Tulsa natives Tim Blake Nelson, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tracy Letts join 'The Sensitive Kind'
Oklahoma filmmaker and showrunner Sterlin Harjo is bringing acclaimed actors and Tulsa natives Tim Blake Nelson, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tracy Letts back to their hometown to work on his high-profile new project.
Variety reports that the trio of Tulsans will join fellow famed performers Keith David (“The Princess and the Frog,” “American Fiction”), Kyle MacLachlan (“Twin Peaks,” the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series “Fallout”) and previously announced star Ethan Hawke ("Training Day," "Before Sunrise") in the main cast for the FX pilot “The Sensitive Kind."
The drama pilot, which is the follow-up to Harjo's award-winning homegrown series "Reservation Dogs," also is set to star Siena East (“The Sex Lives of College Girls”), a Choctaw Nation writer and actress based in Los Angeles; Macon Blair (“I Care A Lot”), who played the beleaguered store and restaurant owner Rob in "Reservation Dogs"; and Scott Shepherd (“The Last of Us"), who made an impression with his portrayal of Byron Burkhart in Martin Scorsese's Oklahoma-made historic epic "The Killers of Flower Moon."
Described as a “Tulsa noir about a guy (Hawke) who knows too much," "The Sensitive Kind" pilot, which is to be filmed in Tulsa, was ordered in February.
But Harjo, an esteemed Tulsa-based producer, writer and director, teased his reunion project with Hawke at a January event at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, where the “Reservation Dogs” showrunner was presented with the “ArtNow 2023” Focus Award.
"I'm on the half yard line right now for a TV show starring Ethan Hawke that will be shot in Tulsa. So, I'm very excited about that," Harjo said at the Jan. 11 OKC event.
"He's great. He loved Tulsa."
When is Sterlin Harjo's star-studded new Tulsa project 'The Sensitive Kind' filming?
A Holdenville native who is Seminole and Muscogee, Harjo previously brought Hawke to his home state for a guest-starring role on "Reservation Dogs," the trailblazing made-in-Oklahoma FX show on which Harjo worked as co-creator, executive producer and showrunner.
During the coming-of-age series' third and final season, Hawke played Rick Miller, the father whom prospective college student Elora Danan (Devery Jacobs) meets for the first time.
The new project falls under the overall deal Harjo signed in 2021 with FX. Harjo is working as "The Sensitive Kind" pilot's writer and director, while he and Hawke are executive producing with Garrett Basch, also an executive producer on "Reservation Dogs" and another acclaimed FX series, "What We Do in the Shadows."
Although character details for "The Sensitive Kind" cast members have not yet been revealed, many film, TV and theater enthusiasts are familiar with the Tulsa-born actors Harjo has tapped for the project.
A playwright, filmmaker and author, Nelson is best known as a prolific actor who has appeared in HBO's “Watchmen,” “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
Tripplehorn's long acting career ranges from 1990s movies like "Basic Instinct," "The Firm" and "Waterworld" to her more recent television work in "The Gilded Age," "Criminal Minds" and "Big Love." She earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for portraying Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the 2009 telefilm "Grey Gardens."
Letts, who grew up in Durant, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright best known for penning the drama "August: Osage County." But he also is a stage and screen actor who has starred in the movies "Lady Bird," "Ford v Ferrari" and 2019's "Little Women," plus he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for the 2013 Broadway revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
"The Sensitive Kind" pilot is slated to film in April and May in Oklahoma under the state's film incentive program, according to the Oklahoma Film + Music Office.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Tim Blake Nelson, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tracy Letts join Tulsa TV pilot
