Martin Starr is a comedian and actor best known for projects like Freaks and Geeks and Starz’s Party Down, which returned for a much-anticipated third season a decade after it was cancelled. He might not be the expected choice for a role in the Paramount+’s mob-adjacent drama series Tulsa King, but it turns out he’s a terrific fit for the character of Bodhi, the manager of an Oklahoma weed dispensary who becomes the unwitting partner of transplanted ex-con Dwight Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone).
Awards Radar had the chance to speak with Starr, who responded in his typical deadpan manner when asked about whether this felt like an unusual project for him:
“You didn’t expect Stallone to be an action star? I guess I could understand your hesitance. I mean, it’s real fun to go back and forth and have Party Down come back at the same time as getting to do something really fun and new like Tulsa King.”
He spoke about the rare opportunity for him to be involved in an all-out action sequence:
“I’ve done a little bit of action here and there. There’s only one big fight scene that I was a part of, and it’s fun to get to work in that choreography. I enjoy the physical aspects of it, especially since I don’t get to do it so often. But it’s really a dance, so to get to work with people in a physical way like that, to get the choreography right on that dance is really fun, to make it look real. It’s also weird how much sometimes it doesn’t feel right, because most of my training has been more emotionally-based, and so the physical aspect of it sometimes look perfect on camera but doesn’t feel right because you’re so far away from someone. But then you look at it back and you’re like, yeah, the baseball bat looks like it’s hitting him directly in the face.”
Watch the full conversation below