Bosch: Legacy star Titus Welliver on why he nearly missed out on the role of a lifetime

Titus Welliver is in New York where it’s “p***ing down” with rain and there is, he laments, “nary a place to get a proper cup of char”. Thankfully, he’s got a box of PG Tips and a kettle in his apartment (“English wife, English life,” he explains). But it’s striking to discover that this most American of actors is such a committed Anglophile. “Oh yeah,” he continues; his mother, Norma Cripps, a renowned fashion illustrator, had perfect elocution. “So friends of mine would think she was English, but she also used a tremendous amount of British slang. I never heard her call an elevator an elevator. It was always a lift. We ‘took tea’; she referred to cookies as biscuits.”

No doubt that helped when Welliver met his wife, interior designer Samantha Edge, daughter of the late, great Moody Blues drummer and co-founder Graeme Edge. “She would say, ‘You use a lot of English slang, why is that?’” he chuckles. “And it was all from my mother. ‘Fancy a cup of char?’” Disarmingly, he slips into an English accent. But then Welliver is one of Hollywood’s most versatile stars, known for everything from Deadwood to Lost and Transformers. For the past decade, he’s inhabited the role of LA detective Harry Bosch and, despite being a veteran of countless TV and film appearances over 35 years, the take-no-prisoners cop – created by Michael Connelly – has come to define him.

“It’s one of those rarified experiences where it’s all so incredibly positive,” he beams. “The response has been remarkable, I’ll forever be associated with it.” Fittingly, it was Connelly himself who had a hunch Welliver might be the man to play Harry, introduced in the writer’s 1992 debut novel The Black Echo, after seeing him in the pilot for the drama, Touch. “But Titus wasn’t on the casting list so I’m this guy from the book world, I’m not a TV guy,” Connelly recalled. “So I’m sweating thinking, ‘Do I mention him? Maybe he’s a jerk no one wants to work with…’”

Over WhatsApp from his hometown, the father-of-three takes up the tale with a smile: “Fortunately, I’ve a good reputation, I’ve never been one to misbehave. When Bosch came along, it was the best script I’d read in ages and I blasted through it. But I have enough humility, having been in this business for a long time, that I didn’t want to want it too much! I thought, ‘Well, they’re going to go out to every big name…’”

Fortunately, for what would become one the best loved TV dramas in recent history, not to mention the longest-running streaming show, no one was cast and their paths finally crossed during a brief weekend in LA. “I got the call from my manager and he said, ‘Yeah, you’re going to meet Michael Connelly’. And I went, ‘You’re kidding? That’s still in play?’” Titus, 63, continues. “Michael had final say on who Harry Bosch was going to be and they hadn’t found anyone.”

Then things began to move fast. After meeting the actor, Connelly told fellow producers simply: “That was Harry Bosch.” It was the start of a remarkable collaboration that will have lasted 97 episodes over 10 seasons of Bosch and its sequel, Bosch: Legacy, when the final series arrives on Amazon Prime next week. But Titus was always in it for the long run. On day-one of filming – scenes showing the cop lighting up outside court where he’s facing a civil suit for shooting a suspect, in front of a prominent “no smoking” sign – he recalls Connelly asking him how long he saw himself playing the unapologetic rebel. “And without hesitation I said, ‘As long as they’ll have me.’”

He pauses: “The greatest gift Mike has given me, aside from his friendship, which I hold close, is the gift of Harry: trusting me with his care and protection. I sign my emails to him, ‘Hold fast, Harry’. He’s like, ‘Well, I guess the character’s kind of gotten into you’, but the truth is, Harry and I meet somewhere in the middle.” Nowhere is that more apparent than in Bosch’s credo: “Everybody counts, or nobody counts.”

Producers asked the actor early on what he wanted from the show. “They weren’t talking trailer size or if you want green M&Ms only,” he says. “It wasn’t that kind of s*** – completely unrealistic demands or insane behaviour. I wanted to create an environment in which actors felt welcome, and understood they were an integral part of the success. I’d been on sets that were not welcoming or it was, ‘Shut up, say this, do that, hit your mark and bugger off.’” That friendliness became the ethos of the show, and Titus remains proud of the bonds between crew and cast, including Jamie Hector as Harry’s partner Jerry Edgar; and as Chief of Police Irvin Irving, his old friend, the late Lance Reddick, who died of a heart attack aged 60.

Talking about the latter, he is visibly moved. Appearing with Reddick was, he says, “probably some of the most rewarding work I’d ever done. The depth of my love and respect for him…” He tails off: “His loss is a void that will never be filled.”

He also pays fulsome tribute to Madison Lintz, 25, who joined the cast aged 14 as Harry’s daughter Maddie and proved a sensation. “She had experience but there was an artistic innocence about her. I became fiercely protective,” Titus says. The pair’s relationship – “one of complete and utter trust and support”, both on and off-screen – added to the show’s appeal. “The core of Harry is his moral code. I don’t want to say we lightened him up, he’s all elbows, but there was a marked change when he became reacquainted with Maddie,” says Welliver.

“That relationship was meant to be a one-off story, but producers liked the chemistry. Mike said, ‘Before you had just Harry, he’s isolated, he’s one person, but now you’ve got Maddie, he can be gotten-to.’”

How does Bosch’s philosophy sit today in America, I wonder. “It’s rough,” replies Titus. “It feels very much like. ‘Only a few count, and everybody else can f*** off.’ My wife always says, ‘Just be kind, even when it’s hard.’ But I see a lot of mean-spiritedness. I see an enormous amount of division.

“Everything is, ‘Get ready, get ready, get ready… this is coming’. I don’t like living that way but I love my country and I’m not prepared to join the exodus.” As it is, he admits some friendships have suffered as a result of the tectonic plate changes in US politics and society. Clearly a thoughtful man, Titus – the son of acclaimed landscape artist Neil Welliver – nearly became a painter himself, having trained professionally until he was 16.

“My father said, ‘When you’re not thinking about drinking beer and beautiful girls, what do you think about?’ And I replied, ‘Acting.’ And he said, ‘Well, pack a bag and move to New York. Go and study.’ So I did.”

Small parts led to a burgeoning career. It would be 25 years before he returned to painting during a “dry, frustrating spell” work-wise, creating a series of “handscapes” – small landscapes – that began to sell after he reluctantly showed them.

Subsequently, he had shows in Maine and LA and began creating larger works. He felt compelled to share his work with his father, even though his brother warned him: “Why would you subject yourself to that? He’s going to absolutely eviscerate you.”

Titus continues: “He was in a descent health-wise, he sustained some terrible tragedies; outlived three of his children and his wife, who was the love of his life, and fell into chronic alcoholism. It was a sad end to a rather prolific, substantive life.”

Having examined the work in silence, Welliver Sr told his son: “They’re beautiful.”

“And I said, ‘Really?’ And my father, who had an interesting way of speaking, said, ‘Are you a f***ing idiot? Why would I tell you that if they weren’t?’ And he said, ‘You know, I’m a bit jealous. I can’t do it anymore. My hands are tremulous, I can’t hold a brush. So I hand the torch to you – be careful which end you take hold of.’”

Several of Titus’s prints are now displayed in New York’s prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art. But his acting career picked up again, and painting remains a rewarding hobby rather than a calling.

A self-confessed sci-fi geek, and comic-con regular, even before appearing in shows like Marvel’s Agents of Shield, Titus recently guest-starred in Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian. “Talk about a bucket list thing, always wanting to have been a part of that. I’m a massive, massive Star Wars fan.”

Though Bosch will appear in an as-yet untitled spin-off – focusing on another Connelly character, Detective Reneé Ballard, played by Maggie Q and introduced in the finale of Bosch: Legacy – fans have largely been inconsolable at the show ending.

“They’re very passionate,” says the star. “I get stopped on the street. They’re either giving their condolences or they’re angry.”

But he admits: “We weren’t aware it was going to be the last season. We had a next-season ‘bible’ in our heads.”

He has an idea for a movie-length Bosch reboot which sees the cop chase a killer to London – a classic fish-out-of-water set-up.

“Mike and I have certainly bandied about the idea of doing a Bosch feature.”

Titus describes the final season of Bosch: Legacy, loosely based on Connelly’s 2022 book Desert Star, as the “darkest yet” – with the “murder of an entire family”. “There’s some incredibly heartbreaking moments, some very intense moments, and it becomes deeply personal,” he says. “You see Harry go right to the edge of compromising himself.”

He credits NYPD Blue creators and producers Steve Bochco and David Milch for kick-starting the golden age of TV dramas Bosch now inhabits. In that show, Welliver played a hospital physician, appearing as a cop in their later drama, Brooklyn South.

“That changed the dynamic because, suddenly, there was a little bit more liberty with the standards and practices. They allowed the violence to be more intense, more real. A heroic character like Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) was also a horrible bigot.”

Later, Welliver appeared in other long-form series, including Deadwood alongside Ian McShane. Today Bosch and Bosch: Legacy form part of that rich tradition of highly characterful storytelling.

As for Bosch himself, what makes him so compelling, given he’s such an introverted, taciturn, even, whisper it, rude character?

“Here’s the thing, he doesn’t subscribe to the societal norms of politeness. But there’s a quality about Harry, he has a depth of humanity.” But portraying his internal life, mostly unspoken in the books, has been key.

“It seemed the most logical place for that to happen would be at his home, when he’s looking at a murder book. And he’s got a beer or a glass of whiskey and he has his music on and there is no dialogue. For me, it was an enormous challenge as an actor.”

He was inspired by the likes of Al Pacino and Robert Duvall, but also the Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, a “master of stillness”.

Titus’s 30-or-so tattoos, prominent on his forearms, are part of that internal life; never mentioned directly on screen, they fascinate fans. “Each season I kept getting more and it drove the producers a bit crazy.

“They’d call my manager and go, ‘Bloody hell, Titus came in for a costume fitting and his forearms inside and out are covered’.”

He adds: “They’re very personal, they’re part of my own story.” Now they’re part of Harry Bosch’s, too.

• Bosch: Legacy season three starts streaming is on Amazon Prime from Thursday