EnglishPrime-Video - Bosch Season 6 : Interview Titus Welliver
By Mulder, Los Angeles, 27 april 2020
Q : The Season 6 follows Michael Connelly’s books The Overlook and Dark Sacred Night. Have you personally read these books to prepare for the filming of this sixth season? Can you give us a short overview of this season of Bosch?
Titus Welliver : This season is continuing from season 5 to investigates a cold case, the murder of the fourteen girl Daisy Clayton and also Harry Bosch is called to a murder scene which men are been killed. There is also a matter of radioactivity that had been stolen to destroy the water system of Los Angeles. Harry is forced to working with conjunction with FBI.This is not a relationship that is a good one as we know. This season is based on this investigation and he must found this radioactivity material.
Q : Bosch is not only an American police procedural web television series produced by Amazon Studios and Fabrik Entertainment; it is also as Stephen King Said recently on twitter an excellent detective series. The success of this series belongs for us to you for a large part because your interpretation is remarkable and strong. Can you talk a little about the fact to be since six years this character and what is for you his mean evolution?
Titus Welliver : I think that Harry is not a character that evolves in the same ways as most people do. He is not changing his process but his emotional and personal life has evolved. His relationship with his daughter is changed. She has to come to live with him. We see a soft opening of his character to a certain degree. His relationship with his daughter is very real because it is a not a typical father daughter relationship. They struggle with serious issues. There are moments where they talk a lot. There are moments where they are closed. I think that, more anything, has been a real process of evolution specifically for the characters over the seasons. This kind of relationship informs us the way he knocks himself but as far Harry see the outside world has not changed.
Q : Which were your sources of inspiration to create your character? What did you bring to this character to give him a real human depth? What do you have in common with him?
Titus Welliver : I think we both like Jazz and we both love our children. We have that in common. I like Harry spikes the back that I think it could be somewhat construct with empty rude. I think that Harry is interesting because he can be the guy who solves the cases. He is not a demonstrative guy. There is a lot stillness and quietness about him. He is an observer but he is also a character of action. But in the process before he takes action, there is something primitive and fair about this character that it is interested to play.
Q : I did not follow the series at the beginning but my parents said to me so much about it and their total admiration for you in this one that I have follow it and appreciate a lot this one. They look each season in two days and wait each year so much the new one. They have read nearly all Michael Connelly’s books with your character and say to me that you are the perfect choice and only you can give life to this one. Have you some few word to say to your fans?
Titus Welliver (5mns) : First of all, I would like to say thank you to your mother and father “Merci” (in french). I think people love this character because he is human. He is not a superhero. He does some very heroic actions but he has a good moral compass. People who looks that see his vulnerability, see certain things about his personality. He is not always charming. I think it can make things looks excessive full. People say yes, it is a real person but if they are victims of a crime, they will want Harry Bosch to work on their crime because he is reckless.
Q : What can you tell me about your work on this series with Michael Connelly and Eric Overmyer ?
Titus Welliver : The process of creating the show is that there are some readers. Michael creates the characters and Eric interprets and translates the characters with Michael from the pages to the screen. It is by far the most collaborative relationship that I ever have. We have a constant kind of dialogue and we change our ideas. It Is not always the case where the actors working with producers have necessary this kind of openness, but we do. Sometimes I come with ideas. For example, I can say Harry drinks Pepsi Cola and Michael can say, he will never drink Pepsi Cola but he will drink Coca Cola or he doesn’t drinks soda. There is a constant as we say here as American expression spitballing. Sometimes they don’t make sense and another time let’s think about that. This is the creative process that I really enjoy.
Q : Music and especially jazz plays an important part in the novels as in this series. I have read also that you play music too. What can you tell us about your specific link with music as a passion and inspiration?
Titus Welliver : I have grown in an house where the music is played from the morning I wake up until the moment I went to sleep the night both my parents loved music, rock’n’roll, blues, country, bluegrass. From my very early ages, I always love music. Several members of my family played instruments typically after dinner we sit and jam more bluegrass. My father played the banjo, my brother was a guitar player and I played the blues harmonica and sing, so we would jam. As for this, there is a connection to Harry. Harry loves his jazz. He has a great audio system. It is an interesting part of the character. It is who he is. We honor that. When he is alone in his house, doing work, studying a crime, the music plays in the back, also in his car.
Q : Your character does not speak a lot and prefers to do the things than talking for say nothing. Can we say that this character is a tortured soul, a detective with a fundamental respect for rules and policy, a king of cow-boy, vigilante of the modern-wo Bosch Season 6 ?
Titus Welliver : I always that he is a character who is an observer. He is constantly on phase of observation. More often, he speaks when he has something to say. It is not that he is nonverbal. I like this about him, he has some meaning. He is not a character who talks, talks and talks. He is a very internalized guy. He carries his emotional life it’s tumultuous and he is very controlled emotions. He is a guy who does not want to give anything away. The only person with whoever see some emotion to a certain point is her daughter Maddie. There is an aspect of him that it is a certain kind of tortured soul. He is broken apart.
Q In this season, we like the relation that Harry Bosch has with his daughter Maddie Bosch. What ca you tell us about your collaboration with Madison Lintz ?
Titus Welliver : Madison and I , you know, we always work very closely. I think in the same way that Harry and Maggie relationship has evolved. For the audience Madison and I, collaborative relationship, work relationship has evolved. But I thought it was also someway simultaneous. I thought very protective of her as an actor and the same way that Harry is protective of Maddie. Our work relationship develops very nearly. I feel that Madison and I we have a real deep understanding of who the characters are. How they interact each other and we always look to see where the writers will take our relationship, what challenges will represent themselves and how we interpret and how we demonstrate those conversations between Harry and Maddie on screen. I really enjoy doing these scenes.
Q : You have a worked with a lot of great directors as Oliver Stone, Lee Tamahori, Jean-Francois Richet, Asger Leth, Gus Van Sant, Dean Parisot , Michael Bay, Steven C. Miller , Tim Story and Ben Affleck (Gone Bay gone, The Town, Argo, Live by night) What can you tell us about your long collaboration with Ben Affleck ?
Titus Welliver : I have done Gone Baby gone long years ago and Ben Affleck cast me for a role. We work in a very similar fashion. He is a very good actor. He speaks the language of actors. He is a visionary genius. My experience working with him has been nothing short of fantastic. I wish he will hurry up so we will do an another film together. His films have substance, there extremely well made and powerful and have a great affection for him as a human being.
Q : You have worked also on a lot of great series as Tales from the Crypt, X-Files, Murder One, Star Trek: Voyager, The Twilight Zone, Deadwood, Law and Order, Prison Break, Lost, Sons of Anarchy, Mentalist, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. Can you tell us which are actually your favorite series ?
Titus Welliver : I don’t really have a favorite. I would say overall work on the series Bosch was challenging and rewarding. The experience that I had but I seriously loved working with David Milch. We did NYPD Blue , Deadwood and Big Apple, Brooklyn South. I loved doing that. I loved doing Sons of Anarchy with Kurt Sutter. The Good wife was great. Working on Lost was a very very interesting thing. I had just been very, very fortunate. The shows that I have worked on have been really good shows. Suits, Law & Order, for going that do that Marishka Hargitay is an old friend of mine. I had three episodes on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It is always nice to work with people that you love and respect.
Q : Doing my research for this interview, I have read a lot about your paints and discover a lot of excellent ones the paint under the name Across the Ocean, Through the Trees is one of my favorites. You have said that your Its aesthetics are based on abstract impressionism. Can you speak a little about the importance of art in your life and drawing? Do you think it will be possible one day in France to have an exhibition of your different paintings?
Titus Welliver : I would love that doing an exhibition of my paintings in France. Both of my parents are artists. My mother was a fashion illustrator and my father was an American Painter an abstract expressionist and he did landscapes. (he was also a professor of fine art at Yale University before becoming dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Fine Art). I originally want to be a painter that was how I was educated. I had a sort of former training with my father from the age of twelve; thirteen years old and after study arts at a the of eighteen I realize that it was not my central passion and my father said to me as an artist in the pursuit of art be it acting, writing , poet, painters, musician, one chooses to do that because they have to do that, it is a complete necessity, intellectual, artistic, all that. They have to be, it is a kind of obsession. It is central to your life. He said, painting by your own admission is not central so you should do what it is central and ask me what it is that. I said acting. He said you should be an actor. After many years to be an actor, at a point I return to paintings feeling a disenchanted with show-business. There was not a lot of work at that time. I moved across the country and I just became very frustrated and disenchanted to receive some offers to repeat roles that I have played before and I don’t want that. I start to paint and it took off I had the chance to exhibit my work and I continue from this day to exhibit my work, to sell some of my work. Last summer, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art had purchased a print of mine (Sam's Moon) for their permanent collection (it had been exposed in their Mezzanine Gallery). It has come full circle. I have realized that this process is in fact a necessity for me. A lot of people ask me if I paint actually in the isolation of the covid, not an all, because I am in Los Angeles and I don’t paint in this city. I need to be in my studio in the East coast of Connecticut. It is the place where I paint, where I found my inspiration. I can’t paint in LA.
Q : I have read also that as myself you are a Sideshow collectible, Hot Toys collector (Star Wars, Escape from New York, Batman, Marvel, Indiana Jones, Robocop and Terminator). They have a huge booth during the SDCC. Do you have some great memories about this great international event in San Diego?
Titus Welliver : I have not the chance to go. It seems that San Diego Comic Con always falls when I am in the East coast with my family in the country of my farm. When I am here , this is the place when I paint and hang out with my family. So, I loved to go to Comic-Con , pull on my basketball hat, my sunglasses, to sneak in and see everything thats there, see my friends of Sideshow collectibles and Hot Toys, Neca and all this different things. It is a little crazy, rebuilt my comics collection. This event is difficult to me to go because if I look around and I will say I want this. The irony of that, I would like to go to this kind of convention and people if they recognize me, same if I am very discrete, they think I am here to sign a lot of autographs and for pictures and I will say no, I am just here to see the new Star Wars box over there. But I will be very happy to talk with all these guys about collectors stuff over here. I go sometimes and not necessarily collect. I know also that there can be some specifics actors that I have not worked. I went to the convention Sons in Monstrerpalooza (Burbank, California) and there were Dee Wallace Stone (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Critters (1986)…), Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th part 7, 8..), Bruce Davison (X-men (2000), X-men 2 (2003)..) who I admire and are here to sign autographs and for pictures. I just came to say them hello and they ask me where is my table (for autographs) and I said I am not here for working, just visiting. It can be for me a little difficult to go because I just want only to look different things as all do.
Q : Have you some words to say to your french fans and maybe something to tell about season seven ?
Titus Welliver : here what I can say, as you know season seven will be the final season and I can’t give away anything but they choose two really great books to base the season on. What i can assure everyone is that it will be a great season and I think this is the reason that the show resonates so much with the french audience. I grew up with the films of Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jean-Pierre Melville. I will remember always a conversation with Michael Connelly when the first time we have met for work and he had talked about movies that mean a lots for me. They were really inspirational for me and I grow up with these films because my parents love the french new wave. I grow up with François Truffaut, the film of Francois Melville. This is a genre which is very near and dear to the french people. That’s make a perfect sense that the books and the series are very popular in France.
Questions and Transcription : Boris Colletier
Reread by Felipe Acevedo
Many thanks to Amazon Prime Video for making this interview possible.
Many thanks also to Titus Welliver for his time in answering our questions.
Finally, thanks to Hugo for our long and very constructive collaboration.