Why Ben Hutchins From Tulsa King Looks So Familiar
Nothing's more distracting while watching a movie or TV show than recognizing a random character actor from a previous performance, but not quite being able to place them. It's even more frustrating to then look up that actor on IMDb, only to find almost no information about the roles they've played. That's where we come in.
Ronnie Gene Blevins is a character actor from Texas who often plays criminal or shady types (via IMDb). Most recently, he's appeared on two episodes (so far) of the new Paramount+ series "Tulsa King," which stars Sylvester Stallone as Dwight "The General" Manfredi, an ex-mob boss recently released from prison who has to rebuild his criminal empire in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On it, Blevins plays Ben Hutchins, an associate of Garrett Hedlund's Mitch Keller, one of Dwight's key allies.
Ben Hutchins is far from the only villainous character Blevins' has played, and there's a good chance you'll recognize him from one of these other roles.
Ronnie Gene Blevins played an angry driver in Curb Your Enthusiasm
If you watched "Tulsa King" and actually did recognize Ronnie Gene Blevins from his brief appearance of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," you've won Looper's Reader of the Month Award (not a real award). Blevins pops up in the Season 7 episode "The Bare Midriff," which aired in 2009.
Season 7 of "Curb" involves Larry David (Larry David) and Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry Seinfeld) putting together a "Seinfeld" reunion. Blevins' scene happens just after Larry's disastrous confrontation with his assistant Maureen (Jillian Bell) about how she often comes into work with her midsection exposed. While Larry and Jerry are on their way to lunch, Blevins' unnamed character cuts Jerry off. Jerry honks, and in response, the driver gets out of his car and angrily confronts them. Blevins only has two lines in the scene, neither of which we can reprint here. The incident then leads to a lunchtime discussion about the etiquette of honking, and the differences in types of honks.
Ronnie Gene Blevins played a cement truck driver in The Dark Knight Rises
Continuing our theme of nameless characters who are primarily identified by their mode of transportation, three years after "Curb Your Enthusiasm," Ronnie Gene Blevins appeared in the third of Christopher Nolan's Batman films.
About 40 minutes into the story, Bane (Tom Hardy) stages a daring plot to storm the Gotham Stock Exchange and use Bruce Wayne's (Christian Bale) fingerprints to conduct a series of fraudulent financial transactions in order to bankrupt him. Shortly after Bane makes his move, the police arrive and surround the building. While Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Blake is trying to clear civilian traffic from the area, he comes across a cement truck and its driver, played by Blevins. Blake asks the driver to move his truck, but the driver testily points out that there's no room for him to back out. The whole thing is written to make it seem like the cement driver might be involved in Bane's plot, but really it's just another complication for Blake to deal with.
Ronnie Gene Blevins played Stan on Season 2 of True Detective
Again, if you actually did recognize Ronnie Gene Blevins from this role, your television-watching and memory skills are to be commended. That's because his character on "True Detective," Stan, only appears in two episodes (although he's credited for three), and doesn't have any dialogue.
During the poorly rated second season of Nic Pizzolatto's somewhat beloved detective anthology series, Vince Vaughn plays Frank Semyon, a gangster and casino owner who's trying to go straight by investing in a high-speed rail project, but whose plans all go awry when a city manager is murdered. One of his henchmen is Stan. He first appears in the background of the first episode, in a scene when Frank tells police officer Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) who sexually assaulted his wife. He also pops up in the second episode when Frank needs to rough up a shady sweatshop owner who's running a numbers game on his turf. Stan provides the pepper spray.
Ironically, Stan becomes a more important character after he dies. Frank feels guilty over Stan's death and tries to make amends with Stan's widow and child. By that point, many viewers were most likely trying to remember exactly who Stan was.
Ronnie Gene Blevins played Bruno in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
Ronnie Gene Blevins had a pivotal role in the 2021 film "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It," which is the sequel to "The Conjuring" and "The Conjuring 2" and the eighth overall film in the "Conjuring" universe. In the film, which is based on a true story, famed paranormal investigators Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are called in to investigate a murder case. Arne Cheyenne Johnson (Ruairi O'Connor) has stabbed his landlord to death, but claims he did it because he was possessed by the devil. Blevins plays Bruno Sauls, the overbearing and hard-drinking but otherwise harmless landlord, who meets his demise. In real life, Arne Johnson's landlord's name was Alan Bono (via The Inverse).
"I was a little freaked out to go shoot it," Blevins told the MovieJunk podcast, explaining that he was concerned about supposed "curses" that supposedly befall supernatural films, like the bizarre things that happened on the set of "Poltergeist," The night he began shooting in Atlanta, he said, his young son apparently saw two spectral figures in his bedroom.
Ronnie Gene Blevins played Harrington in Emancipation
Chances are, most people reading this list will recognize Ronnie Gene Blevins from his role in Antoine Fuqua's harrowing biographical drama, "Emancipation." The film stars Will Smith as Peter, a man who becomes enslaved in Louisiana, then has to escape and join the Union Army to fight for his freedom, and that of his family's. Peter's main antagonist in the story is Jim Fassel, played by Ben Foster, an ex-Confederate soldier and fugitive slave hunter who was himself raised by a Black woman. Blevins plays Harrington, Fassel's partner and a particularly nasty piece of work.
The film was especially difficult to film. Production was moved from Georgia to Louisiana after Georgia's passage of the Election Integrity Act of 2021 (per Deadline). Then, as Blevins explained to MovieJunk, filming repeatedly had to be shut down due to the high heat. On top of that, Hurricane Ida demolished the film's sets, forcing production to send everyone home for a month and a half. "It was brutal physically, but that was kind of secondary to how hard it was spiritually, just knowing that this enslaved man had endured this journey to get back to his family," Blevins said. "We all held a sacred obligation to tell this man's story."