purge, a long time ago… It’s 12 hours of, “I could kill anybody I want who I don’t like.” And it’s like, but the human nature is, “Am I gonna feel it? Can I really do that?” And you really can’t. But playing it is so wild and out there that, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do that?” It is. I say this all the time: I love getting up and going to work.

Tulsa King, Fridays, Paramount+