Sylvester Stallone's Dwight standing and smiling confidently at a gala table in Tulsa King season 4

EXCLUSIVE: Taylor Sheridan's Tulsa King is shaking things up with season 5, and one returning star is thrilled about what's to come.

The latest chapter of the Sylvester Stallone-led crime series finds Dwight Manfredi starting to enjoy the fruits of his labors to become a legitimate businessman, launching the Montague Distillery alongside his friends and crew. Alongside Stallone, the ensemble Tulsa King season 4 cast features the returns of Martin Starr, Jay Will, Garrett Hedlund, Neal McDonough, Dana Delany and Frank Grillo, among others.

As anticipation grew for the show's October 16 return, Paramount+ confirmed that Tulsa King season 5 was already in production, and was shaking things up by moving the show to New York City. Additionally, it was revealed that Scarlet Rose Stallone would be promoted to a series regular, while Erik Palladino, Glenn Fleshler, Anthony Skordi and Nickola Shreli all joined in series regular roles.

Now, in an interview with ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns for season 4's premiere, Garrett Hedlund opened up about Tulsa King season 5. When asked whether Mitch would be joining the show's New York relocation, the star began by carrying his laptop over to a nearby window to showcase the city's skyline, confirming that he is still involved in the next chapter of the hit series.

Hedlund went on to praise the location change as a "beautiful way to not only go to the next level," but to also "reinvigorate" the show's formula after its Oklahoma-set four seasons. The star further expressed his excitement at getting to be on "Terence Winter's home turf," listing the Tulsa King head writer's prior work on The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire and Wolf of Wall Street, among others, as allowing the series to hone in on "the underbelly" of the original series premise:

Garrett Hedlund: He gets to be a kid in the candy shop, and a kid in the playground all at the same time. This is his world, so I look forward to reading each episode, because it certainly feels like not a lot of shows get the chance to completely geographically relocate, but move even closer to the soul and the gist of what the show always kind of was. What the underbelly was from the very beginning, so we'll see where we go from here.

The decision to move Tulsa King from the eponymous Oklahoma city to New York for season 5 did come as something of a surprise for longtime fans of the series. Previous seasons have seen Dwight venture back to his original home in order to meet with his original bosses in the Invernizzi family, but only briefly as he sought to fully establish his own operations in Tulsa after feeling betrayed by his former crime family.

Given much of the early show was a fish-out-of-water story as the metropolis-based Dwight learned to adjust to his new country setting, Tulsa King season 5 heading to New York does point to something of an abandoning of the original series premise. Much to Hedlund's point, the classic gangster formula has always been at the core of the series, but in heading to its new location, the show does now come with the risk of forgoing the Western edge atypical of a Sheridan-backed title.

That being said, given the consistent acclaim Winter has amassed both with Tulsa King and his New York-centric mob shows, the decision to shift to the new location doesn't inherently spell doom for the series. Plus, with Stallone recently confirming that the plan is still to bring the show to a close with its sixth season, this change in location could point to Manfredi and his crew looking to bring the fight to the Invernizzi family on their home turf and coming full circle as the ultimate power holders in both New York and Tulsa.

Tulsa King season 4 premieres on Paramount+ on October 16.

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Tulsa King Season 5 Abandoning Original Series Premise Teased By Returning Taylor Sheridan Star