Titus Welliver

and it's just sort of become the new norm. I venture out and uh walk around and do things. But you know, a lot of reading, a lot of watching tons of television old new, uh yet to come, and and lots of films. So I'm trying to utilize this to my best ability. And it's it's not so bad. Okay, So you're not really paranoid about getting it now. I've been really hyper vigilant since it first kind of was

creeping into the into my news feed. UM and my girlfriend had lived in Hong Kong at one point and had gone through stars and so she um, we sort of immediately disimplemented all the the you know, the cautionary behavior, and it's it seems to serve as well. I mean, we venture out to go to the grocery store, and that's really the extent of it. But you know it is, you know, you mask up and glove up and go in and and that's all we can really do. So

what do you reading? Oh my god, I've just finished reading a great book about Sam Peck and Paw who was one of my eric directors, called it they moved of him, and uh it's been on my shelf. It was given to me years ago and uh I cracked it and quite fascinating. Um, you know, a bit of an undignified end to a guy who who was a game changer in the field, but fascinating, really quite fascinating.

So what did you learn? Well, he he had been in the Marine Corps and he was you know, he was not unlike a lot of the characters that that appeared in his films. I think that his the kinship to the to the Pike character, to William Holding character in The Wild Bunch. He was this sort of avid outdoorsman hunter, um, you know, boozer, womanizer. It's interesting. I told now, go back and look at his films. I see a lot and hear a lot of of him. Um in the characters in his films. Now he did

straw Dogs, didn't he he did? He did. That's the only film I've ever seen where I said, wait a second, this might be too violent, you know what. I saw it at a drive in, completely inappropriate from my age at the time to come out in theater as a year before, and I ended up going to see it get this double bill with Deliverance. So if you really want to completely, you know, destroy your your teenage mind. Um,

it was a game changer. But I remember being very very disturbed, of course, drawn to it like a mop to a flame, but then kind of realizing once I was watching this film and I was a bit in over my head, although it stayed with me, I have to say, Um, but yeah, both of those films that I was shaken for quite a while after that. The only film that I've really been scared at, and I was scared in the book too, was Angel Hart. Did you ever see Angel Heart? Oh? Yeah, yeah, that's why

I actually really really liked that film. In the book, is is really really fallen Angels a great book. I thought the film was was quite good. I loved Mickey Rourke in it, and I thought de Niro, I mean, Alan quintessential, kind of Alan Parker visually kind of stunning, and de Niro comes in and suitably menacing and charming all at once. Now I'm I'm right there with you. I really enjoy that film. So what's next on your reading list? Well, you know what, I'm just looking at

my bookshelves. There's uh. I have all the tash and books that you know, the films of the sixties and the seventies and the eighties, and so I thought what I would do is peruse those books and come up with a with the greatest hits list of films that my kids have probably not seen, and sitting down with them, we've been sort of going through some of the films of Scorsese and and Peck and Paw and Trufou and Melville, and I've got my own little film school going here.

How old are the kids that are bumping up with you? Eighteen and fourteen, My daughter's fourteen, my son is eighteen. Now they're used to me throwing um, you know, films at them, But I'm trying to kind of I want to expand it a little more. I mean, I don't think I'm we're gonna, you know, sit through any bonwell or anything like that. You know, I'll certainly try to

I'll try to sweeten the deal with something. Although we did do Polanski's The Tenant, which I that I find that film very very scary, maybe more disturbing than anything. But that film really unnerved and are they receptive, very much so, very much so. I think the Innocence, you know, the debor Caraclic has got to come next, because that's uh, for me, yet another film you know, still holds up, still quite quite spooky. I think it's time to to

break it. Of course, my kids want to jump right to The Exorcist, which I say in my fourteen year old you're not ready for that. You won't recover that will take you years. Well, that was still in the era of platform releases, and I remember people have seen it over Christmas. I've been out of town and I went to New York to see it, and I think I was overhyped, you know, also being Jewish, maybe it

doesn't really connect. But uh, I wasn't frightened but the fact that Max von Sita was in a genre pick I couldn't believe it. Well, I know, you know, and it's very funny because I remember there was an interview with with him ben Cito, talking about it, and he said, well, you know, I'm Scandinavian and so we have lots of folklore and everything, but the Devil for us really kind of falls into the column of being sort of silly folklore. We don't really um, you know that it doesn't we

don't absorb that. UM. I just think that for me, and I was raised in an agnostic household slash probably more of a Jewish household than anything. But it's still scared to beat Jesus out of me. But I think it was also because I never really considered I remember kind of finding the paperback book at a friend's house that I was having a sleepover, and and kind of cracking it open and and reading it and thinking, I don't I don't want to, I don't want to pursue

this any further. And then of course I saw the film and it it just it really knocked me. I didn't sleep solidly for for at least a month after that. Wow, So what are your favorites if we had to boil it down to a few from the late eighty Uh, Well, I love bullet Um and uh love Copolist films, Love the Conversation, love um and lament huge, Lament, fan Um,

Long Goodbye. I also love I love you talk about the Long Goodbye with Ellie Gould, with Ellie Gould, Yes, yes, um uh friends of Eddie coil Um another I I always have considered that sort of Mitcham's King Lear. I mean as his performance in that film. There there there are aspects of that film that feel like a movie of the week, just in the way that it's shot, in the music yet the performances Richard Jordan, Peter Boyle and Alex rock Ohan's sort of amazing collection of actors.

Um the last detail which I just uh, that was a great movie. So Brandy Quaid has kind of left the planet. Yeah but literally, Yeah, he's on space stations qu Equaid right. The funny thing is the woman he's involved with is the daughter of a professor was at my college. I never took a course room, but he was. He taught Russian and he was an odd guy. So reading about that story was a weird. You know, six

Degrees of Separation. You know another one wages a Fear, which I just check back into a couple of weeks ago. I'd forgotten how much I love that film, and I you know what, I have to say, the remake that Friedkin did with Roy Scheiner Sorcerer has has got a lot of merit great. So I agree. I told freaking when I saw him a couple of years ago, because that movie was really denigrated when it came out, but

I felt it had an amazing tension. I saw it in the National, which was the theater in Westwood before they tore it down, and probably five people in the theater, but it really hit me. Oh no, it's it's it's great. And that you know that Tangerine Dream score is is fantastic. I mean it's super solid. I think it's really good. In Scheider is great and all those other actors, um, the foreign actors that that surround him, and I know it's I think it's a very very underrated film and

kind of unappreciated, but you appreciate it. I do so. And where the two guys, based on this conversation, you really seem like a Stu into the game very much. So my parents were both cinephiles. So the weekends were and of course this is very you know, long before

we ever had VHS or any right. He actually went to the theaters and then had the Great Revival theaters all over New York, Cinema Village and the Waverley Twin and UM and the Thalia on the Upper West Way Upper My My weekends were spent seeing the films of Curasawa and Um and and Bent well Um. My father did, unfortunately take me to see Sorrow and the Pity when I was entirely too young, which actually really really traumatized me. And I can remember waking up from this horrible nightmare.

I was little, I was a little boy, and my mother said, well, you know, and I was sobbing, and she said, what what do you What happened? I had a bed a nightmare at a nightmare And she said, well, what was your nightmare about? And I said, the Nazis were We're shooting people and pushing them into a ditch. And my mother went, why would you even think of such a thing? And I said that movie that I went to with dad. My parents were divorced. He said

what movie was that. She's trying to think of some World War two maybe something with Burt Lancaster that she was unaware of because my dad loved World War Two films. And I said it was The Sorrow something and she said the Sorrow and the Pity and I my mother literally going to her nightstand and picking up the phone and it was probably one o'clock in the morning and calling my father and just saying, what were you thinking,

you know? And he said, it's a it's an important film, and she said, you know, I can hear them going back and forth. I agree, but you know he's he's too little, and he went, he's got to know. Uh, he's that Max Offals, I believe. But what I remember seeing and then he made one just after that was like six and a half hours. I remember bringing a sandwich to the movie. I don't remember my name right now.

It's funny you talked about because I can remember my dad taking my brother and I to see um, Lawrence of Arabia and it was the first film I'd ever seen and had an intermission, um but of Court yet again. You know, that was the Lean films when I was a kid. They were the Greatest Adventures as absolutely loved did Doctor Javaga. And I remember having a friend, uh sort of a playmate friend of mine come along and my dad took us to see Doctor Javago, and this kid just it didn't land on him at all. He

kept staying this stupid and it's so long. And I was because that was my life. I was looking at him like, what a philistine. This kid hasn't been raised properly. Um, okay, but your father at the time was teaching at Yale. Yes, yes, but you were living in Manhattan. No, we were living in New Haven. I was born in New Haven, and so the films that I saw, the very early films that I saw, were shown at the co Op at Yale.

So I can remember seeing Um Big Deal on Madonna Street as a little boy there and and the Beatles movie helped. And then he he left there. He was snatched away from Yale by the University of Pennsylvania, where he became the chairman of the Graduate School of Fine Arts, and we then moved to West Philadelphia. I wish there were a lot of UM great theaters, and in particular, there was the one down on South Street that showed UM you know. Every time I turned around, we were

going to see a Kurasawa festival. I remember going for one one afternoon and and starting with high and Low and then it was you know, Jimbo, which is to this day one of my all time favorite film Santuro seven Samurai um, and I was. I was thrilled. I was happy, happy to be there. It was good for my reading skills too. I always maintained that I learned

how to read because my parents just for films. I wasn't doing you know, green eggs and him, I was, you know the city up there, you know, reading the subtitles. So I had knew what the hell was going on in all the chaplain of course, and the Silent films and Buster Keep films, UM and Harold Lloyd and those films. I just remember I went to hear John Simon speak, who recently died, of course, was the film critic for

multiple magazines. And I remember talking to him and he was not a open guy, and I said, I, if it's up on the screen, I can pretty much sit through anything. I love the experiences. No, no, it's not good. I leave. But you know it's different because when I first moved to l A in the mid seventies. And the great thing about living in the l A because movies at the time open in New York and l A. You could literally see everything, whereas today that's literally an impossibility.

I know, I agree, and and and it breaks my heart. I mean, we do have one in Brentwood on Montana that that revival theater, and they and they throw up some really substantial films and every now and then someone connected to the film will actually be there for a little comment afterwards. But uh, you know, because everyone has blu ray players. Um, the a lot of those theaters have have have gone away, which kind of breaks my heart because there's really nothing better, even even watching the

krummy print of a great film. That it's that, you know, it's that tactile experience of being there, and um, it's just it's entirely different. And I have a giant TV, a high def four K ultra gas powered turtlenext letter to that's with a so no sound system and it's amazing it. My popcorn isn't as good. And uh, and I miss if someone should bottle that old cinema smell like a room spray that you could just sort of put on your couch before you tuck into a good film.

I really missed that a lot, those great double features, things like you know, American Graffiti and the Wanderers, or what a great double bill? Oh god, what did that guy say when he was banging the bottles together? Wanderers? That's the Waltering Warriors, Warriors, Wanderers. Brain said Wanderers, My lip said warriors. But the Warriors was another one. But

you're talking about that experience. I remember I went to Hollywood Boulevard for a preview of Halloween and the squel and the theater was full, and just at a tense moment, somebody yelled out, you deserve to die, and it was like that really made the whole Well, that's the day.

I mean those When I was a kid in New York, we would go to the Times Square because you could see a triple bill there for three bucks, and so you would typically get two really awful films and one, you know, sort of substantive film that would kind of make up for it. But we didn't care, you know, we would go and see a triple feature. You know, kung fu movies that were you know, maybe they were they were. They were not high art, but they were

you know, very very entertaining. Um. But you know, that's where we lived. The popcorn was horrible. They smelled like cat yearn because all of them had rodent infestations, so they were just wildcats roaming inside. And you'd have you know, emotionally disturbed people in the audience with you that would live in the theater. It was kind of like Escape from New York waiting for Ernie borg nine to come

strolling out. But the but there was you know, and they would have these fantastic dialogues with the screen, these these characters in the movie really and that was sort of that was worth the price of admission, as it was, you know, he didn't even care necessarily what was happening. But they'd be yelling always, typically at the at the victim who sprains their ankle when they're trying to run

away from you know, the Jason Borhees character. Right, Okay, we can't leave New Haven without asking you about Peppi's pizza. H that's you know, I I it's in my d n A. I mean there any time my my eldest son attended Choke Rosemary Hall and so when I go to visit him. Uh, it was essential that we we made our way into town. Uh, just to do that.

I mean the really truly is There's lots of different pizza, but for me, when I eat that pizza, it's my favorite movie, my favorite song, my my favorite pair of pajamas. Everything is just rolled into one. Just can't beat it. It's it's something in that you know. Okay, So at what age do you lead to Haven? I was about four, okay, so very early. And how old were you when your parents divorced? Well, I my I never knew my parents married.

My my my mother got pregnant with me and my dad uh split sky, So I never I never knew them as a couple. Um and I didn't even really technically meet my father until I was almost two years old because he was um part of a h An artist program that was sponsored by the State Department in which American artists and artists from all over the world.

It was like an exchange program. So my dad traveled all over the globe for almost two years, living with UM, you know, hosted by artists in in Vietnam, in France and Italy. And so he was on and I you know, my first memory of him, I was about two years old. He had just come back and of course, you know, there was no face time or anything like that or and I kind of wandered downstairs to my bedroom and there was this chap was asleep on on the couch.

And I went back upstairs to my mother's bedroom and I said, uh, Mommy, there's a there's a man sleeping on the couch and she said, that's your dad. Wow. Yeah. I went down and I poked him a few times and he sort of rolled over and looked at me, and I said hi, and he said hi, and uh, he said, come here and give me a hug. And I said, there was two. I said, I don't know you. So, um it was sort of crazy, crazy, uh memory. But yeah, I didn't really sense of of his his presence until

that age. Okay, so you were there to four and then you moved to outside Philly. No, we we we we moved right into the center of West Philadelphia and my my my parents didn't live very far far apart from each other, so you know that I had access to both parents, could could walk, My brother and I could walk to and from their places, and my dad was. My mother was a fashion illustrator, so she had a

studio at home where she did her work. As my father also had his painting studio at his home, but he was um, you know, nine of the time he was down on the Penn campus. So I spent a great deal of time down there. And so siblings, you're talking about your brother, does he share the same mother? Yes, I have, Well, I have only one natural sibling, my brother Silas, who passed away about eighteen years ago from

a pre existing um medical issue. He had a form of my autonic muscular justtry feet which manifested in his heart and and he passed away at forty five, sadly ply um. But so we lived there and my father remarried and he had three children, two of which passed away. One was my infant sister. She died from what they called then crib death now we call it a sudden infant death syndrome, four months old. And then my other brother,

Eli was killed by misadventure in Thailand. He was in a saloon and he went to use the bathroom and while he was there, these guys sort of targeted him for for a robbery and they put heroin in his beer to incapacitate him. Beeknownst to him, he came back, drank the beer and was uh, you know, losing it. But he was allergic to heroine and didn't know that and went into anaphylaxic shock twenty one and died quite

quite tragic. Well, how does death in your feeling? Obviously you missed these siblings, but how does it affect you emotionally in terms of your viewpoint on the world. Well, I would say certainly, you know, being a father, um,

I have I might be a little bit. I don't want to classify myself as a helicopter parent, but I'm I'm one of those cautious parents who have you know, not not necessarily overprotective, but have really tried to raise my kids with a sense of always being aware of their surroundings, their environment, you know, having their head on a swivel without being paranoid and and um because obviously I wanted my kids to have a normal childhood. Um

but but you know, awareness, great awareness. But it's certainly you know, many many a sleepless night when they were when they were little, for sure. Okay, so, oh, you moved to Philly at age four. Do you stay there through high school? No, stayed there until I was about eleven, and then my father decided to He had a summer home in Maine, in a little town called Lincolnville, and he decided he wanted to move there and live there

full time. That was where he painted. He painted the landscapes of Maine, and he he wanted to kind of he just said the city was too much. And you know this is in in the at the very beginning of the seventies and uh So he moved up there into the summer home, which had no indoor plumbing, had no electricity, it was gas lights. There was a privy that was connected to the house. He ultimately, you know, brought electricity and um by way of having a windmill.

So he was really living off the grid. Um. And so I was sort of thrust into the public school system in rural Maine, which was, you know, very primitive compared to So where is Lincolnville and Maine. It's between Camden and Belfast, Maine. So it's really central central Maine. It's about an hour northeast of Augusta, Maine, a couple hours north of Portland. That's really deep beast I mean main is its own mentality. They think it's like New Hampshire Vermont, but it's not. No, it's not. No, it's

not unlike Texas in that way. Right, it feels when you're there, there is there are strong connections to the other New England states, but it's still very much this kind of autonomous um entity in that way. You know, Manners are a very very different breed. Okay, so you

moved to Maine full time. What about your mother? She stayed in Philadelphia and then ultimately moved up to Boston so that she could be closer to my older brother and I And then I ended up going to boarding school and stayed in Maine and went to a boarding school in Basslborough, Maine, which is right next to Waterville School called Oak Grove Coburn School. And it's now it went belly up due to some financial issues in the early eighties. I believe. Um. It's now the main State

Police Academy. The state came bought it. It's a beautiful old set of buildings, you know, it looks like a giant castle on the hill. And I got a fantastic education there, top notch teachers and students that i'm you know, friends with to this day. So that's one thing that people don't realize about prep schools, the level of education you get. I remember going to college and there were people were prep school students and it was just astounding

what they knew irrelevant of their intelligence. Yeah, well, it's definitely, I mean, there is a reason they call it prep school because it you know, I I felt very much um, you know, I felt not necessarily ahead of the curve, but I was not UM. I would say that I was very aware that what the way I was being educated, UM, which worked very well for me, UM, was was kind of exceptional or that at least that the teachers that I had, for the most part were people that really

inspired me to want to learn. But however, when you're at prep school usually there's a big us versus them. That's when you really you know, experience and learn the hi jinks, etcetera. In the dorms completely and you really separate from your parents have become your own identity. That's

been my experience with the prep school kids anyway. Well, yeah, but the other thing is that then there's a kind of in house process of discipline when you when you break the rules, and uh, they were very creative with those with with certain types of punishments that they would they would administer to kids who like myself. But I mean I was I was far from an angel. I was into mischief all the time. So well, just you

gotta give me one, give me one of the creative punishments. Well, I um, it wasn't just me, but my this, this friend and I we we discovered that if we could push snow up against the side of the backside of the girls dormitory and create footholds that we could climb up in through one of the rear windows and gain access into the girl's dorm to see our girlfriends. And

it didn't take them long to figure it out. And uh, we had done such a good job taking watering cans and covering it so it was a solid block of ice. Then we had to go out there and break it apart with sledgehammers, and it took a hell of a lot longer to take that thing about. Okay, so you have this somewhat peripatetic upbringing. What kind of kid are you? The kind of as friends, you're the outsider? How do you fit in? You know what I had a lot

of friends. I was. I was very social, gregarious kid. But I was also a kid who my dad nicknamed me, used to call me lone wolf. Because I also was very comfortable being by myself. I would frequently go and camp um on his property, um on my own, and would kind of disappear, even as a kid of twelve years old. I would just go and at the middle of nowhere, out in the woods and and live out there.

But I was, I had a lot of friends. I had a lot of friends and um and was very very very social and were a good student, bad student. I at first was kind of a mediocre student when I first arrived at Oak Grove and then through just having very very good teachers. There was the ratio, the student teacher ratio was it was kind of perfect. Um I had. I had dyslexia, which manifested in my ability

to do mathematics. Had no problems at all with reading or writing or anything, but I really really struggled terribly with math. So that was my big bugaboo to overcome. So I started out as a as a mediocre student and ultimately became actually a good student with the with the help of Um, really good teachers and tutors and things, and and embraced and really enjoyed school. I have to ask with a name like Titus growing up to get shipped from the kids or they accept you now? And

and I mean when I was a little kid. I mean I still to this day, I'll meet adults and you know, they they'll say, oh, tight ass, and god, I haven't heard that since kindergarten. That's that's great. I took a lot of ship from my name. And you know, as a kid, I hated my name. Uh, But as I got older, I appreciate it certainly when they would, you know, call out names and um, I was the only the only Titus in my class. But yeah, it's a it's a heavy one to hang on a kid.

But but as an adult, I'm okay with it. Is there a backstory with why your name Titus? I was named after Rembrandt's son. Both of my parents I loved Rembrandt and uh, and they they just really liked the name, and so they they gave their name. It's not a family name or anything like that, which I would chide my father later in life. I would say, I guess you really really thought a lot of yourself. You graduate

from high school, what's your next direction? Well, then I went to I did a year of of art school because I originally my my career path was gonna I was gonna be a fine artist like my father. And I went to Bennington College and I, um just um screwed around. I just never went to class. I was majoring in in pot smoking and carousing and beer drinking and just kind of up to nonsense. That being said, it was one of the one of the most interesting

years of my early days. Um. But after an uneventful year, my father just said to me, you know, what are you thinking you're going to do with your life, to which you know, when I was eighteen, I said, I'm going to join the Marine Corps. But my father just spent a shipload of money for me to go to Bennington. He was quite quite cross with me, so he sort of installed me at our family compound and and uh

sort of put me. We we called it inward Bound, in which my I was sequestered in in a guesthouse, an old cape house and my father's property, no visitors, no girlfriends, no phone, no anything. And one day a truck came along a flatbed that had massive moving boxes and they were filled with books. And my father said, here's how this is gonna go. And he basically said, you're gonna read these books, and I'll give you the option. You can either do an oral presentation or you can

write a paper. And knowing you, you're probably gonna wanna chat about it because you're too goddamn lazy to write about it, which is fine, um. And you're gonna you're gonna live in that in that house, and you're gonna you're gonna cut to cut firewood, which I was fine with. Um, But you know, when you read Crime and Punishment and sit down and basically regurgitate all of that over the course of almost four hours, and just to have my father turned to me and said, yeah, you're gonna have

to do that one again. There's a lot you missed. Uh. That part of it was brutal. But I must say by the time that time period had I've read all those books and gone through it, I realized many years later and I went back to school. I went eventually went back to school. I went to n y U did my undergrad and graduate work there that I a large part of my education had occurred in that period of time. And how long it was almost a year? Wow? And just before we leave Bennington, did you read the

Secret History? Yes? Yeah I did. I mean, yeah, if those walls could talk, I mean, there's a lot to be said. And I think it's a it's a very very different school and it was when I was there. Um, there were really no checks and balances. So unless you were a seriously self disciplined kid, um, it was it was not a good fit. And I was not. I was not self disciplined, not certainly, not in that way.

There were too many distractions, and there was you know, you you were kind of isolated, but you know the fact that the the ratio was, you know, there were twelve girls to every guy. I just lost my mind. And and so how had you end up? How'd you end up at n y u? Um? I then what my I said? My father said to me, so, what are you gonna do? I mean, clearly, you know painting is not what you really want to do? And I said, no,

it's not. And he said, well, what is it gets you up in the morning when when when you're not thinking about drinking beer and and and girls? What do you think about And I said, acting anyone, Well, then that's what you should do, because if you're any any pursuit in the arts, be it writing, you know, or or being a musician or or a painter or an actor, in order to have a modicum of success and I'm not talking about um financial success, We'll just say intellectual

sustenance for for oneself. You have to it has to be a quasi obsession. Otherwise there's no point in doing it because it's it's that's true. Did you learn that from experience or did your father tell you? It was both? It was I mean that that was sort of you know, he forewarned me. And so he said, and you know, obviously you can't do that here in Maine. You're gonna have to go back home to New York. So I

packed it up. I got on a Greyhound bus with an army Duffel bag full of my belongings and and crashed on people's sofas until I had enough jobs to be able to get my own apartment and pay my rent. And did that for years, and then um I decided that I wanted to go back to school, and of course I had applied. UM an auditioned and was accepted

at Juilliard and at the Neighborhood playoffs. But when I sort of sat back for a second looking at my options, I decided to go to n y U. Because for me, despite the fact that I knew I wanted to be an actor, I wanted to investigate um other areas of interest, and so I that was so rather than doing a straight conservatory, I decided to go to n y U. And I really got the you know, I got to have my cake and eat it too. It was a

It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. Once again. So you said, your father, in this inward value, you wanted to an actor. There must be a backstory there. Well, I had been. I had acted in high school production, always been interested in that, and of course, growing up seeing so many films, I was always pulled in in that direction to a certain degree. Um and then it it really kind of

turned a page. My mother was living in Boston, and because I didn't live there full time and didn't go to school there or anything, I had no friends, there were no kids. She was living right in the center of Boston, and so I was kind of hanging out at the house a lot, and you know, reading comic books and kind of screwing off going to the cineplex that was a couple of blocks away. But there's only so many times you could see the same films over and over again. And I think that the three films

were walking tall uh Buford. Yeah, it was the second one with both vents and not that not the first one was better, Yeah, much better. And then Beyond the Door, which was which was a low grade attempt to try to remake The Exorcist with Juliette Mills and Um and the Return of the Pink Panther U And that was the only theater that was close. And my mother just came one day and she said, I've signed you up

at this place called Actor's Workshop. And I went, wait, what do you mean, I'm not going to a camp. She said, it's not a camp. It's it's an acting program. It's a summer acting program. You can walk there, it's four blocks away, and you're gonna go give it a shot.

And that was the beginning of it for me. Um. I walked in there and within you know, several hours of being in the company of a lot of these kids were really there studying seriously who wanted to you know, and we're already working here and you know, doing commercials and things like that. Um, I got I got bitten by the bug and it carried me through. So I always, you know, interestingly enough. Cut to many, many many moons later, I'm shooting the first UM film that I did with

Ben Affleck, Gone, Baby, Gone, and back in Boston. And we had a whole conversation because he said he started. We were just having a you know, passing conversation. When did you decide you wanted to be an actor? And I told him and he said, I never went there, He said, but I knew people that went there. And he said that's interesting, and I said, yep, here we are. So it's all come full circle. Okay. How long were you in New York before you went to n y U?

About three years? Okay, so when you went to n YU, you were older than most of the students. I was a transfer student UM. And part of that was that I was working all these jobs and I wasn't really acting all that much because everything that I was doing was to pay my rent. My father said to me, I thought you were going to be an actor. I remember I had gotten a job. Um, I was working construction, and UM the foreman said, hey, I'll put you in

an apprenticeship UM at the tin Knockers Union. You can go there, you'll learn the trade, and you'll get health benefits and all these things. And I was excited by that because I knew I was going to get a substantial pay raise. And I called my father and told him, and that's when he said, but I thought you were going to be an actor. But I suppose if you want to be a tin knocker, go be a tin knocker that you know you can make a good he said, But but stop telling people that you're an actor. And

that kind of shook me up a little bit. I kind of thought, no, no, no no, he's actually right, and I thought, I really need to get my ass back to school. I want to complete my education. You know, this isn't what I want to do. So I was very poor. I mean I still even when I was going to school full time, I had to work multiple

jobs to pay my rent things. But I was I was a full time student as well, and it was n YU was an amazing experience, but you were, uh, focusing on acting at n y U. That was your number one, your major, so to speaking, that was my that was my major. So where were you in the hierarchy of students? Were you one of the people they said, Oh, we give him the roles, he's gonna make it. Just one of the troop. I was one of the troop. I mean there was there were definitely some some favorites there.

But um, the the student productions, the the level of professionalism. I had to say, some of the best directors that I have worked with were some guys that we were doing theater, they were directing. They were in their twenties. Smart, smart guys. The playwright Frank bulliais being one of them who's gone on to have great success as a screenwriter. Also, um uh drawing a blank right now. On the show

um House of Cards, it was was one of them. Um. And a lot of people my class mates that came out of there are people actors of note, Clark, Greg J's, Alexander, Felicity Huffman, UM, A lot of really substantial people. And we did, you know, little student productions together. Um. But you had you had access to people at n y U who were who were actually working in in the business I mean, you know, we had people like Hulu gross Bard and um, you know, Kevin Klein and and

Fred Zolo and Wendy Wasserstein. We got to interact with these people who who were really in it. Ma'am. That was one of my teachers. I eventually left Circle in the Square and went to study with W. H. Macy and David Mammot that had started their own little studio from a summer program in Vermont into a full blown UM studio that was part of the n y U system called the Practical Ascetics Workshop, which eventually became the

Atlantic Theater Company School. And those are all my classmates from that time that that formed that you know, very successful UM prolific theater company. So why did you go to graduate school? What was that about? Well? I got offered a gig. I had a professor he passed away a couple of years ago, Mel Gordon, and he taught this this class. It was an academic class, but it

was called character development. And he had come out of the check off UM school that's where he had trained that but he was now living a life of being really an academic UM. And so what you ostensibly did was you would create a character. You would have a whole, an entire semester to create a character from the ground up, and he didn't care what the character was. And then you had to write your own monologue. UM. So it was all ground up stuff. And I really found that

class to be invaluable. What it did was it really sharpened my ability to observe people, because you know, I was sort of looking around going what am I? What am I going to create a character? You know what, who's what's the character going to be? And you know, one week it was all it'll be you know, the bartender at this saloon. You know, mcsorley's sort of based on that, or this this the schizophrenic homeless guy that

I come into contact with. Um And after a year, um Mel said to me, look, you know, I've been teaching this class here for a million years, and UM, I'm kind of I just feel like I don't have anything else to do with it. But you've got an interesting and fresh perspective on it. You could teach this class. And I went, well, I don't know anyone. Yeah, you're

gonna just do it. You're gonna teach. You're just gonna teach this class and I'm going to arrange it so that so that the credits work towards a graduate degree for you, so you get to So it was it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And he um, I know, I know, I really didn't see very much of him. He just kind of he said, I have fun. But it was it was very interesting,

um to take something over. Of course, the immediate thought on a lot of my classmates was oh, well, I'm going to take his class, because that's gonna be But I made everybody audition for the class, and that was my way of weeding out people who thought they were just going to show up and get a get a pass grade. Um. But also because I only wanted serious people in there, you know, I wanted I wanted to people that really came there, that wanted to do that work,

to do the work. I didn't want to have the babysit people and or listen to bullshit excuses with that I had used a thousand times. So I weeded them out and it became a substantially smaller class when I was teaching it. But they were all really top shelf people. So how many years did you did it take for you to get that graduate degree, or you were doing that program, yeah, for two hours, doing that for two years?

And then were you taking any other courses or your only gig was too No, No, I was doing I was taking classes in cultural anthropology, UM to a couple of pre law classes. I mean therese are just things that I thought. I thought pre law. I felt it would be inevitable that I was going to play a lawyer at some point in my career. And I had a couple of friends that were in the law school and when they would do their mock trials, UM, they would come to me and they would say, I, you

know you're an actor. I want you to to teach me how to do opening and closing statements. Here here's my opening statement, and UM, I want you to kind of coach me through this. How am I gonna? And so I was. I went to a few of them just to observe these guys doing their things, to see if they actually had listened to anything that I had told them, and was kind of pulled into it, and uh, I very quickly realized that that was not what I want to do. And my father was very very disappointed.

And I remember at one point he said, so what are you taking that? I said, oh, I've got these pre law classes. And he said, well what do you why what are you? What are you taking pre law for? I said, well, you know, you never know. He's the tightest. You know, when you're an artist, there's no such thing as a fallback. And I went, well, yeah, I know, and and he was. He was really irritate, and he said, why would you? He said, anybody can do that. Anyone

can become a lawyer. You you just gotta you just have to put in the time and put in the work. But not everyone can be an artist. I thought you wanted to be something substantial and that's not And my father had many friends who were lawyers. I don't think that he had any lack of respect for them, but he for me. He took umbrage to the idea, you know, as if you were raised in this fucking environment, and how could you not absorb all this stuff and now

you're gonna go and do a regular job. Um, well, that does beg the question that it is certainly hard to make it financially as an actor. So you're done with your schooling, what's the next step. Yeah, I've done with schooling and I'm out in the world and and it's you know, the crickets are chirping. I mean, there's just it was the endless backstage um submissions, showing up at theaters with headshots and resumes and you know, and I had, I had a large resume. I had done

a lot of work. Um there and then at n y U and and off off and off off off, you know, other Planet Broadway stuff. Um. But it was, it was, it was really really tough. And so there I was, again, you know, sort of working multiple jobs to be able to you know, just to pay my rent. And you know, it would would come into contact with people who would say that they were managers or agents, and you know, at the time it was some sort

of come on or or bullshit story. And um. And I was working at a at a saloon called The Edge, and that guy who frequented the place had I had just done a production of American Buffalo and he had seen it. And uh, He's sitting at the bar one night he said, I just realized I saw you an American Buffalo. He said, oh, yes, yes, I didn't play. So what are you doing behind the stick? And I said, well, you know, I'm trying to make a living. He said, well,

are your agents not doing a good job? And I said, I don't have an agent. He said, I'm an agent. I thought. I said, oh boy, okay, here we go. But he seemed like a straight shooter to me. Um gave me his card and I didn't. I think it went to my pocket and I kind of forgot about it. And then about ten days later he came in and he said, hey, man, I haven't I haven't heard from you, and I didn't have a number on and I didn't know how to how to contact you. Are are you

do you want to take a meeting or not? He said it's not you know, I'm not I'm not gonna chase you. I said sure and and sure enough he had a legit agency represented some super solid actors, not a big agency, and it had a large modeling age

and see very successful modeling agency. And he started sending me out and after a couple of weeks of working with him, I landed my first role, which was kind of a walk on in a movie called Navy Seals, where I played this this um, you know, redneck who starts a fight with Charlie sheen, and Charlie beats me up and uh, and then things just kind of kept going. But you know, so for me, it's always been um, more of a slow burn, you know. Um, I've it's

been the journeyman path. For me. It's always been you know, work to work, to work to work, um, and which is good because I think, honestly, if I had, if I had had success when I was younger in my twenties, like a lot of my friends did, I would have, you know, I had ended up like one of those monks and Saigon, you know, with a Jerry can of gasoline. I mean, it's a weird analogy, but there was definitely a part of me that was kind of wild, maybe

a bit self destructive. And I don't think that having access to money and and uh then other things would have been would have been necessarily good for me. My journey in that way was very, very humble, and I think it kept me very grounded and kept me very focused. I I would see people around me that were, you know, always talking about getting new headshots and trying to go to this party or to this nightclub because X hung out there, and I thought, what's that you know, this

isn't schwabs. I mean, it's You're not going to walk into a nightclub in New York and unless you're a beautiful woman and someone's gonna walk up to you and say, I'm gonna make you. You know, I'm gonna give you every opportunity you could ever dream of to achieve a monicum of successes as an actor. So in that way, it was it was uphill and it is truly navigating

the sea of heartbreak. But as things started to become more and more consistent, um as far as getting work, and it's also it's a process of learning, you know. I I learned what worked um in in the business as far as um the auditioning process and things stuff that they don't teach you. They don't teach you how to act in front of a camera. Um. You know, my background was purely in the theater, and so jumping to film and television it was a massive learning curve.

I've learned a lot from watching some of my favorite actors on screen. But then it becomes a technical thing. I didn't know the difference between an eighty millimeter and a hundred fifty millimeter lens and what my field of play was and how I was going to do that, and finding my light and all those all those things that you really learn are on the job training. Okay, so the agent you meet in the bar, he sends you out on gigs. You're auditioning. Usually many people are auditioning.

What was it about you? What was the way you audition that would seal the deal for you? I was prepared, um. I. I had a a big belief in not to half acid. And one of the things that I learned is that I couldn't really act with a paper in my hand. So um, I would spend a lot of time memorizing the material for an audition, and it always sort of vexed me because I would go to No, that's not to say I've never gone into an audition holding a

holding the script in my hand. You know, certainly during pilot season, um, when you've got seven eight meetings in one day, you you have to kind of cherry pick. And that's what I would do. I would go, Okay, this is the one that I think I can I have, I have a good chance of getting this. It's in my wheelhouse, so I'm going to put all of my energy into memorizing this material and then the rest, you know, would I would do the best that I could possibly do.

But for me, I think, um, it was the investment of time and focused that um that kind of won the day for me. And I was also very UM, I didn't really fall necessarily into any category. You know, I wasn't Brad Pitt cute, and I wasn't you know, John Casali character actor. I was sort of what they would call an off leading man. And so you know, the beauty of that was I did get to play and have been been privileged to play lots of different

types of characters. The other hard part is that you play, you know, if you do a heavy which I did quite a few heavies, UM, they the temptation or the you know, the term pigeonholed, it tends to kind of carry over to a certain point. So there at one point I did I was getting offered a lot of sort of the same type of roles, and despite the fact that you know, for the sake of commerce and and looking after myself, UM that I had to turn stuff down, which I really was not in a financial

position to do. But I thought, if I don't set the President. Now by not doing this, I'm gonna forever, I'm gonna get locked into doing this, and I don't want to do it. And just as I made that decision, I got a call to go and read for a role on NYPD Blue, to read for Mark Tinker and Steven Bocho and David Milch. And I thought, of course when I got the call, oh, it's a it's a cop, it'll be a cople And he said, no, actually this

guy is. He's a Trump the surgeon in in the er and Nick Deturro's character gets shot and shootout, and you're the guy that that patches him up. And they're not going to cast me as the doctor. They never will see me as as a hard guy of Hollywood thinks that I'm Italian and I'm actually English and Irish, you know. So I don't want to waste anybody's time. I'd rather wait until a coprole comes along, because that'll

be something i'll get. And they said, well, they know who you are and they want to see you for this. And went in and I kind of pulled myself together and I read and and and they cast me on the spot, and that character ended up kind of recurring over the years on NYPD Blue. But he was a doctor. He was a very kind of um. He was unlike any character that I had played before, certainly on on screen, is sort of soft spoken, you know. He was the he was the doctor that if one had a doctor,

he had, you know, impeccable bedside manner. He's a guy you would want to treat you, who wouldn't treat you like an idiot um um, but also wasn't perfunctory and in the handing off of bad medical news and that kind of uh. That opened up my relationship with David Milt and Stephen Bosco. I then went on to do Brooklyn South with them and then Big Apple. After that with with David Milton went on to do Deadwood with David milchon so that collaboration lasted over several shows, and

I did some other work with Steven Bochco. But that was for me a major turning point and how I was I was perceived. I mean, I think casting directors and other people in the business sort of said, oh, he can, he can do this other thing and I and I owe that to Botch going to Tinker and into Milch to sort of say we're going to give you this shot to do this thing. It was a game changer for me. And at what point after you get the gig and Navy Seals do you stop having

to have a day job. Oh I I'm trying to think I stopped having a day job. So let's for arguments, I did Navy Seals. I. Yeah, I didn't go back to like, I don't No, I don't don't think I ever did go back to a day job after that. Okay, And you talked about the heartbreak, and you tell us a little bit more about the heartbreak of being an

actor and auditioning, etcetera. Yeah, Well, it's it is that it's so personal and you have to learn or to not be personal because there's so much there is so much rejection, and particularly when you put in a considerable amount of time into an audition and you go in and you do really well, um, and it's evident that you've done well, and you're being um sort of not necessarily pat on the back, but you know, and you've made your casting director friend very happy that they've brought

you in. Um. Only two then find out that they've cast someone who is not only not physically right for the role, but not a very good actor. Um those things. That's that's a hard Pilba swallow. But I kind of learned pretty quickly to remove my ego from it and to just focus on what it was that I could do, so that if I didn't get something, I would say, oh, there was something that if I had done something differently, or and also to listen to the notes that were

being given by directors and certain things. Um, yeah, there's always gonna be I mean, I think even at the highest level there there will always be roles and an actor might want that they're not going to get just because you know, the time they want the guy or the gal to walk in the door. Then they go eureka, you're you're precisely you know what I'm looking for with a character. Now, if you can act, that's gonna be even better. But the physicality, the physicality is all there. Um.

But that's what it was for me. I learned to not take it personally, and I think it helped me because I would I think, you know, and I've been on the other side of the table when people have come in and auditioned for for things that I've been a part of that um when you when when you carry that that anxiety, it's it's it carries an odor, you know that that that that it's not necessarily ambition, but it's it's it's the anxiousness. I want to you know, I, I want to do well I And you can't charm

your way into a into a part. You have to come in and do the work. And once I realized that it wasn't about the small talk and the bullshit that occurred, you know before and after the audition, or you know, how your kid was doing in school. It was really my only job was to do the best possible job that I auditioned that I could do, and that was it. And then I had to just and either they were going to get it or they didn't get it. And once I got to that place and

it wasn't it was arduous. That was a conversation I had with myself that went on for a minute. It was liberating, and then I was was truly able to just go in, do that, finish it, walk out and be okay. Okay. Now, beginning, you were a stage performer, and you're mostly known as someone who's on screen, So have you acted on stage? Or is that something that you want to do or where does that leave you? Yeah?

I mean all of all of the beginning work that I ever did was on the stage and I have not been on stage in in many, many years, and I miss it and I would really like to find, um, the right play to do. I mean a couple of things have come across my desk. That's also been a timing issue, um, and a commitment thing because of my shooting schedule with Bosh and or other other projects that I've been involved with. Because it's it's a big commitment.

I would nothing would make me happier than to find the right play and to go do you know a four or a six month run of a play? I think every actor worked or saw or at least who is who comes from the theater is that's always where you want to get back to you. You know, there's there's nothing like performing in front of a live audience. It's it's you fire on all cylinders as an actor when you're doing that. So how did you get Bosh? Well? I got the script, and um, who's your agent? Is

you is the same agent from when you got Bosh? Yeah, I've had the I've been with the same agent for Why Something Ears, and that agent is in works where at Paradigm Chris Shman at Paradigm Agency. Um, and she's I mean, she's not she's like a member of my family. I mean, so she's we've we've we've been through it all together. So I got the script. Wait, did well? How did you get the script? Did you say, I have something perfect for you. Hey, we're emailing you the script.

It's a it's a it's a pilot for Amazon. It's called BOSH. I said, okay, great. Um, And interestingly enough, I had just written a pilot from myself. I've gotten to a. UM. My late wife had been ill with cancer and that had been obviously my primary focus was looking after her, but also having to work at the same time to be able to pay for medical bills and to take care of the family. So in the last couple of years of her life. I would show her script. So it's again, look at this pilot, read

this thing. She would go, God, it's direct, that's direct. You don't want to do that. Don't you don't want to do that? You don't want to do that. Um. And so she said, why don't you you're a writer, why don't you write something for yourself, something that And

I thought, okay, sure, that's a good challenge. So I wrote something for myself and was literally getting ready to go to the next phase, which would be to go out with my manager and my agent and take meetings to see if someone wanted to do this as a show. Just to stop for a second, you have a manager in an agent. Can you explain the roles of each

from my audience? Yeah, one, Well, my manager sort of is the keeper of the castle, and um, the sort of trajectory and and the brand, the you know, the and he navigates different things with the you know, with the agents. Silan, how long have you been with the manager? For fourteen years? Okay, so you're a loyal guy. I'm a loyal guy. Um. So, so you were writing this thing that your late wife inspired you to do. Yeah, so I wrote it and and um I was able.

I'm I'm lucky because I have lots of very very strong, successful writer friends that I was able to send it to. And of course, you know, I would say I want to hear everything. I don't you know, don't don't don't soft sell it back and so uh. The responses were very very positive. People were saying, you should, you should do this. I I struggled with it because I felt like, um,

it's actually about a painter. And I thought, Okay, the dialogue is solid, the idea is very very solid, but what's going to sustain an audience interest in this guy's who's having a kind of existential midlife crisis. Anyway, cut too, I'm doing sort of some final tweaks before we're going to head out with it, and I get bosh and I read it, and I mean I read it very fast. It was the pilot script was a page turner, and I went to myself, oh wait, I read one of

these Harry Bosch novels years ago. Oh marvelous. But everything was on the page, so it wasn't you know, even if I hadn't read one of the books many many years prior to that. It you know, it was Eric Overmeyer and Connolly had had written this together, and it was really strong. The character was clear, and I thought, ship, you see, now I'm in trouble because this is I couldn't write a better, you know, role for myself. I

understood the character immediately. Um, I knew how I would want to play this character, but I also felt like it wasn't broke, so there was no need to fix it. I mean that was was on the page, was was really clear. Through a series of mishaps, I was supposed to meet with Overmyer and Connolly and with the producer Peter Young Brug and Henrick Baston while I was hopping

the train. I was at my farmhouse in Connecticut. I was going to hop on the train and go to New York to meet them, and my cell phone got stolen, and my kids were little, and I didn't you know, they were with friends, but I didn't want to not be able to communicate with them, so I jumped off the train and went, not, I'll have to reschedule it. And I was shooting one of the Transformers films at the same time, which when I was in Chicago, I

was in Michigan, Hong Kong. It was all over the place, um And so the meetings kept getting pushed and pushed and pushed, And a couple of months later I got a call again from my manager and he said, look, you got a little window. You're gonna be in l A for a couple of days. So, um, we're you're gonna have the meeting. You're gonna meet Michael Connolly and company. And I went, wait, wait, wait for bosh and yeah, so I thought that boats sailed. That's been months. He said, no,

they can't find Harry. It's a big problem. They're actually even considering sort of shutting down for a minute and regrouping because there they can't find Arry. So lo and behold. I went back, looked at the material, got tight with the material, went in, met Michael and Jim McKay, who directed, the director who did the pilot, and Henry Computer yawn, and once again it was sort of it wasn't that thing.

I didn't want to want it too much because I realized, hey, it's a great character be it shoots in Los Angeles, um, and it's this brave new world of streaming content from the ground up. This is a really really interesting place to be. And I got a call not long after the meeting from my manager, Um, and uh, he said you're the guy. And I was thrilled. And I literally had to pull the car over because I thought I might,

you know, crash the car. I was so excited and and it's just been it, and I knew after meeting with them, and certainly I knew on the first day that we were on the set shooting the pilot that I was a part of something that was. It's not we didn't reinvent the wheel, we just it was. It was a great character, it was a great environment, and the source material of Michael's books was substantial, really interesting, and we hadn't seen anything like that, um, certainly not

within this format. Right, rather than being the typical sort of standard fare of police procedural television show, we were going to take ten episodes to work one case. Rather than Bosh coming in, catching the call and getting of it. Then the middle of the show is him working the case, and then he's got the bad guy Embracelet's book him Dano. By the end of the show, things were going to

carry through, and so it was much more an established framework. Two, the experience of of actually reading one of Michael's books and and also having Mike there, the cast, quality of

the writing and and the cinematography, I mean everything. I remember watching the first pass at at the pilot and I went ship, you know, if this doesn't go, um, it's gonna take me It's gonna take me a long time to get over this, because this is something that I think, um has more weight than anything I've ever done, you know, And and that was that's a tall that's a tall order considering that, you know, obviously having done shows like The Good Wife and Sons of Anarchy and

and the work that I've done with David Milch, Um, this this one was was kind of perfect. And you know, fortunately Amazon I saw, found their way too to make the show. And I think the show honestly has has consistently gotten better each season that we've we've we've gone on. I certainly agree, not that it wasn't good to begin with. Did Amazon hesitate or were they immediately in? I think that they were immediately and you know not just because of the the massive fan base for lack of a

better term, that Michael's books have. I mean, Jesus, the you know, the people that read his books are deeply dedicated, um and and those books are you know, incredibly successful globally, and we're you know, having Michael there. I think if you took this material, if you built this from the ground up, um, it would it would be different. But it resonates the way Mike spins spins the case and the tail is what makes it exceptional. But once again,

you know what we've seen. We've seen many cops shows, and I've done many of the Cops shows. It's it's not new, but it's um. I think it's it's a revisitation to films of this genre of the sixties and the seventies or something that feels older, and that's comforting. But it's kind of older. It's something familiar to us, but it doesn't feel um. We're not constantly pushing the what my grandmother would have called the blood and thunder envelope.

I mean, it's really about a guy who's relentless and he's very good at his job. Um, and he's a grinder and he's but he's flawed. He's human. I think that's what I think pulls the audience. They kind of that that humanity of him. He's you know, he's fallible, he's vulnerable, he's he can be a cranky prick. Um. He doesn't subscribe to this sort of societal norms that most people do of coming into a room and saying, Hi,

how are you nice to meet you? Though you know he Harry comes in, he's got something to do, and he doesn't wanna He's not a small talk guy, you know, and you kind of have to. You have to support and dig a character that has that kind of UM has a sense of direction and commitment. There's nothing wishy watching about him at all. He's you know, he's got he is that forward speed. Well, it's just funny talking to you now. It really poses to character because you're

in by minute personality outside the role. He's not the same, No, No, we're very very do We share some similarities, certainly, and I've tried to but once again, you know, there was only so much I could necessarily bring to this character because Mike had created such a strong, strong character, and

there were things that we had to change. Obviously, we didn't follow the books chronologically, and we weren't going to do a period piece and set it back so that we could would be Harry's military service in Vietnam, so we updated it. But I always felt that it was very important for that Harry's military service be central to

a certain degree as to who who he was. You know, a lot of the cops have said to me, who enjoy watching the show, Um, you know, it's interesting when I watch you move and the tactics that you employ in your weapons handling, it's hut, that's not cops stuff. That's that's that's military. And I said, no, I wanted that. That was something that was important to me. Is that that muscle memory, that he not moved like a cop, that he moved like an operator, like a former SF operator.

So all those little things, and and Mike was um and and Eric were very open to those, to those ideas. UM. So that was your idea to make it a military style, well, to make yeah, to give him that physicality. And how did you achieve that? I mean you to hire a trainer or someone with insight. Well, I've trained many times over the years, not only with law enforcement, but with military guys. UM, just for my own for my own

pleasure and my own education and also for roles. And prior to doing BOSH, I was with a group of UM former Navy Seals. When I did that, I can did with when I did Transformers, they they did a training program as well as if you see that film, all the guys that are with my character, those are all real seal guys. There's there there are none of them are well, they're some of them are actors. Seal former seals slashed and they become actors and stuntmen and

technical advisors. UM. So I had just gone through a hole a series of weapons handling with them, and I thought, this is a great way to kind of move that. Even though Harry wasn't um, he wasn't a Navy seal. So when I went back to was to look at the weapons handling techniques of a special forces guy, army guy that would be match with Harry's age. So the way that the way that Harry holds his weapon is is very kind of old school. Um. And that stuff

gets picked up on by by military and law enforcement guys. Um. But it's sort of my way of you know, I and I get that. I mean, if I watch a film and there's weapons handling and it's badly done, it will it will literally take me out of the movie, um, because I just say to myself, wait a minute, it had time. It's not brain surgery, it's it's muscle memory.

Do the goddamn work. Um. So there's little little things like that about Harry that Okay, So we live in the air of peak TV four d scripted series whatever per year. Bosh comes out, it's on Amazon. At the time, people are not quite as accepting of streaming media as they are today. First season comes out, What does it feel like on your ind I mean, if you look at Breaking Bad, Breaking Bad was on TV. Wasn't on until it was on Netflix a couple of years later

that people even caught on. Yeah, well, I it was interesting to see um, and I kind of gauged it basedly Amazon at that time they didn't really well and a lot of a lot of networks don't either share a lot of that data. So you know, the process of trying to figure the numbers was was a process of kind of extrapolation. UM. So we had a sense that the show had done well. UM. Just in now, I've never read been one to read reviews um of

my work. And it sort of goes back to something that my father said to me when I was a kid, when I called him up to congratulate him on this love letter that John Ashbury had written to him in Time magazine and I and I said, oh, you know, that's so great that you you got from Ashbury. He said, I've not read it, And well, you've got to run out and get it that it's really it's quite it's amazing, it's beautiful. Said no, no, no, have you ever have I ever read a review of my work to you

will know? Have you ever seen me or even discussed a review of my work with anyone? He said, right? And I said, why is that? And he said, you either get a swollen head or a broken heart, and neither neither stayed as desirable. And that resonated with me, and so I carried it through. UM. And so there were all these online reviews on the Amazon website that they were encouraging us to read. Oh, you know, five stars people are rating this thing. So it was the

Brave New World UM. And as I said, I think if this was a purely original show that someone had just written the pilot, UM, it could have been. It could have been a tougher road. But I think because of the success of Michael's books, that people were invested in wanting this to succeed because they were finally going to get to see the kind of physical embodiment of this character that they dedicated, you know, hours and hours of their time reading the books. And suddenly Harry was here.

So there's been six seasons already. How has it changed your life playing the role of Harry Bosh. Well, certainly, Um, you know, my my anonymity is um pretty much shot now. I I don't. I don't. My life is not like Bruce Willis or Brad Pitt. You know, I can walk into a store and not and not have to be swarmed by by crazed fans. But um no, I you know, the people people come up to me quite often and and talk about about the show. I'm recognized a lot

for for the character. And the sweet thing is that, um people people like they really like Harry. So it's there's a tremendous amount of goodwill that comes when someone will approach me. Um. And it's different than you know, the Lost. These we would call them when I was doing Lost, and it would come at me with these technical questions about the story and and the mythology, and and I would say, look, you know, sometimes for me, ignorance is bliss. I just kind of showed up and

did did my job. I didn't didn't know a lot and I certainly didn't. Um. I had nothing to do with the writing and the way that that story was tied up and that series was tied up. Did you enjoy it? Um? Whereas Box it's kind of all over the place. I've got military people, law enforcement people, UM, people who are in in the literary world, and they all the consistent thing is they all they like Harry.

They say, you know, you've got a root for him, and he kind of because he says and does the things that a lot of people would like to do, but they don't want to lose their jobs. Um. And so he kind of because he has a bit of that everyman thing, and I think that's what makes him accessible, you know. And he's not it's not that kind of toxic masculinity that we that we see. You know, he's not a misogynist, he's not a he's not an asshole.

He could be an asshole sometimes he can. He can be really abrupt, But then that's the thing that kind of makes him interesting because you kind of go, well, yeah, and when he's contrite, he's contrite certainly is he you know, his relationship to his daughter, um, and he and he's

capable of apologizing when he's wrong. So that that's what I think makes him accessible to people and endearing to people and certainly if one was a victim of a violent crime, you would want someone like Harry who is not going to necessarily break the law, um, but would definitely circuitously move around you know, the bureaucratic uh, you know, blocks to to to you know, obtain justice for for the victims. Because this Harry says, you know, the closure is a myth. All that I can agree in real

life it's a myth I do too. So a couple of elements about the show. Are you a jazz fan personally? I am very much So. I don't have the encyclopedic knowledge um or the record collection that Harry has, but I've I've grown up listening to all different kinds of music, but I've always loved jazz. Um because both of my parents loved. My dad, I knew quite a few Um, he knew a lot of those guys. He knew Coltrane, and he knew Miles, Miles, Davison, Monk and Um was

was friendly with them. So the that his his turntable had had a lot of jazz piled up on it, um, And that's such a central part of who Harry is, you know, his his love for that, And I always kind of you know that it was mentioned in one of the books, And I said to Connelly, I think it was a year ago. There's that there's that marvelous bit and I can't remember the name of the book right now where we find out where Harry first heard jazz, And I said, and it would be a flashback. It's

when he's a teenager. He takes a young black woman too. He's going to take her to the school prom, and through a series of mishaps, he's he gets kind of beaten up, and then the girl misconstrues his desire to take her to the prom as um being some sort of a weird um token movements, and so she rejects Harry.

So the girl's father ends up driving Harry back to the house that he's staying with his foster family, and when they're in the car, Harry here's his first taste of jazz, and and it it's a lifelong love affair. Another thing people mentioned constantly about the show is the house. Yeah, now did you did they find the house? Do you

have any specific feelings about the house? Yeah. Peter Young Bruga, who's one of our producers, Um worked with Michael Mann Um over the years had done several films with Michael Mann, and in the film Heat, that house is Amy Brennaman's house and Heat, and there's a scene with Bob de Niro and Amy Brennaman that where they shot it right

there in in that in that great room. But what Peteron told us interesting enough later a little trivia was that Michael Man set up green plates so rather than just shooting it in real time, which is what we do, whatever is in the background going on. Helicopters are planes, we don't sweat it. It happens. It happens. He shot plates so that he could actually control visually what was behind them. And despite the fact that some of that technology was somewhat new, Um it may have been cleaned up.

I haven't seen the latest blue ray cut of Heat, but I can remember seeing and thinking that's CG or there's some sort of an effect there because you could see a little weird kind of halo around their heads. Um. That house is amazing. It's it's the best views of in l A. It's a colossal pain in the ask to shoot up there because those streets are all you know, they're they're like their horse paths. You know, they're so in order to um, we can't bring our big trucks

up there. So they've got a truck and the equipment offloaded and you know, we've got a large crew, but you can't. It's close. It's a it's not a big house. I mean, there's that one kind of big great room that Harry looks out onto the city and you have his patio which is there. But it's a tiny, tiny house. The rooms are really quite small. But it's you know, it's Harry's nest. I mean, he's the eagle looking above his his city and Peter Yon just it's snapped two.

It's a different location than it is in the books because it faces out on the other side where it's Harry's house in the books looks over over a studio city and in the one on one, well, speaking of studio city in the one on one, that's sort of amazing that the city itself is a character in the story. And for those of us who live here, it's nailed so right. I mean, like watching the sixth season, it seemed like you shot in the summer into the full

just based on the light. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, we start at the end of July and we finish up usually the last week of November, so we're really in the thick of it. August is probably the hardest. The end of August is the hardest month, just because the heat. And in this past season, we shot a lot in the Valley. You know, the three oh eight's, the you know, the kind of crazy alt right group. All right, they're actually they're they're for real. First, didn't we get that

story with a football player just this week to follow that? Yeah, yeah, and he had it was three oh eight that was tattooed on his arm, right, I think so. But but that whole you know, those guys actually showed up on our set, the real guys, and got into a whole confrontation with our cops, because that's what they do. They get in the cops spaces they had. They showed up with video cameras. They were, you know, insulting the police,

calling them gestapo's, and um. It was interesting because it wasn't It didn't feel to me that they were trying to make trouble for us the production, but it was more an opportunity for them to confront the cops, and the cops were I have to say. They exercised tremendous patients. I had to walk away. I mean they didn't. One of the guys asked me for an autograph, which I thought was really funny, and if I would take a

picture with him. Um, And I said, you know, normally I would, but you're you know, you're really screwing us up. You know you've already cost us an hour of time. And you know I come to do my job. I want to get home and have dinner with my kids. I don't want to stand around and waste time while you have some piss out with the police. I respect your you know, your belief system and your right too to act as such. But you know you're showing up at my job and don't inflict yourself. Um. So he

didn't let was his response. He said, well, it's a it's a it's a it's a bigger thing than just your television show. And I said for you, I said for you, and I'm showing you that respect. I'm not telling you you're full of ship or you're wrong. Um. You have every right to live the way you want to live, as long as you're not hurting people. I don't have a problem with it, I said, but you're you're hurting me and all these people that you know, this is our job so frequently, uh, contracts or TV

shows or five or seven seasons. Is that why you're ending it after the than the season? What's going on there? No, that's that played out a bit on social media where people the immediate lea was that it must be some sort of a contractual negotiation and that there is. There's not one bit of truth to that whatsoever. This is a decision that's above my pay grade. Um, that was made by Amazon to have season seven B the last season. And uh, and while I'm while I'm you know, disappointed,

there's nothing I can do about that. So I myself and the producers and the writers, we've we've all sort of agreed that, you know, our job is just to make the season seven, um, you know, our best season and see it as the glass half full rather than half. So nobody on the creative team decided to blow the whistle now. And if for some reason Amazon change their mind or assuming the legalities where in order you could shift to a different platform, could that happen or is

this definitely the end? I don't I don't know the answer to that question. Honestly, I I don't know how you can. Sometimes there is an ability to take a show from one network or or producing entity and move it elsewhere. I don't know that that's possible to do with vosh Um. There there's certainly no lack of willingness for the show to continue. I mean, Amazon, stranger things have happened. They might they could peasibly change their mind

that they could. Season seven could be the last seven, and then a couple of years could pass and they may say, hey, you know what we're gonna we want to bring this guy back. And and I you know, I speak for myself and the rest of the cast and certainly the producers and the writers that everyone would would would be on board to do that absolutely. Okay. One of the things someone watches notices when watching Bosh

is the tattoos. So some people might think it was the character, but in reality those that is your body with the tattoos. That's true. And yeah, no, that was a discussion when we first came together because Harry has these scars on his knuckles or when he was a kid living down on the docks of San Pedro, as a runaway he had to hold fast tattooed onto his

to his knuckles. And then when Harry and listened in the army, one of the first things that happened was his drill instructor basically came out and said he no, no, no no, that's a sailor tattoo and that's not going to cut it. Takes him behind the barracks and makes him punch a brick wall until his hands look like hamburger, and then when it heals, he makes Bosh go back and do it all over again. So we every day when I go to work, they pay on these little scars.

And I actually we addressed it in the second or third season. Um Harry tells the story. Tells that story now knowing that when I first before we started shooting the pilot, I had a tattoo discussion with Eric Obermeyer and with Connelly. I said, look, I have tattoos and I continue to get tattoos, So we can do this one of two ways. And I said, I'm aware that he's removed this tattoos, these tattoos from his from his hands when he was a kid. Um, so it works

either way. Either we just have my tattoos. We never come in close on them. Um. Or I if I ever have to wear a short sleeve shirt, it's a couple of hours in the chair because they're going to have to come in. They're gonna have to um air brush, you know, with this shull kind of pigment to cover the tattoos, and they're gonna have to flock hair on my arms. That it's a process and it's going to

take a long time. Or I can just never wear a short sleeve shirt and always where and and actually I said, but I'm I'm actually fine, which was showing my tattoos, and Connolly said, yeah, people, it's people are no longer stigmatized by having tattoos. It's not a it's not a taboo thing. It's not indicative of your you're standing in society. Um. So Mike said, let's just let's just go with the tattoos. What I will say is I have significantly more tattoos now than I did in

the first season. So I would usually get a call from my manager at some point and he would say, I just got a call from Henrik. There's one. Hendrick Basting is one of our producers. Hendricks is he said, did you get some new ink? And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, you you posted some pictures on Instagram with some new tattoos. Um, what are you doing? And I just said it's it's just me, I know. But anyway,

they've become a part of Harry. I mean unless someone freezes a frame or certain certain shots you can see. But we never talked about them. There was only one time where uh, Brooke Smith was playing a captain at at the Hollywood Station and it was a funny exchange where Bosh walks by her and and Harry's got his sleeves up and she says, roll down those sleeves, detective, and he kind of comes back to says what she said, unless you're gonna get a wire brush and take those

things off. No ink in my house. Um. And it was how old were you when you got your first tattoo? I was a teenager, okay. And we see the tattoos on your arms. Do you have tattoos on other places in your body? On your body? I just have to tattoos.

Tattoos on my rib cageum, which are which are two lovely things that my my girlfriend wrote to me, And so I was so touched, I thought I would just Okay, So when you when you continue to get these tattoos, do you think that this might impinge on your ability to get roles in the future. Well, it would be the same sort of thing. I could say, well, you know what, this character doesn't have tattoos, so let's cover my tattoos, or let's dress me in wardrobe where you

never where you never see them. Um, I don't think that you know, I've been doing this long enough now, and people know that I have tattoos, and I think they're gonna they're gonna cast me. They're gonna cast me from the neck up to begin with, and then we can know what we can do deal with the tattoos. Um. Remember my aunt saying, well, you know, you'll never be buried in a Jewish graveyard. And I said, well, I know, but I'm not. We're not Jewish, and she she said,

oh that's right, I forgotten. Um, I'm the only I'm the only guy you'll ever meet who had a going mitzvah. But that's a whole Um. Well, is there a story there? Yeah, there actually is. When I was all of my extended family as a kid, Um, we're Jewish. So I went to temple. My parents were is your mother Jewish? No, not at all. I don't have I don't have any background at all. These were all extended family or as people who were I called aunts and uncles who I

was very very very close to my family. And so I'm getting ready and I uh from my birthday and I say to my father, uh, so what are we gonna do from my bar Mitzvah? And my father just looks at me and said, what are you talking about to my bar mitzvah? You're not having a bar mits? So what do you mean? I'm not having environments? Of course I am Danny Goldstein at Enviarnments. But David Wiseman had apartment trying to seemed to understand. I said, why am I not having the word mits and me? He said,

you're not Jewish. I said, yeah, I am, and he said no, no no, no, being Jewish is a religion. It's not just the state of mind. And so this got back to my aunt, who was so sort of touched and thought it rather hilarious the whole thing that she came to me and said, I don't need to worry about this. I'm gonna handle it, which I said what she said just so it was a gathering and you know, I read a little read a little text and uh

and and she said, it's a going mitzvah. So and it was you know, and I and I, uh, it was it was kind of a lovely, you know, coming of age experience for me. In my hand. My father said, well, you know what, you can say whatever you are now. Um. But I just I think it was just because I was immersed in that culture. Um and uh. That was the only sense of spirituality and religion that I had, was going to temple and observing observing the holidays, both holidays.

I mean we we would go to my aunt's for Passover and and and uh and celebrate Hanukah at her house. But then also they would come and you know and have Christmas with us. So it was it made kind of perfect sense. But I never went to I didn't go to church. My parents would. My dad said to me, you will never go to church with me. I wore the seat of my pants out on a on a psychotic you know, irish him in Catholic church bench. So

I'm not doing that to you guys. So we went to Episcopalian schools and uh and and I and also I was at the went to school with the Child Studies Center, learned how to swim with the Jewish Community Center and the New Haven. So did you go to Episcopalion in Philly? Yeah? Yeah, I went to the St. Peter's School down on Lombard Street. Right, Okay, you're so well adjusted. Have you ever been in psychotherapy? Yeah? You better believe in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis? Yeah? Is that in

the rear view mirror? You still practicing? No? I like to I like to say I'm a work in progress. I said, I've said to my to my kids. One at one point when they one of them said to me, oh, you had years and years and years of he was pissed at me and he was sort of about my um sometimes impatient and cantankerous nature, and and uh, yeah, you did all these years of psychoanalysis and you're still you're you're still half crazy. And I said, yes, and well that's that's all that it is. It's it's you

learn to analyze. It doesn't mean you're necessarily out of that which, but yeah, tons of it, tons tons of psychotherapy and and and I will maintain that I'm I'm as batshit crazy as I've ever been. I'm just a little bit better at at navigating it and not inflicting myself on people. I would say, I'm I'm I'm a much more centered and well adjusted creature than I was in the past. So, Bosh, you have all this notoriety that this series has built. Where does this leave you

going forward? Well, I'm you know, I'm definitely utilizing this this lockdown period. I've had a lot of ideas that have kind of been percolating, and um, it becomes that thing of I gotta you know, I gotta fix that hinge and I really want to reseal my driveway kind of thing, but of writing, and so I'm, um, I'm putting together some ideas that have been floating around, and the post post Bosh life will be, um, you know,

hopefully realizing those things. But you never know, because um, I think once well, one can only hope that I'm become a free agent again, that there will be you know, other opportunities. It may be that thing right where I go to somebody and I had them say, here's the here's the show that I wrote that I wanted for myself that I want to do and they'll go, that's great. So I have this one that the studio has already committed to, and if you want to do it, we

can start shooting this next month. I think it'll be it'll be interesting. I'm not one. I'm you know, sedentary is not my nature. So whether I'm putting it down on a piece of paper immediately, or if I'm um letting the idea just date and the idea has just stated enough to the point now where I can actually sit down and start to to write an outline, and I think it's a I think it's good. It's very different than than Bosh, but um, I think it's a solid idea. So hopefully, UM, the next time I talked

to you, we can be talking about that. Or we could also be having that conversation where you could say, remember when I said to you when you're on the show, Hey, what if decides they want to do this, Well here we are, We're back and we're still doing it. Um, you know that's a look. I I just love to work. I'm very very fortunate that I can make a pretty damn good living doing what I love. To do and

and and I love to work. I'm like, so let's just say for the thirty years, will give you thirty years on this planet if you just continue to work. Is that satisfying? Men try to tend to think of a totem pole. Is there some specific goal that you want to reach or a conceptual level. I would like to um begin to direct certainly. Uh that had been a consideration on bosh. Uh. It just the schedule and how it works just for me seemed to make it

too daunting. And then when I realized it was going to be our last season, UM, I said, you know what, I kind of pulled my hat out of the ring because that's what we were gonna do. I was going to come in and direct in the seventh season. And then I just said, you know, I really want to focus on doing the show. If that boomerangs back at another time, if there is life elsewhere or something, yeah, sure,

but that's something I'd like to do. And I would also like to um develop other things as a writer, not just for myself but for for other actors, and to direct and produce those those projects. And and as always continue uh my career as a painter which is something that's that's important to me. How often do you paint? Well, right now, I'm not painting at all because my studios back east. I typically paint when I'm back at the

at my farm during the summertime. I take that that solid month and get up and paint every single day because I painted acrylics and I paint very quickly. I will typically paint for a solid six to seven hours and in a day to complete a painting. So have these representational or abstract? Yeah, they're a I mean it definitely falls into the column of abstract expressionism, not dissimilar from from my father, but also very very different than this.

But I paint landscapes, their landscapes. But there and are these paintings shown and for sale? Yes? They are? Yeah, um they I had a show actually here in Los Angeles at the at the Home Gallery at Bergamont Station. Um, and I'm I'm looking to uh actually had a print that was purchased by the Museum Modern Art in New York. Congratulations, Thank you, thank you. I know, I'm um. I wish my old man could be alive to see that, because he would uh, I know that would that would please him. Okay,

this has been wonderful, Titus. Really, as I say, you're quite The conversation was rock and tour and we could go on forever, but I think we've come to the end of the feeling we've known today. Thanks so much for doing this, Thank you much for having me, and I just want to tell you what a great crib as it is to to be able to talk to

you one on one. I'm a I'm a longtime fan, and um, I have to say, for one who doesn't read reviews, I was so um pounded and pounded by friends, family and representation to read the beautiful things that you wrote. So you're the first my friend, and I have to say I read it very quickly and I went but um,

but thank you. Although that reminds me of a couple of things on James Taylor's Guerrilla album from it was a great song called Lighthouse, and he goes, just because I might be standing here, that doesn't mean I won't be wrong this time where by And the other thing, that's what people do when people say, oh, you're so right on whatever, I give him that back because I can't hold that. The other thing I tell people is every day I hear people email me that I'm God,

and people email me that I'm a ship head. So you know nature of the Internet. If you get that instant response, it's beautiful read it. You know, on some levels level of inoculation. Although there's people you know me every day to tell me that I'm a ship heead so a couple of those people I don't read anymore. But thanks again, thank you so much. So next time, this is Bob left Sense