Wilmington actor Myke Holmes has been appearing in films and on TV for many years now. But one of his most recent roles has him sharing the screen with one of the best-known stars in the universe: Sylvester Stallone.
Technically speaking, however, “My character’s dead body was in the same scene as him,” Holmes said, laughing. “But not me personally.”
Leading up to that scene, Holmes plays the small but key role of the no-nonsense Inspector Leery in Stallone’s series “Tulsa King,” which airs on the Paramount+ streaming service. Shot in Atlanta, the show stars Stallone as mob boss Dwight Manfredi, who’s starting a new criminal enterprise (beneath the “legit” facade of a distillery) with his family in Oklahoma after serving a 25-year prison stint.
Wilmington actor Myke Holmes plays Inspector Leery in season three, episode five of “Tulsa King.”
In the fifth episode of the show’s third season, titled “On the Rocks,” Holmes’ health inspector character is sent by a well-connected rival distiller to shut down a fancy event launching a new bourbon. Leery bigfoots his way into the Manfredi family’s “barrel room” before coming to an ignominious end, which is where Stallone comes in to offer advice on how to clean up the mess.
Holmes, who teaches acting full-time in the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Department of Theatre, said if he was asked to “play dead” for other roles, “Normally I might say, ‘Are you sure you need me?’ But this time I really wished I could’ve been there, even if I could’ve just shaken (Stallone’s) hand.”
Growing up in Western North Carolina, Holmes said, Stallone’s “Rambo” movie “was a big one for my brothers and I.”
One behind-the-scenes tidbit on Holmes’ “Tulsa King” role: He said he had a beard when he auditioned, but was told to shave it off after he got the part. But when he showed up on set to do his scenes, “The director was like, ‘What happened to the beard?'”
The show’s crew then had to glue a bunch of hair to his face for his scenes, marking a first for the Wilmington actor.
“I’d never had a fake beard before,” Holmes said.
Holmes also appears in a new movie released Nov. 7, “Christy,” starring Sydney Sweeney (“Pretty Little Liars,” “The White Lotus”) as former female professional boxer Christy Martin. Holmes plays the lawyer of Martin’s abusive husband, Jim, portrayed by the actor Ben Foster.
“Christy” shot in Charlotte, and reunited Holmes with Wilmington’s Chad Keith (the fifth “Scream” movie, “Loving”), who is the film’s production designer, and former Wilmington actor and filmmaker Jonathan Guggenheim, with whom Holmes appeared in low-budget locally made indie comedy “Lightning Salad Moving Picture” in 2008.
In “Tulsa King,” Holmes said he got to work with fellow UNCW graduate Anna Bourne, who is the show’s costume supervisor.
Holmes has a long list of credits to his name, from TV’s “Under the Dome,” One Tree Hill,” “Hightown” and “The Walking Dead” to such movies as “The Longest Ride.”
In HBO Max series “The Staircase,” based on the famous case of Michael Peterson, the Durham writer accused of killing his wife, Holmes played Duane Deaver, an FBI agent fired in 2011 for fabricating evidence.
Holmes also appeared as “Bill” in a recent ad campaign for the Harris Teeter grocery store, playing a fan of savings who’s attracted an unwanted cult of green-shirted followers awed by Bill’s next-level thrift.
He’s not only a Bill: Meet the UNC Wilmington professor behind a Harris Teeter ad campaign
Aside from a stint in Illinois for graduate school, Holmes has been in Wilmington since 2001, when he began attending UNCW as an undergraduate. He started out doing plays (“Boy’s Life”) and independent films and has been a professor at UNCW since 2008.
Holmes lives in Wilmington with his wife, Lindsey, and their children, 11-year-old twin girls Charlotte and Francie, and a 10-year-old boy Lincoln.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Wilmington, NC, actor Myke Holmes in TV’s ‘Tulsa King,’ movie ‘Christy’
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