We, by the way, we're the two oldest men in the world, like, bemoaning the fate of nightclubs. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. It's me, Rob Lowe. Titus Williver is here today. Bosch, you may probably know him from his amazing show, but also just a... really, really interesting and really, really talented actor who I just discovered
comes from a family that was super, super interesting with so many interesting people growing up in his orbit. And I'm looking forward to getting into that with him. So hang on and here we go. We're here. You and me, baby. Are you on a, I can see you're in New York at the big studio, the big fancy studio. Yeah, it's nice. Have you been making the rounds in there or did you come in just to honor us? I came in just to hang with you, brother.
I love that. You're not going over to Yacht Rock or... No, no, no. New Wave Channel. That's a dirty word almost. I mean, the way that people have now sort of assigned certain music, I'm like... Steely Dan, that's not Yad Rock. What are you talking about? And they hate it. They hate when you, I mean, well, they're he now. Fagan hates it. Yeah, I'm like, well, I get Christopher Cross and stuff like that. That's fine. But not Steely Dan. No.
Not at all. They're their own, they're their own, their own thing. A hundred percent. So we, we, we, we were just talking before we, we came on about how we probably caught cross. paths in the 80s. And I was just in New York this week and I was driving by Limelight. Yeah, I used to work the door there. I did security there.
That's where you were the security guard? I worked the rope there. I worked a lot of the clubs doing security, but I wasn't very good at it because I would let everybody in because I felt bad for people. standing on line in the freezing cold but you know that was a great time in new york i mean you know what i remember of it it was it was fun that was those were amazing i wonder if clubs
Well, listen, our kids know each other and are this, the same age, your daughter, Jade, I guess, and my son, Johnny. And so when, you know, I've been obviously out with. johnny to clubs in the day with him and it's nothing like no nothing nothing no no you ready for my hot take here's what ruined clubs bottle service yeah completely ridiculous right that's the most ridiculous
Like sparklers going off and as somebody lugs a big bottle of champagne up to, it's so stupid. Like we wouldn't have been caught dead. doing that. No, not a chance. It's bait and switch, right? It's its own shell game when you look at it half the time. And they do. They bring you the magnum of Veuve Clicquot.
With the sparklers in it. And then you'd get the check and it's like two grand. And you'd go, wait a minute. But I didn't order this. I ordered a cheeseburger and sparkling water with a lime in it. And also the notion of. these tables these vip tables maybe there was a vip area maybe but what was so cool about the clubs is You'd be rubbing elbows with literally anybody and everybody. It was great. It was wide open and you would, you came into contact with, with.
Famous people, people that were coming up, musicians, actors, artists. And it didn't have the same kind of pretense. I mean, certainly there was. Yeah, the places that did have the VIP lounge, you'd get to go in there and kind of mill about. But it's a very, very different thing now. I feel bad because I don't think that it has the same.
Openness, for lack of a better word. And now there are all these articles I've been reading that... what they have a term for it basically clubbing that it's dead yeah like yeah I mean, what does that mean? People aren't going out and meeting people? I don't understand. I mean, we, by the way, we're the two oldest men in the world, like bemoaning the fate of nightclubs.
Listen, that's the kind of shit you get on this podcast. You're not getting that anywhere else. Think about it. In one night on a Friday or a Saturday night. You would bounce from Limelight to Area to Peppermint Lounge to the Mud Club. You know, Danceteria, you know, I mean, there were great spots to go and you just bounce.
For the whole night into the morning. Into the morning. And each place was a different experience. Do you remember a club called Save the Robots? Oh, I worked at a bar around the corner called The Edge. And Save the Robots was, you know, I saw the sun come up in that joint more than once. And Cafe Pig, all those spots downtown. And Nell's. Oh, Nels. Nels was crazy. There has to be a documentary about New York nightlife. If there isn't, I'm going to do it because.
That was a real, Save the Robot's my favorite name for a nightclub ever. Makes no sense, but I love it. What an eclectic group, too, because you had everything from musicians, you know. artists, actors. junkies, drug dealers, mob guys. it was everybody got thrown into that witches brew together but you know and it was it was an interesting time it was it was fun and then that's how you
You kind of met people, and then that community kind of supported each other. You would go to somebody's art show that you had met the weekend before, or you would go to see somebody's play. It just had a whole different... kind of energy and and it was about it was about art not to be so highfalutin about using the word art but but it was about creativity as opposed to celebrity or
You know, photos, Instagram, that making the scene. Look, we're making the scene. We all knew we were making the scene. The scene was about. Creating say you're doing what? Oh, I'm doing a playoff Broadway. What are you doing? Yeah, I have an exhibit coming up or what it was. That was the conversation.
Yeah, and it's not, you know, and we both know the whole myth of, you know, going to the parties and working the scene and everything that it was going to get you your next job. I mean, I don't know anybody, honestly, whoever. went to a party, met a director or a producer, and then said, oh, I'm doing this movie with Robert De Niro because I met him in a club the other night. I mean, it's just, it's the great myth.
Because also, everybody, if that offer came up, everyone was so lit, they didn't remember it the next morning anyway. So it wasn't like it was going to happen, right? We know what that was fueled by. As I used to say, you know, your poetry's bad now. It's going to be bad in the morning, too, when you finally come around and come off of the all-nighter.
Oh God, it's so true. We survive. Well, here's to you as I drink my coffee. So I wasn't really aware until I was just doing a little looking back at your life before we got together today. about what a growing up around such an amazing painter, your father. And then, and you, and then I looked up your work as well and you're back to painting. I have so many questions about it because I love that world so much. And I...
I'm so envious of what it must have been like to have someone like that as accomplished as your father is, as a painter, to be able to tutor you in taking it up. But I also can imagine that it was also not a walk in the park to have.
a dad like looking over your shoulder and going what is that yeah no and my father was you know thankfully i mean i look back at he was very he was very direct and There were times where I would do a drawing or something, and then he would start to sort of draw, correct, redirect it, show me what was wrong with it. And my initial reaction was I just spent hours working on that. And basically now I just crumple it up and he would say, well, yeah, make a new one. But it gave me a thick hide.
At a very early age. And I think that definitely. in our business now was to... be able to accept criticism, but also in our business to not take things personally to really sort of be able to separate myself from and go, look, I'm going to walk in the room and I'm either going to be the guy or I'm not going to be the guy.
And it's okay. But it was a rarefied upbringing. And it's different when you're the child of an artist, even if they're a famous artist, because, you know, as actors, our faces are connected to our work. Art painters are connected through the imagery that they create. So it's not like... But if I walked down 57th Street, where my father showed at the Marlboro Gallery, it was like he was an actor. People would, you know, it was a very different thing. But growing up in the art world...
And there was the connective tissue to our business. I met a lot of actors and poets and playwrights. I was curious, who was in the orbit? Who was in the orbit? Well, my godfather was this novelist and screenwriter, Terry Southern, who is known for The Magic Christian. He wrote Easy Rider and Dr. Strangelove and Cincinnati Kid. And he was very good friends with the Beatles. He's on the cover of Sergeant Peppers.
So he would always bring Hopper or Fonda or guys like that would come to my father's openings. And my father... was was a jazz freak and so he knew all the jazz greats. So Miles Davis, he knew Coltrane, Monk. So as obviously I never, I never met Coltrane, but I did get to meet Miles Davis and Mingus. And so people like that were, and then there were poets, poet laureates. There were, you know, Seamus Heaney and Mark Strand.
Joseph Brodsky and, you know, Ann Waldman, all those people were around. But when you're a kid. With the actors, I would be, you know, really enamored, whereas these other people just, you know. Just people. Yeah, I didn't. Now, you know, full disclosure, obviously, meeting John Lennon as a little boy was. A mind blower. Even as a little boy, you were like, holy fuck. Yeah, and I completely, that landed big on me. And Peter Sellers was also a very good friend from those days.
So they would be in evidence at parties at my Uncle Terry's place, which was very cool. And a quick little story. So John and we were having, it was like a Thanksgiving party or something like that. And John was there and he was playing his guitar. And I was sort of sheepishly, I was about seven years old. singing quietly to myself along with him. And he clocked it. And so he said, you know, come on, sing a song with me.
And so I was singing with him. So then cut to Thanksgiving break is over. We go back to school, first day of school, it's show and tell. And what did you do on your Thanksgiving? You know, well, I went to my grandma's house in, you know, in Jersey and dah, dah, dah. And I said, well, I went to my. Uncle Terry's, and I was singing songs with John Lennon. And I wasn't saying it, you know, I wasn't being a bragger at all. I was just...
passing on the information and seeing how excited I was. And the teacher humiliated me and said, we don't lie and show and tell. And I was completely humiliated and ostracized by kids and tormented. My father happened to call Terry and tell him this story. Terry reached out to John Lennon, told him the story. John was so pissed, he wrote a letter. And it was sent to Terry, then sent to my father, addressing the principal of my school. saying that this had transpired and that we were friends.
And that it was that he had been made aware of the fact that I had been humiliated by the teacher and that it was incumbent on the principal to call a school assembly to correct this wrong. which ultimately happened. So, yeah. And I wish I had the letter had for you. My father had a house fire, which destroyed. You know, that correspondence and his correspondence with people like E. Cummings and crazy, crazy stuff like that. Yeah, that's a wild experience.
Now, I'm sure you hung out with Julian back in the day because he was, of course, you know, Julian Lennon. Yes, Julian, you know, and I ran into him recently in Monaco. Really? I was walking through somewhere. Yeah. And he was sitting in the corner and we just laughed. Because his photography now. Beautiful. Beautiful. His photography is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not only a tremendously gifted musician, but his pictures are stunning.
It's like when you're kidding, you see those people and they don't relate. I remember there was Joan Didion used to come to pick her daughter up. At our elementary school in her Corvette. And there was always like bubblings around like she was important, but you're a little kid and you're certainly not reading Joan Didion. You don't know what the fuck's what, but you do know that that mom, that particular mom. Yeah. There's some something going on. And of course.
And I got older and she became my favorite author. I was like, God damn it. I used to see her every, you know, every school drop off. In a Corvette, right? In a Corvette. Come on. There's a very famous photo of her in that Corvette. Yeah. No, that's wild. Because I actually, I mean, I know Griffin really, really well. Yeah. And we've always sort of exchanged stories.
And I'm sure you've read his book, which is just amazing. Yeah, it's great. It's great. I've always, you know, my experience has always been. sitting in some saloon with him someplace or in a restaurant or on location making a movie and the stories start to flow and then all of a sudden you go. Wait, don't we have like a 5.40 a.m. pickup? Maybe we should go back and sleep for an hour.
Yeah. The only worst version is we wait, don't we have a 540 pickup? I better get some sleep and then taking a sleeping pill and realizing it's 530 now. I had that one. I have one memory. It was on a very ill-fated movie with Peter Bogdanovich directing. And I just have memories of like coming to.
And Peter telling me how to say the lines and then blacking out and coming to because I'd taken a horse pill. I thought I had like three or four hours to go. I remember taking the pill, lying down and hearing knock, knock, knock. And it was my pickup. It was brutal. It's a wonder we lived. Yeah, it's hard. I have a similar thing I was doing, JFK. I was down in Texas.
Went out with Captain Dale Dye, you know, who would run the— Of course. The great Navy SEAL stunt coordinator. Well, he was a former Marine, but he had Stanley White. who was also served in Vietnam. He was a Marine, did two tours in Vietnam, and they were doing all of the assassination stuff. And I knew Dale from other things before.
You know, they said, come on out, kid, we're going to go out. And so, of course, you know, I was young and prancy and I thought, sure, I'll go out and drink with the Marines, which was a massive mistake. Got back to my hotel. And I don't know what time it was. And this is, you know, pre-cell phone. And there are a pile of those paper, you've got to message things.
out into the hallway, extending into the hallway and pushed under my door. And I go in, of course, the red lights flashing on the phone. And they say, it's raining. You're our cover set for the day. And I'm still completely drunk out of my mind. I call them and I go, okay, yeah, I'll be ready to get in the car. And I order, you know, two pots of black coffee and I'm getting in the shower. And it doesn't, nothing's going to help. You're just a wide awake drunk now.
Exactly. So I get into the car with the driver going along and we're going to the Parkland Memorial Hospital to shoot this scene, in fact. i was playing arlen specter that that scene was ultimately cut out for legal reasons there was stuff that They had me saying in the film, and everybody was going to sue Oliver when that film was being made, but I get there.
I'm pulling it together, and I see Oliver, and he's aware, and he says, so you were out with Dale Dye and Stan White. And I said, yeah, but I'm okay. Don't worry about it. And he says, all right. So one of the ADs comes over to me and says, come with me. And I'm thinking, oh, shit, I'm going to get fired. They take me down this hallway into one of the little treatment bays.
And there's this guy with a lab coat, a doctor. And he's got this massive syringe. And he says, take your trousers down. And he. sticks a needle in my ass and zaps me with something. But Oliver, it was Oliver would do this sort of vitamin cocktail thing with, I don't know, you know. By the way, never, never have air quotes been more needed than vitamin cocktail. But within 30 minutes, you know, there must have been a lot of niacin in it because I flashed.
bright red. I felt like I wanted to tear my skin off. And then went in and shot the scene and all was well. But I'm sure you and I have. You know, I will. It's when you were telling me multiple episodes of these on JFK. I was like, well, at least you were working with the right director. Yeah. Because going back to New York, one of my great New York memories was when. I was making a movie called Masquerade there and Charlie Sheen, who was my running buddy at the time, was making Wall Street.
with Oliver and Michael Douglas. And that is a murderer's row. Completely. If you go back to 1980, any one of those names, look out. Oh, no, forget it. I actually did my first kind of walk-on part in a film called Navy Seals with Charlie. No way. Was Bill Paxton in Navy SEALs? Yes, that's where I met Paxton and Michael Biehn, and I was directed by a guy named Louis Teague.
And I played this redneck in a bar who kind of lips off to Charlie, and Charlie puts me in a chokehold and kisses me on the mouth. And that was my first time doing a feature film. You know, I was a New York theater guy. And Charlie was... He saw that I was nervous, and he was so incredibly generous and gracious. He came over and said, don't worry about it, man. This is what it is, and I got you. Then I met Bill, and Bill was very close friends with a professor I'd had at NYU.
And we became friends, lifelong friends. And I will, you know, Charlie has had his own challenges in life. And I will say I have never. In my experience, particularly early on in my career, was anyone as... lovely as both of them were and and and you know i i still i still talk to charlie we text each other Now and again, we shout out. And Billy and I were friends right up, really tight, right up until his death.
Same. Billy was probably my best friend. There's not a day that goes by I don't think of Bill. And Charlie as well. Charlie's got a documentary on his life coming out. Yeah, that's going to be good. I've seen, I saw the first episode. It's amazing. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. And you really realize when you watch it. why he has, why he's Charlie. Cause there's no, no one with more hilarious, weird charisma, right? Exactly. Exactly. You know, I mean,
He's still got it. The kid is still got it. Yeah, he does. He's got that. And I became really good friends. stunt double who was with him, you know, Eddie forever. Oh, Eddie, Eddie. Yes, of course. And Eddie's worked on, on Bosch a bunch of times and Eddie, you know, we go to Musso together and Eddie introduced me to Slash and. I mean, you know, it's all the stuff comes. When are you writing your book? Yeah. No, but I'm dead serious. It's like, I'm sorry. You have 10 books in there.
I mean, you're already a painter. It's right in your wheel. I feel like you're adjacent to doing it as it is. You've got to write a book, man. Well, in our pre-lab conversation, I would, but I have to find people who can remember some of the stuff. the stories because it's a little foggy here and there. Well, listen, don't let the details get in the way of a good story. That's right. Please, come on. Right. Or the statute of limitations.
yeah i mean you you should you know i'm not i'm dead serious you should write write a book because there are not that many of us who survived that era with our faculties and have the ability to do it. And it's an era that's never coming. I think people will look back on it. It's when movies were great. Yeah. They were great. Really great. It's when stars were stars. People had staying power. And sure, people made money in the business, but it wasn't about that.
And sure, people were famous, but it wasn't about that. And the stuff that people did has stood the test of time, which I'm not sure a lot of the stuff that's being made today. So you got to, you got to, like Griffin did it. Come on, bro. I know, right? No, no, no. Well, you know what? I'm taking that to heart. I should really seriously consider that. But you're right. Yeah, it's a different, it's a different climate.
A bunch of my kids are actors and I look at the... How is that for you? You know, I look... You and I both know that it's a very irresponsible choice to pursue a career in the arts, but we don't want to do anything else. And it's navigating a sea of heartbreak. When your kids express interest in that, my only advice to them has been, you do it because you have to. If you don't have to do this, don't do it because... It just has to be a no-choice scenario because, you know, and nowadays,
They're dealing with variables that we didn't have to deal with. If you went in and tested for a pilot back in the day, or between you and a couple of other guys, for a role, they weren't looking at each actor's social media numbers to make a decision. It was based on... Whether you were good or even if you were green and you weren't quite there yet or great, that a director recognized that there was an organic...
rawness or a power that was there that they could move along, that they could nurture and really get something out of it. And now it's kind of terrifying. But do you have people do you have people come up to you and say. I'm sure you do. My son or my daughter really wants to be an actor. What would you say to them? And I get that all the time.
I say exactly what you just said is they should only be doing it if they have no other choice in that it's like they would do it for free. Right. They would do it for free. They would do it on their days off. It's all they want to do. It's the only way to combat the parade of indignities. Yeah. That, by the way, never ends. No, it never ends. No, it never ends. People think it ends. It doesn't end. Believe me, they hand you an Oscar, you walk off stage, the indignities will begin.
Believe me. It's true. Yes, it never ends. But people say, well, I guess you have to have survival skills. And you go, no, it goes beyond that. You have to have a level of belief and self-confidence. In order to do that, because it's, you know. Didn't you almost quit? I read a quote that your dad was like, got up in your grill when you said you wanted to quit once. Is that true? Yeah. He was really angry with me. He said, you know, why?
And I said, well, I don't, you know, I'd had a bad semester. in in in college and it was because i was dating this girl who was who was working at the goodman theater in chicago and so I was flying to Chicago all the time to see her. I wasn't going to class, and my grades were piss poor. My father just said, what are you doing? And I said, I don't know. I don't know about this thing. I'm thinking about, you know, I had friends who were in the law school at NYU. And so...
where I would kind of coach these guys when they were doing their fake trials, right? And they'd have to do their opening statements and their summations and all that stuff. And so I would kind of coach them through and I became sort of intrigued by it. And I said, I think I'm going to. I'm going to move to pre-law, and I think I'll become a lawyer. And my father said, but anybody can do that. To be an artist.
It's part of who you are. It's like your blood. It's like your oxygen. It's part of who you are. And that resonated with me. And he didn't mean it in a pretentious way of, you know, we're these. exceptional beings and But it resonated, and I kind of thought, no, you know what? He's right, and this is what I'm meant to do. And it was kind of a good, one of the many kind of wake-up call.
one-liners that my old man hit me with it by the way that's a great one anybody can do that put me right back on on track and actually it made me become a better student and also made me reinvest in the passion, which hadn't waned. I think I was just. I was just a bit at sea. I hadn't really given up on it. I became disenchanted. It was probably, look. It was probably all the drugs I was taking and all the booze I was drinking and just being.
you know, unmoored. I just was literally at sea and that kind of straightened my ass out and I got back to work. Kept my nose to the grindstone and then went to the next step of humiliation and rejection and agitation. Dignity. When you're. When your kids who are actors walk you through their daily lives. I just got off the phone yesterday with my son, Johnny, who's... He's mostly writing now. He just sold a show to Netflix, another show to Netflix. Oh, congratulations.
Yeah, Netflix and Amazon bidding more. Fantastic. I know. I mean, because I did say to him when he said I wanted to be an actor, I said, you have to be a content creator. You have to. be you're a writer you need to be a writer i just didn't want to have images of him you know walking down the street with the jamba juice in his hand being paparazzi do you know what i'm saying i just couldn't bear it um but Hearing his parade of indignities.
Does it take you back? Because it takes me back. Yeah, of course it does. Of course. Like he's like, I didn't get a call back or, yeah, I know. I wanted to be on White Lotus, but they didn't do anything. Whatever it is, it's like you just go, yeah, I've been there. Yeah. And that's all you can really say. There's nothing, there's no secret formula to it. And particularly, you know, you've had this and continue to have this enormous career and it's.
There's the component of tenacity that is always there and having that vision. But, yeah, you know, and as parents, it's like we want to get in front of all that stuff in the same way that, you know, the first time you see your kid get on a steel jungle gym, you're like, oh, God almighty. But you don't want a helicopter parent. Then as they become older, you know, and seeing them navigate that stuff.
It's devastating because you really can't get in front of it. They got to get on the jungle gym, and it's a big jungle gym. You know, it's occupied by all the meanest kids on the schoolyard are there. And, you know, you just have to kind of hang back. Let them get in there and roll their sleeves up and punch through. Have you worked with any of your kids yet? Have you had that opportunity? I have. Both of my sons played younger versions of me. My son, Quinn, played me at 12 and 16 on Bosch.
And then my eldest son, Eamon, played me. on Bosch legacy in the first season in a flashback when Bosch is a young cop. He's about 26 years old and he looks up his father. his biological father. And then my daughter, my baby girl, who's 19, she'll hate that I said baby girl. She played, um, Bosch rescued this dog and she. played his dog walker, Sam. And she, I think of the three, enjoyed it the least. She's actually a psych major.
And I said, good, because we're all a bunch of Irish, you know, psychopaths. So we need somebody to, we need a good talking doctor in the household to kind of keep everybody. But they, you know what? They. They have their own thing, and they're very passionate. They're also both musicians. One, I think, will end up doing it all. He's going to end up being like a John Sayles or a John Wall. He's a musician. He writes. He acts. He wants to direct.
obsessed with cinematography, and the other one's an actor, also a musician, but they've got it. I mean, they have... I do believe, though, that people... You can't teach people how to act. You can teach them craft, right? I went through great training at NYU and then spent 10 years trying to kind of unlearn everything that I'd learned so I could just be present. and be a good listener in a scene.
That's so interesting. Unpack that a little bit because I know exactly what you mean without knowing what you mean. You're at NYU. They're teaching you acting. Yeah. And then you get into the real world. and realize maybe I didn't need so much of that. And maybe I just need to listen to the actor in front of me. Yeah. And actually, you know, the, the. The actor that said to me was, I grew up with Jack Klugman's kids, so I knew Jack Klugman.
you know, up until his death. And he said to me one time, Great acting is great listening. He said, if you're listening, you don't have to worry. You don't have to make shit up. And he said, I don't like watching people make shit up because it's false. It's lying. And that's not acting. And that was, and I had great teachers, man. I mean, I was at Circle in the Square. And then I got, I connected with W.H. Macy and Dave Mamet.
And learned, you know, how to analyze text from Mamet. I mean, an invaluable tool that I got from him. that's in my box. I use it all the time because he taught me how to take a script down to the stud. I don't necessarily follow his technique, you know. Shut up and say the words. As an actor, yeah. You know, I do follow the, you know, service the playwright thing. But David and I used to have interesting skirmishes as a teacher, but he taught me some stuff that was great, as did Bill.
And that stuff, I didn't have to unlearn because that was the starting point for me. But there was a lot of other stuff that was just... You know, they were just blades and a Swiss Army knife that had no use, you know. You think about that, you know, you use the big blade because you can cut with it. Certainly, I used the corkscrew more than any other blade in that Swiss Army knife.
But the nail clippers, I never use those. I never use those little scissors. Did you ever use those little scissors? Well, no, that's not true. They were good because when I grew weed. those scissors came in handy for trimming down the sense buds, right? Stems, yeah. Okay, fair enough. I'm not going to argue with that. Fit them easier into a little package.
Bosch for you has been this unbelievable ride. It feels like you've been playing iterations of Bosch for literally for years. It's an unbelievable gift as an actor to have a signature character like that. Ten years. Ten years have been really a full... But it's a character, right? It all starts with the source material with Connelly's books, which are, you know, he created this guy and he's...
When I read the pilot script, I went crazy. I'd never read a script that quickly before in my career, and I got it. And I said, I know who this guy is, and I understand his intent. his inner life, blah, blah, blah, and all of that. But I had the humility to say, I don't want to want this too much because any actor with a modicum of sense is going to want to play this part, which means it's going to go out to every big star name. And, you know, it's.
And then through a series of kind of mishaps, I was shooting one of the Transformers films with Michael Bay, which was months and months, and it was multiple locations. And so I kept... having to reschedule or cancel the meetings with Michael Connelly and the producers. And then finally, I had this little window.
where I was furloughed out of Hong Kong back into LA. And I thought when my manager called me, I went, wait, I thought that boat sailed. And he said, no, they haven't found Bosch. And I went, it's been months. And he said, yeah, but Michael Connelly, they haven't found Harry, and he has final say, and nobody's come through the door. And he wants to meet you. You've always been on the list.
And I went in and I met him and did my thing. And I was, you know, very blessed. Just the stars lined up and I got that role. And it really... You know, when the material is great, you know, Eric Overmeyer is our showrunner. You know, you look at his body of work going from, you know, Homicide Life on the Street, Treme.
You know, and then Michael's books, and, you know, Michael's a great screenwriter as well as, and he and I wrote a couple of scripts together on the show. Wow. It was just a perfect storm, and then you... add that cast and it was uh you know it's just an experience people say wow it's been 10 years but it feels to me like it's been 10 minutes because there's still a lot There's a lot more stories to tell, but, you know.
To be cliche, all good things come to an end. But I cherish every second. And I have to say, you know, of all the jobs that I've ever had, and I'm always grateful for everyone that comes my way. I had a smile on my face every single day. Didn't matter. You know, it'd be 3.30 in the morning, I'd be getting up, hopping in the car and go to work. But I knew that I was going to go and I was going to be working on something that had integrity and tremendous quality. And then I was working with...
fantastic actors and directors. And so it was just, you know, it was a gift. And I feel like, you know, it's a continuous. I became a better actor in the process of it. I learned a lot. I learned a lot of what I didn't want to do. So it was sort of that kind of next phase of unlearning. Things like that. And, you know, as an actor, and I know you'll appreciate this because it's, it's counter, it's so counterintuitive to the stuff that we get kind of spoon fed was I learned.
to be able to trust stillness, to just be present, didn't have to do anything. And part of that was that character is a very internalized, taciturn guy. His, you know, inner voice is expressed through the narrative of, in Connolly's books, in the writing. That's kind of hard stuff to depict. And but we all agreed that we could do that. We could have scenes where that were silent except for him. You know, he's having a glass of whiskey or a beer.
He's smoking a cigarette and he's listening to, you know, jazz. But he's looking at a murder book. It's the classic kind of cinema of loneliness. Here's this guy, and that's his companion, is this work, which is... necessary work but it's you know it's deeply dark, dark work and that stuff.
as it is depicted in the books and in the series, that darkness penetrates a person's psyche. And so those silent bits... were for me sometimes more exciting than fantastic bits of dialogue that I would get to say, but it was the idea of being still.
You know, and then you had people to support it, too, because a lot of people don't understand it. They, you know, that was a thing, Connelly and Overmeyer and that whole team. And thankfully, you know, the the people who are in charge at Amazon at that time. They fully supported it. I think at first they kind of went, yeah, okay, like a minute, that's going to be fine. But when you've got, you know, and we didn't shoot that show at all.
network show. I mean, it was, they were 50 minute movies and we had, you know, great cinematographer, Patrick Katie, who's now a full-time director. who, you know, they created the template for the whole look of that. And that's, you know, in Los Angeles. is an equal character in that show as Bosch is. That's always the best when you have collaborators who even understand what that concept would be. Yeah.
Right. Well, the freedom to do that and the trust to do that and not feel. And, you know, that's in my experience, you know, prior to that, very similar. It was working with David Milt. for doing several series with him. David doesn't write for the post-literate society, right? When you work with someone like... Milch or Overmeyer or Connolly or Tom Bernardo, that's what I call sit-forward television. You engage.
And you can't be on what they're now calling, this is the one, the latest one that's blown my mind, is the bee content. Okay, that's a great idea concept for a show, but do you have an idea in which a person can be on their phone while they're watching this? kind of follow the thread. And did you know that there's this technology that's coming out where you will get your phone will be linked to your television and it will send you a little alert?
If there is a story point that's important, that you should look away from your phone and look at the screen. And the first time I heard that, I burst out laughing and then realized that nobody else was laughing in the room. And I find that terrifying. And it's coming. It's here. But you know what? There's always going to be. I people always ask me, what do you think is happening in the business? And I said, we're our business is turning into. like Hermes and Louis Vuitton.
and target. I know. And that's it. And that's, and you can choose where you want to shop. Yeah. Or like what, what kind of, it's not about, it's not about price point. It's about quality. Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, I'm a big Bosch fan. And is this indeed officially the final season? Or do we know? Well, you know. You've been doing this as long as I have. I mean, anything can happen. And if they were to knock on the door.
You know, tomorrow or five years or 10 years from now, I'd say, sure, when do you want to go? But, you know, as it stands right now, it's the final season. And that's... It is what it is. Or as Kurt Vonnegut would say, so it goes, right? Well, this is a great talk. Thanks again for coming in. I really appreciate it. And it was so fun, man. I feel like we took a great trip.
Back to the limelight. And from now, I'm headed off to save the robots now. There you go. Look, I want that shot that Oliver Stone. like needle in the ass that sounded let me tell you pretty damn good i'll tell you well you know what i used to you know when you're doing a series you know how that goes you get oh yeah you get beat up so every now and then i would go to the producers and say Can you get the doctor to come and zap me with some B12 and some D3?
You know, that gets you through it. I think there were other components in the Oliver Stone shot that are probably not, you know, SAG approved. But whatever it was, I don't question it. It got me, uh, it got me where I needed to be. But when it, when it comes to a pick me, a pick me up shot, I, I I'm, I'm, I'm with Oliver. I'm like. It's good enough for Oliver Stone. Yeah, why not? I did the Today Show yesterday, and the segment before me was this doctor who was talking about...
the importance of calcium and everything. And I'm like, well, yeah, we grew up with, you know, knowing that you needed to drink milk for strong bones and everything like that. But this doctor was going through the list and I was thinking, I got a really...
dig into the calcium a little bit more calcium who knew yeah who knew you know it doesn't mean i'm going to start eating wonder bread because we know that there was no nutritive benefits in that whatsoever but i'm definitely gonna i'm gonna explore the calcium
thing a little bit deeper. All right. I'll do the same. Thanks a lot, man, for having me. It's been a great pleasure. And we'll do this face-to-face over a proper meal sometime. It would be great. Well, yeah. When you start writing your book, I'll start. I'll be like, you know, just juicing your memory with, Hey man, do you remember? Yeah. Well, we know, we know a lot of the same people, right. judd and and oh well you save the when i think of save the robots i think of judd nelson immediately
Right? I'm not crazy, right? That was his thing. No, Judd, I'm sure he had a personalized stool in Save the Robots, if not a bankhead, right? For sure. I know. I'm going to be seeing Judd soon because we're doing St. Elmo's Fire.
a new version of it, of, of what happened to our characters now that we're pushing 60. That's fantastic. I can't wait. I think it's a great, it's great opera. The script is coming in like literally any day. That's fantastic. Um, and hopefully it'll be good. I hope it will be, but, um, I mean, it'll be so fun to see that group again. Oh, I mean, I can't wait to watch that. That'll be a great revisitation of something that's, you know, it's...
It still holds up. And everybody who saw that film, they remember where they were. What was going on? What kind of clothes they were wearing? You know, and if you need to like somebody to do a cameo of a homeless guy talking to his shoes, I'll grow a beard. You know, I would like just to come and swing would be so much fun. Give him my love because he's a beautiful cat, man. As are you, man.
Thanks, man. And right back at you. And thanks so much. This was flipping awesome. Appreciate you so much. God bless, man. Be well. Well, it's always good to catch up with somebody that you kind of know a little bit and are hoping you're going to love them when you... spend time with him. And then you do like what just happened with, with Titus. I love that. It's one of the reasons I do this show. Thank you for listening, y'all. Don't forget.
to spread the word, download, give us a good review on Apple, and obviously come back next week because we have more great guests right here on Literally. You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Sean Doherty, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar and research by Alyssa Grau. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile.
Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant. Special thanks to Hidden City Studios. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.