Gratitude Attracts Opportunity: Titus Welliver | Rich Roll Podcast

[Music] good to see you my friend thank you for driving all the way out here my pleasure thanks for wanna do this for a long time known each other for many years I for some reason I thought it was seven or eight but we were talking before the podcast I guess it's been like 10 years yes not that we're hanging out all the time you pop in from time to time well we have a lot of we have a lot of mutual friends and and and mutual uh you know we're both on this planet so that's right we are on the spinning blue globe together we're all in it together we are we are and it's just been so cool to see you know this this evolution of your career I mean you know my lord like you know not that you weren't working constantly before Bosch because you have the longest IMDB and like the history of acting but uh you know Bosch is really for stood you into you know the mainstream as this leading man and like such a prominent way I mean I can't go anywhere without seeing a massive billboard they do they crazy they do their job that's probably unsettling for a lot of people to certainly my enemies would find out are you kids like oh my god everywhere I go my dad is staring down at me yeah they don't you know and I make a conscious effort when when the show cuz the billboards typically come out a couple weeks before the show comes on mm-hmm and they you know every major city they're on the sides of buildings and here in Hollywood so I make a conscious effort of avoiding areas with us because God forbid I do a Times Square yeah I don't want to be seen within proximity of one of my billboards because I know somebody will drive by and go like what a what a self-serving as if it was your idea yeah but you know the good thing is that you can't go in and out of LAX without seeing the big billboards they really do their job of you know publicizing getting the word out there uh-huh about the show sewn that way I'm you know I'm eternally eternally grateful for that well you must have good relationships with cops these days yeah you know customs agent like anybody who's you know in sort of some form of law enforcement yeah you get a pass you could pull have you been pulled over and no fortunately I have and the one thing I do have is quite often as the cops will roll up on me and their patrol cars when I'm driving and say hello not you know there and you know the nice thing about that I mean I've always kind of played a lot of cops in my career from different cities and places and yeah and growing up had had friends who became cops and I've always kind of had that connection to to law enforcement and they're very supportive of the show and I think one of the you know long before we ever did the show the the books were extremely successful and I think part of which speaks to that is the fact that particularly with the show it's very grounded in reality you know I don't drive a Porsche and and I don't have you know I'm not like James Bond jumping it out of bed with all these with different women and you got a cool house though he's got a cool house he has the the very cool house and of course that that's sort of the great metaphor of being kind of the Eagles Nest for a guy who is surveying and surveying the city and all that's good and bad in it but cops like it because it's it's no it's no nonsense and I've even said two cops God you know this is what you do for a living so I can't imagine that after a day of being you know a robbery homicide detective seeing the worst of the worst in the world that you you you want to go home and and you know and crack a beer and a bag of chips and put your feet up and watch a procedural law drama but the thing is that our show really it's not like Law & Order it doesn't have the thing where Bosh kind of catches the case at the beginning works the case through the middle of the show and then gets the bad guy by the end I mean we have ten episodes there are novels yeah and so that's just the the structure of the show the narrative is much more like reading a novel you know each episode really serves more as a purpose of being like a chapter in a book you know and we all ingest literature at different paces and in the same way I think now with this whole binge-watching notion see as little or as much as you want and there are certain things that I'll watch where as much as I want to want to get through it because it's so good I really try to kind of save or sometimes yeah yeah I mean stranger things was for me was so difficult because it was so engaging that I couldn't pull away from right you wanted his rip through it want to want to go through it but then you know if I would do more than two episodes I was you know I was like a bad kid that ate too much cake and then right then I feel kind of shamed which of course you know speaks to me I I like that immersive experience you know and I really prefer the kind of shows that unfurl themselves slowly and take their time and I will go so far as to four shows that aren't all online at the same time where they you know eat them out week by week I'll wait until the season's over I didn't start it because I don't want to wait a week and then forget what happened you have to reboot myself to get into it again so it is like reading a book yeah no I do I do that the same way but if it's a there's certain Network shows that my daughter and I you know will watch together and that's sort of the you know and then you can can come on then you can watch it on righthand when you want to but anything that's on Amazon or Netflix or Hulu that's that doesn't come out drop all at once I'll wait and I'll just wait because I want to be able to have that choice right which is I mean you know it's we live in the Society of serious attention-deficit yeah and impatience but that's okay right well the unanimous consensus is that you know never has there been a character that fit an actor more like a glove than Hieronymus Bosch with you you know even so far as you know Stephen King you know publicly saying and on Twitter I mean this is like everybody sees you so closely identified with this character from these many books that Michael Connelly wrote I mean how do you know how do you approach that like how did you figure out how to inhabit that person with that level of authenticity well there's there's always the the sort of background you know research cop stuff how to get in and out of the car and weapons handling and you spend a ton of time I mean over your career you've played enough cops at that part of it was kind of there but the thing that hooked me into this character was the the humanity of him I mean you know he's not he's a wheel he's a he's an antihero you know he's a quintessential antihero he's he's flawed there's a there's a profound kind of sadness to the character there are definitely certain similarities in that way that made that character that I responded to him because I saw him as a vulnerable you know a strong guy with a really good moral compass but but a person who's kind of broken to a certain degree and I think that I identify with that because I'm I'm broken to a certain degree I sustained a lot of you know personal tragedy in my life and so I understand that you know that that loss and how and how you navigate that now how I navigate it and how Harry has navigated it are two very very different things but I understand it and so I think that enabled me to have a real bead on on write who who he is but I've heard you say that you you know you tried not to bring yourself to a character because that's not acting but inevitably given you know we're gonna talk about you know your you know your history and all of that but you know your life experience informs how you're gonna you know inhabit this person well no I and I guess to clarify that it's more of as an actor what I learned early on when I was particularly studying the method at the Strasbourg Institute was that to use experiences from my from my own life to sort of move myself in that direction performance wise and then to try to perform was that all that I alt li was doing was I was reliving a very painful memory and then when I would try to act I was so completely detached from the character and and and so connected to my own personal pain that I didn't feel like I was acting and it felt it didn't feel safe to me it didn't feel good to me and not that all acting has to be safe I mean I think it's about you know stepping out and taking certain risks but then again I think risk in acting is a very you know misused word because it's acting right it's pretend I mean what is that so if your risk is in the vulnerability exactly but I think you know if you're playing a guy who's got a broken arm you don't need to go slam go break your arm so that you understand uh-huh that you can you can or playing a character that's overweight you know I've done that I've gained like 65 pounds for a role and that's a different thing part of it was because I knew that with that weight that I was going to move differently that I would breathe differently that I would certainly look different and of course I was young when I did that huh I would I would be less inclined to do some kind of a crazy well at my age it's a little bit stupid to put on 65 all right yeah I could do it but God you rocking a huge beard right yeah well that's my that's all the that's the weight I've gained but I I found that early on that that it wasn't something that was really servicing me as an actor and then I met David Mamet the playwright and I studied with him and something that I learned from him is the process which he's sort of his technique for lack of a better word was kind of a bastardized version of the Sanford Meisner thing and but within that you rather than taking something from your own personal life experience you would create and as if scenario as it relates to the action of what the characters are literally doing on the page and I found that that serviced me really well and consistently in performing because that's what it's about I mean there's always the worry you're doing you're doing a play or something which is you know obviously it's a very different medium than film but you you arrive at that place where you know the king has been killed and you have to mourn him and you know where how do you arrive at that place every night where and and what I kind of realized was that you know to to demonstrate emotion certainly pain and anguish didn't necessarily have to translate as tears which you know presented a whole new bunch of questions for me as an actor and I just find also that when the writing is really good and when you're working with a cross-table from another actor and and that that focus and concentration is on each other it is sort of take the attention off yourself and put it on the other person and the writing is good the you don't have to necessarily work as hard you know it becomes it sort of happens organically to a certain degree because you just kind of invest in that moment in these imaginary circumstances and they they kind of have their own life right you still have you have control over it but it that's just for me I have young friends who are deeply steeped in in the method world and and they work that way and they navigate it really well I got the exhaust thing now yeah I mean under any circumstances when you put you know because people say to me oh when you come home after a day of working on Bosch you know you are you depressed and I say no because I'm I'm acting I'm able to separate that now is the material heavy are there scenes that are harder to play than others particularly when they within circumstances of dealing with tragedy sure but I you know I don't carry that necessarily home it affects me in the moment when I'm I'm playing the scene but I'm not I'm not dragging my feet when I come home because had to shoot a scene where I'm doing a you know notification a death notification to to a victim's family right were you part of mammoths Theatre Company I well my all my classmates were where they I I don't know I was always one of those guys that wasn't big on clubs and things like that yeah and I that whole thing was kind of birthed out of one of mammoths he had a great knack for throwing challenges out and because we were all sort of eager to please he said one day who in here wants to start a theater company and who wants to write a book about this technique so everybody shot their hands up and I I might have been the only one who just sort of kept my hands on my lap because my thing was there were a couple of companies that came out of my ear there was the Atlantic Theatre Company with Mamet and then there was the naked angels company that also came out of there and these were we were all in the same class and my thing was that I was really interested in doing the work as an actor and working with these companies but I didn't I'm not a political person and I so I didn't want to be involved with that process of decision making I'm the kind of infighting that goes in and power struggles and things I'm not interested in that I just I like to show up and and do my thing and and be and not be a part of that right but what didn't I mean it had to be amazing though at the early stages of that to be with Mamet I mean you've worked with some amazing writers but to be with a master and develop that appreciation and respect for the written text when well done well that that completely it's not that I didn't have respect for writers before that but it it gave me an opportunity and and then the tools to really have a different understanding of the process as an actor when you're interacting with the writing and how to to me I felt like it became sort of a personal challenge and then to go from working with Mamet to working with another great writer like David Milch it it really informed a lot about how I wanted to act and how I wanted to relate to writers and also the the protection of of the writing but also the challenge of trying to beat the page I always sort of feel like when somebody puts a great piece of writing in front of you as an actor it's kind of your job to not only facilitate the the the writers vision to the best of your ability but to kind of get in there and kind of kick its ass a little bit at the same time and maybe do something bring some nuance to that that the writer might never have considered in terms of language or like inflection like how your intention yeah intention of or how to to demonstrate the writers intention by kind of making it your own right and I've had those moments and those are those are really winning moments where I've been doing something with David and you know would complete a scene and and and have David you know milk say you know I didn't consider you know I didn't consider this or I didn't consider that what made you think of personal victory yeah yeah and it is but it's also becomes then it feels more like a collaboration and I certainly have that on Bosh with with Tom Bernardo and Eric Overmeyer and Daniel Pine and and all these great writers and of course Michael Connelly I mean the center of it all any any kind of Bosh questions that have ever come up or ideas I always would run them up the flagpole with Michael and discuss them is this something a place that we can go does this does this resonate does this seem like Bosh and he you know now that being said I didn't feel like I needed to to make gigantic changes to this character there were just some little things to make it a little bit more personal in my interpretation because we already had Changez age and things like that and we don't you know we don't follow the books chronologically so we kind of move all over the place mm-hmm and Michael's has always been really receptive to that and and and there's no there's no ego it's not ego driven in that way you know I mean and I've come up with things where he's he said I like that idea but I don't it doesn't seem like like a hairy thing uh-huh fortunately it hasn't been all that often but I'm also not going to him all the time and saying you know why can't can he drive a black Porsche you know and where leisure suits and I don't know where that came from but things I feel germane to something that that Bosh would do yeah and the and the Harry of the show is you know my the thing that I've always helped fast - no pun intended was to really maintain the Tegrity and the integrity and the core of who that character is in the books because he's so perfectly realized and I get to the point now where there'll be certain bits of dialogue that will come across in scripts and and I'll I'll tweak it because to me mm-hmm it's well it might be a great piece of dialogue in that moment there's just things that somebody being moved around a little bit in order for it to feel like it it's coming out of his mouth this could go on forever I mean Connolly you know is so prolific what he's written like 32 novels or something how many is like 20 was 21 I believe right books I mean you can a new one come this could just be you know go on ad infinitum when you're going into season six season six when do you start shooting I searched shooting that in August uh-huh but you know Mike said recently somebody asked him I don't remember where the the question popped up but asked him how how long how much longer how many more box box he'll write because now he's brought in this new character this other detective Renee Ballard and and she's younger Harry's retired and so now he's combining these characters are inhabiting each other's world but they're doing it kind of sunrise pain oh yeah so it'll be interesting I mean look if if Mike stopped writing bosh books tomorrow and we were going into season 20 or whatever there that character so well established now that the writers and they do anyway mm-hmm you know they are able to sort of within the the Bosch universe that's been created they can you know they they come up with ideas that literally a franchise yeah you know it's unbelievable well what I'm interested in it I mean look you've worked with essentially everybody in the business over the course of your career but the roles that have really defined you at least from you know my outside perspective relate to filmmakers writers creators with whom you've developed almost this mentor you know relationship or Co collaborator relationship like whether it's Milch you've done all of Ben Affleck's movies now Connolly like what is the distinguished like what distinguishes like these great minds these prolific creators from other people that you work with and you know why these guys like why do you have this more intimate relationship with some filmmakers other than others well I think I got I've just been very fortunate in that way and then I've come into contact with people that you know maybe on some level were we're kindred spirits for for lack of a better word you know and some of that just happened or are almost questions that are difficult for me to answer there they do have to ask that they'd have to ask them what is it that that they see I suppose part of it is I'm really dedicated to to to what I do and also as for writers I'm very dedicated just to servicing the writing because I understand it so it's not just about me showing up and and learning my lines I've never I've never approached it that way and it's not like I come in like a bull in a china shop and say okay I'm here now so let me completely reconfigure what you've established here and I like to think it's because I have a modicum of intelligence and and these people recognize also that I have a good work ethic and if anything I I strive to make things better you know I'm not a big believer in coming in and being pedestrian because that's my face on the screen and I don't want to half-ass anything yeah well there's there's talent there's ability and that will take you to a certain place but then people want to work with people they like that they feel safe with that they feel like they can get along with over the long haul I would imagine yeah and it's not to say that um that I've not in working with those people that I've not had disagreements about things but there's a there's a foundation of respect there's a foundation of respect and there's also a way to it never has it's never been a power struggle it's always been a thing of and I suppose there's there's at times that I sort of present these things to them and say you know right wrong or indifferent I have this idea and that it's considered you know what I mean with respect I mean I there were times the things with with Milch where I I would come up with something in milk would say you know that's a great idea but not for this show but it's a but it's a great idea and and I accept that with equanimity because for me I'm also despite the fact that I'm 57 years old I feel like I'm I'm in a constant state of you know evolution as you know as an artist and so I always sort of I never want to give myself a break I want to be challenged and I want to I want to get better at what I do and and the older I get I I think that I've figured some things out to a certain degree I certainly know as an actor what what things work for me technique-wise and you know I'm not an actor who does multiple of things I'm just I can't work that way I don't run up to something I come in I'm prepared I make certain choices prior to shooting if I have questions or things I would discuss it with the director or the writer but that being said when I come in I'm not intractable you know I also like to see what's gonna happen you know in the moment in the room with another actor so I I don't I never marry myself wholeheartedly to an idea because I I just find that that makes it kind of stagnant do you do you like rehearsal you seem like a guy who wants to who's more in favor of being present to the magic yeah I I mean the rehearsal process certainly in theatre is is absolutely necessary right it's a whole different different animal the technical aspect of film and television is a is a very different way of working and so I tend to with with in film and television I don't like to rehearse III I like to rehearse for camera so that you can kind of say well I'm gonna I'm gonna sit here or I might get up or etc etc so that the you don't have to do it again yeah the direct the cinematographer has a sense in the and the director is saying you know then they can come back and go oh I really you know I wasn't I didn't visualize you sitting for this whole thing and then you kind of bandy that about but as far as rehearsing rehearsing I mean I I don't mind technical rehearsals but I don't wanna I don't want to sit down and do a series of rehearsals before we shoot because I feel like that kind of that that bleeds the the authenticity out of it and it makes people self-conscious and then they they really start acting and then it has a very very different feel to get locked they get a closed mindset this is what I'm gonna do right now and then you see them when when you know they'll do something in a master and you can always tell you know within the master shot they'll do this one particular thing and I immediately I get cluded and I go that's the red flag day that's they've got that that's their thing for this and you don't what you don't want our nasty things well you don't want to interfere in another person's process or be disrespectful to that that's when it becomes a little bit tricky because you have to be sensitive to to the other to the other actor but also you know as a lead on a show and a producer on a show when you see something that doesn't ring right you know totally within the scene you see somebody make a choice that's really really broad and doesn't necessarily help tell the story because I always say hey look if you're gonna make a choice make a choice that's gonna help tell the story because it's very easy to get and would look when you're mean when I when I wasn't all the attention to my so I was I was all about business and you know I'm gonna eat peanuts here and I'm gonna drink the beer and I'm gonna smoke a cigarette and you know I'm gonna clean my gun and you know and what I realize is I got older was I didn't have to do all that [ __ ] you know it if it wasn't telling the story it just was business and so now I'm terrible like you know directors will come in and go yeah you know might be maybe you're making yourself a cup of coffee and I'd say why I you know I the characters already had his cup of coffee but there's a stillness to Bosch too and the proximity of the camera you know lends itself to subtlety and that's by design I mean when I read when I read the script one of the first things then I felt about that character was it he was that there was a great power and his stillness it was a guy who didn't necessarily subscribe to the societal norms that you and I do eat is not a guy who walks into a room and wants to win the day you know he doesn't give a [ __ ] what and he doesn't thinks about and it's not that he's that he's a prick or he's or that he's a bad guy he just has uh mitad patience for he's unapologetic about Yahoo he is and I and there's something kind of interesting and refreshing about someone who comes in because there are also times when he sticks his elbows out but I felt a real I felt that I gravitated towards the stillness of that character because really when you read the books and when you know he's he's an observer he's a guy who's in a constant state of observation and also a guy who doesn't want to draw attention to himself so you know and that's difficult stuff to act to a certain degree and also when you consider that the a lot of stuff that's going on internally with Bosch when you you you have the luxury of the of the narrative to for the reader to be able to say this is what's going on in his head he's doing that but so but how do you translate yeah without it's without the kind of noir trope of using a lot of voiceover right which we don't do I mean I remember one point somebody making a joke early on and I thought they were serious when they said yeah maybe the voice-over thing and I just yeah I want that be okay if we were doing like a 1940s 1950s yeah then you you do that and you establish that and that's okay but this is neo noir and so my thought in particularly in these moments in the show where you'll find Harry by himself looking over a murder book or being contemplative or just observing the city you know I I treasure those moments because it those moments really challenged me in that I've got to in some way project some internal life and some you know inner emotional life with this character without without dialogue right and you know how you manifest that in your physicality and I think that that comes through not only the relationship to being still but also having you know - great cinematographers that know you know we've now been doing this going into six years they know how I work then we're wearing and where it's gonna come not necessarily when and it becomes about where they're moving the camera to kind of arrive at that place to find Harry and and you know I I have people with some frequency say that to me that they they like they really like those moms they go I know I know you're not saying anything but there's a lot they read it they wrote their fans of the book to they can purge it your there's a there's a blackness upon which they can project their idea Bosh right which is you know and you have little secret like you have little secrets to or techniques like I've read or heard you say so at some point like when Harry doesn't like somebody he looks at his he looks at the person's forehead and like tiny little things that you can rely on that the audience might not be consciously aware of but feed that character Sensibility yeah well there's a lot you know 22 because there's a lot of there's there's the Harry in the books and then and and my interpretation of that Harry and the books and then personality traits of male figures who who have influenced me my father being one of them warts in all and David Milch men who have had who have had influence right and I both like hard-boiled guys yeah kind of no-nonsense hard but but also very sensitive and and vulnerable men I mean there's a lot of what's that weird combination of artists sensibility with like traditional kind of values about hard work and and not taking any [ __ ] from anybody right and I think also that's what makes him what what makes Harry good at his job is that he's not a guy who would ever bend the rules and certainly ethically he's not gonna beat a confession out of out of a suspect and he's not gonna plant evidence on someone to gain a conviction you know there's that kind of dogged pursuit of justice and he really is that guy who who is the advocate for the victim and for the victim's family and there's a there was a great line and we've repeated it since then we're people of you know referenced closure and Bosh says closures a myth you know because that's and that's true well that was the arc of the season of solving you know your wife's murder right yeah that he arrives at that place of solving it to realize that the closure didn't carry the meaning that he was searching for and and and also the you know finally figuring out who was that that that killed his mother that that it was empty ultimately right his mother that's what I meant and that he couldn't yes that he couldn't really reconcile that right I mean there's a part of him that sort of is able to to close that chapter you know in his in his history but but the damage and and the pain is is something that you know he'll you know I don't think the people ever can outlive that that pain you know to to assuage their their pain you can you just you find a place to be able to navigate that so that you can get out of bed in the morning and that you can be a productive person in life but that pain was you know imagine no you know a thirteen-year-old kid his mother's murdered you know and and and that's the that's the impetus for him to because nobody gave a [ __ ] because his mother was a prostitute and so the effort into solving her murder was to a lesser degree which hence you have Harry's thing everybody counts her nobody counts and you know that's uh that's a that's a big that's a big load and he carries that I mean that's the thing also with it there there is a world weariness with Harry and what we've been able to do is that through his relationship with his daughter and those are scenes that I probably treasure the most of all the scenes that I do on that show is working with Matt and Lintz I mean a I'm a father I understand but I'm also not Harry Bosch so I I have I have been in my children's lives right whereas he was kind of an absentee parent and now he's thrust into the world of being a parent and being present and figuring out how to navigate and be a parent when he doesn't he doesn't have any skills you know but it softens him it does and I think it's made him it's it for the first time in his life I think you see a guy who's who's allowing himself to trust happiness a little bit uh-huh because that's the one thing that I I've carried as a through-line with Bosch and people say what is he about and I say and what is that you connect with and I said I can i connect and understand that thing I'm not trust in happiness when you when you are dealt a body blow like that that's that's what it becomes and I feel that that Maddie's presence in his life and now more than ever with Eleanor having been killed that they're that they're together that he's he's trusting happiness and I'm and it doesn't change him from his way of pursuing justice for victims and and I guess ya softened him a bit and yet by the same token there's this there's an internal kind of terror that exists inside of him in in caring for his daughter he wants to he wants to protect her from from all this stuff in the world he's trying to imbue her with some sense of awareness and some time to the point where it's smothering for her and she's kind of saying hey hey pushing back she pushes back but she's also his daughter and she's a strong woman young woman so there's a lot of him in her which he recognizes but that also scares him you know a while while he's he's happy to see her her development he's also repelled by it it scares him because he sees the path laid forward for her in a way that's too close to his own yeah yeah yeah well it's been fun watching the show over the years you know this inextricable relationship connection between Los Angeles and that you know the sort of tradition of noir from Chandler and now you know in the embodiment of Connolly's work but I've always you know enjoyed those movies and books at arm's length as somebody who's lived in Los Angeles for you know a couple decades yeah because you know we're out here in Calabasas you know I lived on the always lived west side and the Los Angeles portrayed in those works and in Bosch was always a Los Angeles that I just didn't recognize at all I'm like how it's like this mythic you know at times antiquated picture of this city that I live in but I've had this recent experience where my 15 year old daughter is now in art school which I want to talk to you yeah she goes to this school that's east of downtown and so we've rented an apartment in downtown LA because it's too far to drive from out here my wife and I take turns staying down there with her so I've been spending all this time I spent half a week in downtown now I'm running around MacArthur Park in Boyle Heights I'm you know meeting a friend at a wood-paneled restaurant with you know red leather you know banquet booths in I'm like this is the noir la that I see depicted and all this working I've had moments where I'm like oh this is where a boss would you know yeah meet his buddies for a drink absolutely that la exists and Los Angeles is very strange in that your lifestyle is defined by the neighborhood you know the 5-mile radius in which you live and there's a whole other world going on you know just a couple miles away yeah that's very different place with people who are inhabiting lives that resemble the lodge portrayed on the show yeah well we're there I mean you know that's the thing the you know Harry Bosch land he works Hollywood homicide so yeah that's where he is he's down tonight he's in Boyle Heights he's in all these these places and then you have Hollywood and of course you know it's the great sort of metaphors it is it's the Boulevard of broken dreams you know you see all these and that's the thing that always sort of intrigued me was the idea that all these people who came out here with with you know hopes of fame and fortune and and the endless tales of people who come out and then just kind of disappear right when it doesn't happen they disappear that go down these bad roads and there there are all these nefarious characters who who prey on these people and and that's sort of the you know that's the thing it's the facade it's like going to a back lot on on Warner Brothers who Universal and you see you know you're in you're in Europe you know and University oh my god you know these cobblestone streets and then you you know you walk around and there's you know four by sixes and things that are propping up these these these facades and they're and there's a lot of that here because there's so much it's so enticing in that way to a certain degree to people they look at it and it's everybody's everybody's rich and everybody's famous and no they're not you know and then you you know you walk down Holly wal Hollywood Boulevard you know after eight o'clock at night or and even now so I mean no matter how much they try to clean it up and make it different it's like downtown it's the same ain't broken it's broken you see you know people refer to the zombie apocalypse and I say these aren't these aren't zombies these are people that have that have been discarded by society that through that that are either mentally ill or they've been or have lost their jobs and or have you know chemical dependency issues and things like that or you know nobody and manin because particularly when I hear these aren't necessarily people that I know because I don't associate with people who think that way but the idea that these discarded people are just kind of zombies and oh well you know the only way to turned downtown into its own sort of you know Emerald City is to get rid of all the homeless people and clean it all up and then it'll all be fine and then things will thrive down there well you know the downtown is has found a way to thrive yeah you know it's there I have lots of friends who spend time there I didn't mean I you know and go and and eat in restaurants down there I've never really had a connection there until until I was shooting down there all the time and it's uh you know it it saddens me but it's sort of like the the more they try to just slap a coat of paint on it it feels to me that it sort of exacerbates yeah I think it is just moments the problem yeah you know I've had some interesting experiences because I live you know our place is really close to Skid Row and I'll go running in the morning and I'll purposely run through Skid Row because I just I want to you know I want to have the visceral experience of what's actually going I've done stuff with that community in the past but what I've noticed is that I never feel unsafe running through they know I don't either you know to to you know an observant eye it looks dangerous he says I mean for people that don't know it's literally a tent city it is on for like you know it's a square mile looks like Bangladesh yeah basically a third-world country right in downtown Los Angeles and I'll go run right down the middle of the street and you know I get nothing but smiles and waves and hey how you doing and keep going like way friendlier than the people up on the trail right here yeah and there's a sense of community and connectivity that those people have you know amidst this tremendous despair you know this impoverished state in which they live and it's it's a horrific sight and yet there's an inescapable like heart and humanity to it well it's it's you know it it's a part of the ugly reality right that we look around and we see people families living inside of tents and they're not all these are not indigent people that have you know have ruined their lives with alcohol drugs or what have you or these are people who have lost their jobs who have worked at places and have busted their asses for years and years only to be told hey we're downsizing the job that you did is being outsourced to a robot or two to Pakistan or or what have you like we shoot down there a lot so I've had a lot of interaction with with people there and met some really wonderful and interesting people who who have incredible stories to tell and we you know because we go into these environments as this as a big Hollywood production and yet we have we have executive producers who are human beings who recognize that we are sort of inflicting ourselves to a certain degree on this place to sort of capture this for entertainment and so you know there's always extra food brought along mmm cases of water and things like that I mean these are small gestures we can't go in and and and solve the the the ills of society but I've I've had a lot of interaction with people and they're very funny because they've a lot of these people have seen me in in films and television shows and things and then one of the first times he went down to the to the bins where almost people will put their things in these storage bins and we were shooting there the idea that I was interacting with them several of them were kind of vexed by it well our you know you're a big star and I say well first of all I'm not a big star I'm a working actor but you know but you're talking to people and I say but you know why wouldn't I and then and was felt kind of saddened by that and yet once once the people realize that I was not that that guy but was just a you know there are people that I kind of I see the same people sometimes and he'll come down and hey how you doing and editor Don and interacting and and yeah I don't feel unsafe when I'm down there I feel quite the opposite I feel like it's it's people just trying to live you know live in really harsh circumstances but but just trying to to live with some dignity I I don't know what the solution is but whatever we're doing right now is not working no it's not working now it's it's not working at all and and and you know in a barge out into the middle of the ocean which we always sort of joke that's what happened to New York um you know I had moved out of New York and then I came back two years later and was saying to my brother where are all the for all the homeless people where are these people that and you do you know particularly within a neighborhood scenario you sort forged these relationships particularly with a lot of people that would that would in New York that were mentally ill yet when they were teaming it takes care of them a neighborhood takes care of them you know and also says hey you know please don't don't pee on the doorstep right you know I I just always think of my mother who would you know our leftover food never went into the fridge through a refrigerator my mother would put it into baggies and things and she would you know it always made me nervous but she would would go out and if she didn't find any people to give the food to she would write a note you know and place it in a plate where it would you know and I would say this is good food and I was raised that way and then that you extended yourself and a lot of times particularly you know people who weren't from my neighbor when I would go out in in in the world and my neighborhood and and people that I was with would see how I would interact and they would go to I was really crazy and I would say he anybody doesn't mean any harm yeah he just you have these conversations with him and I said he's a human being it's not his fault item a and I'm not threatened by him I can tell when he's if he's just come out of a long stay you know at Bellevue because he's you know his clothes or and so I you know he's slightly less disheveled he looks cleaner and and he's got a base because he's but I you know I say you know then within a couple weeks he's gonna be shouting at people on the street because he's not getting us medication since in things like well when you're in New York when you live in New York for any extended period of time you develop that like radar like you can tell the difference between someone who's dangerous yeah and someone who's you know neutral and not a threat and there's all those cues that you just into it into your life yeah you know but let's take it back to your background I mean you had an incredibly interesting eclectic childhood raised by two artists yeah it was I could I guess he would say it was somewhat rarefied although to me it was normal because all the kids that you know I grew up surrounded by by painters and poets and illustrators and musicians and film directors and screenwriters and sculptors and so we were all kind of being the children of these people we were kind of latchkey kids in the art world and and so to us that made a lot of sense it was when we sort of strayed from outside of that which was familiar to us and somebody would say oh what are your parents do and I would say they're artists all right you know I've ever seen - it could oh my dad's a painter and he said oh and my dad oh well my dad wants to paint our house maybe kahan and then sort of explain kind of difficult for them to wrap their their minds around and but and I think in in that you know people say well obviously you were you were you were sort of because that was your environment that was the natural leap but my parents never they didn't really do that with us I mean it was never I mean there was always paper and crayons and pencils and things in my parents studio and of course yes you you imitate to a certain degree that what you see in your environment but my parents never pushed foisted it never would so ever your dad your mom was a fashion illustrator yeah and your dad was a very successful landscape painter doesn't work is like he's been everywhere like the met glioma you know revered full artist and you express some interest in this as a young person right and he started to teach you at age 12 like this was going to be the path for you yeah and and I I think you know full disclosure that was initially the idea of that was sort of seeking my father's approval mmm you know trying to find a common ground in which I could I could relate to him because he was a very intense guy I mean he had an enormous capacity to love but he was a he was an intense intense man somewhat of a rageaholic and not the most patient guy I mean those are there are certain traits of his that have crept into my DNA and and you know there there were times when they eke out and I'm mortified by them because there were things that really were a source of tremendous difficulty for me as a kid that being said I I kind of fully immersed myself in that world with my dad and he was you know he was hard but I mean it was also good that he was hard you know my parents were never once to to just shower praise on my siblings and myself just to do it you weren't a very special snowflake no I in that way you know I mean it didn't work out I mean I would do a drawing and I would my mother was it was was much more sort of sensitive and diplomatic about it whereas my father would kind of correct it and you know and and be very critical of it but I also I signed up for that yeah so by the time I was around 15 16 III kind of gone through this sort of formal training with my father as far as learning how to paint and mix color and have an understanding of that and drawing and then so then I'm in high school and I'm in art class and I was bored out of my mind I was I was just bored because part it was that I already really there wasn't anything they could teach me and I had the same experience when I went to art school they they couldn't teach me anything I'd already been taught all of the the technical things that were important and and I had a good grasp and understanding of that what I really needed to do was to paint on my own and kind of find my own us my own voice right so after a kind of you know unproductive year at at art school at Bennington College in which I you know more just kind of partied my head off uh-huh and I have great memories of that year it was not the most productive and so when I came out of that and my father was pissed and understandably you were just there one year I was just there a year that uh Bret Easton Ellis went up Bennington yeah you guys there at this he was there he was there after I right there and and so I I knew I was in trying to my father was gonna be angry I mean they basically said to me why don't you take a leave of absence and then decide if you want to because basically you know what we're what we're looking at academically for you is you just haven't shown up I mean there's you know you've you've shown up to your painting classes and you've done some good paintings and you have you have talent but you're not you know I just didn't have any didn't have the passion for it I didn't have the discipline really I didn't have the self-discipline and so my my remedy for that was that I thought well this really comes down to it to a self discipline thing I'm gonna join the Marine Corps and I thought that would kind of straighten me out uh-huh and my father said well you before you joined the Marine Corps your you got to come home he was very upset and he kind of put me into this what we my brothers and I called the inward Bound program aka and I don't know if I can swear it somewhere but we he referred to at his camp [ __ ] up and and all my brothers and I attended Kaka and what he within that time while I was sort of installed and in a little Cape guest house on my father's land up in Maine I lived kind of like Thoreau my you know was no girlfriends no hanging out boxes and boxes of books uh-huh and which my agenda was some kind of academic curriculum that was the daily you know I live and and then there was a there was a plot of land that needed to be that needed to be cleared so that we could harvest it for firewood mm-hmm he had a huge huge just a whack of land several thousand acres and and it was placed in a forever wild Conservancy so it could never be subdivided or built upon and there was just his compound and then another little compound and and so I you know there I was 18 years old living by myself in this in this cool funky house with no electric no electricity no running water or you know an outhouse and going out in the morning getting up early and cutting firewood by myself and doing that and then keeping a daily journal reading these books and then he said you can either do you know an oral presentation about the book or you can write a paper and because I was lazy eye doesn't huh I know I didn't want to subject myself to writing a paper knowing that he would just be there with two fists full of red pens and oh man this is intense it was really intense and it was sort of you know the the book showed up and it started you know in Mesopotamia and then it was like you know working through you know the complete works of Faulkner and it was kind of all over the place and and and Proust and and it just was endless and I would I would come into his studio he could carry on conversations well he would paint but that was like the inner sanctum so either if you got called into my father's studio typically it meant you were in trouble which were referred to as studio talks which we dreaded oh my and usually it would be his head would come in a door he'd be in your room I'd be with my siblings or something and the door would open my father would say come in studio time we'd all kind of go like man this is not gonna end well well so I did that and it was painful at times you know I can remember reading a book that was a tome and then sitting with my father in a studio for four hours he's grilling you having the conversation and finishing it and and he said yeah you gonna read that again and to which and you know and I want to say it wasn't Warren peace but it was definitely dense right it was definitely you know Russian literature you know and and and I said why don't have to read again he said cuz he didn't get it and you know and there was no way my dad was one of those guys where if he said you're grounded for a month you were grounded for a month there was no wiggle room you didn't go to him after two weeks and say hey you know I've been I've been toeing the line I'm doing the thing so you know can I get off on good behavior I mean he would hold it right right to the line and he did that with me and then when he felt that I had kind of completed that task which he I proceeded as meet owing him something because he had he had sent me to school there hmm and it was really more about me owing myself and I came out of that much stronger how long that go on for Oh months it was all but like almost a year and and not but he said to me what do you what are you gonna do now and I said uh we had many conversations and one of them we talked about painting and he said to me when you're not thinking about girls and beer and and smoking grass dude what do you think about do you think about painting and I said no I don't think about I think about films and I think about acting and he said well that's what you should do because if it doesn't get you up in the morning and it's and if it's not on your mind you need to do what's on your mind and and that and that was really the first time I'd ever said that out loud and I'd never told I didn't in in high school and things but it was for me it was it was kind of fun right but that's when I really and he said well then you better you know you you should go to New York I want to go to camp in word bound I don't know we might all be a little bit better off I we all did a little camp inward bound you know at the time I resented it and and and it felt like a punishment many many times but the truth the matter is of all the things that my father gave me over over you know while he was alive that was the greatest gift he's a beautiful gift and and I didn't I wasn't able to see it until I was away from it and I was a little bit older that I went oh oh and just the extraction from society to isolate you it's just you and him in books and nature it is very thorough you know I'm sure you had to it allowed you to develop that intuition to even answer that question you know like what do you think about well it did it also what it did was it made me rely I it forced me to be comfortable with myself and to entertain myself and so I spent you know when you have that kind of solitude then when you're kind of brought back into society there's there's less importance and in certain social aspects I mean I'm very comfortable I mean I I'm a social person I like I like being with people and meeting people but I'm also fine by by myself I can I like going for a long long you know I have a place in upstate Connecticut and I like just walking around with my family first and for me but I'm good being by my something I don't have a I don't know and I and I realize that prior to that I really wasn't comfortable being left with my own thoughts and it kind of forced me in that way it forced me to grow up certainly emotionally definitely intellectually it kind of pulled pulled me out of a out of a level of kind of intellectual and emotional immaturity I sort of I grew up in that in that time I kind of grew up now that you know I've certainly regressed on many an occasion but I will say that that was that was in all the years that I was in school I learned more in that time that I can't yeah I would imagine so so you end up in New York after that yeah and none got a very amorous life you know working multiple jobs a lot of shitty jobs and and you know sleeping on people's couches and not because I couldn't afford an apartment but it prepared me for that so I had I had a real survival instinct you know I never sat down and thought oh this is terrible so it's so hard you know at 18 I was living on the Upper West Side and a funky little apartment and with my girlfriend and you know I wasn't you know we we eat by every month but it was okay yeah I was okay and I studied at the HB studio in the beginning the Herbert Berghof studio because first of all was Austin Pendleton yeah it was the only place I could afford I never had Austin as a teacher I had bill Hickey crazy bill Hickey as a teacher and Walt with cover and and a new to Hagen had some great teachers there yeah I didn't get to know Austin until many many years later he he produced a play that Laurence Fishburne and I did together that Lawrence had written we did in in New York but you know it was it was the real deal I mean it was it was intense and then I sort of felt like I was missing something and I wanted to decide it made the decision to go back to school that I wanted to go back and continue my education uh-huh and so I applied to several schools and and then when I was accepted into schools I hadn't needed to make a decision and I chose to go to NYU and and I mean that was the best possible choice I could have made because that's where I connected with with Mamet and and lots of great actors and and saw it through you know and but it was important to me I felt like that which it had been inspired by my time with with with my father but I wanted to pursue that and isn't one to you you know you were doing it for yourself not to impress your father no and that was the thing that was very liberating was yeah that that to arrive at that place and to have that clarity you know the realization that I was doing it for myself because it's what I wanted to do rather than seeking the approval of my parents that was very liberating mm-hm and you know it didn't I mean until practically up until the time my father died you know he was it was always the subject of you know dinner conversation at some point the the bennington story had to had to come out my father just on some perverse level really enjoyed tormenting me about yeah just twisting the knife with that yeah why were your siblings in inward bound different versus similar story yes similar things just you know you know he was a stern taskmaster and I think what happened with a lot of us was that once we got out into the world and we felt you know those those tentacles weren't wrapped around our ankles we kind of went wild right but you had this base skills you know I think you know there's this idea that the artists life is one of you know living with your head in the clouds and here you have your father who's this incredibly prolific successful painter but a total taskmaster yeah you know a very disciplined man from what I gather yeah who valued hard work yeah and you know didn't take [ __ ] and didn't suffer fools and you know when I see the longevity of your career and how many people you've worked with I can't help but think that you bring that level of discipline and that kind of work ethic you know how you approach these roles well I learned that and I think that was the thing my father came from a you know a staggeringly poor background and he grew up in rural northern Pennsylvania and did not know his father so he was raised by his grandfather who was a cabinet maker and and a very gifted guy but you know it was a little town I mean people didn't people didn't go become painters there mm-hmm and so you know from the time he was a little kid he had incredible responsibilities which of course you know it always falls into that category of you know walking to school and three feet of snow 12 miles uphill and things like that but the stories were true you know and and and to a certain degree the I think they they weren't necessarily cautionary tales but we really had gratitude always had gratitude as kids my father made a big point of he was a guy who would give his last dime to someone who needed it that's just the way he was I can I can remember him paying off a neighbor's mortgage on their farm and and it turned out that the bank that that held the mortgage was also the bank where my father banked and after he got a call the guy worked for us he was like a hired hand and he worked at my dad's place in Maine I didn't come to work my father called his house cuz the guy was never a minute late and talked to his wife and she said well the bank the bank guys are here and there they're gonna foreclose on on the house and my father got in the car and went went down there and and he pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check for I think to the tune of at that time was fifteen twenty thousand dollars and he wrote the check and he handed it to the guy and he said he owns his house now go [ __ ] yourself oh and by the way after I leave here I'm I'm coming to the bank I'm closing all my accounts Wow and he had been banking there for ever and and you know he had a very successful career he you know it was very very successful so that was a that was a lot of money that was sitting in their bank but for him that was a line that you know it was they were unethical the idea that they would bully a farmer who could barely you know scrape it together so this incredibly principled man you know that raised you I mean how does this inform how you raise your kids mean your dad to three kids we live in a very different culture than that you know obviously there's so much value in so many of those things that he taught you but it's a little it would be a little bit out of the norm to be that kind of taskmaster yeah I'm this day and age I mean you know how do you how do you take the best of that and you know channel it downstream your kids well my you know Mike my kids have a very privileged life but they also you know they've they've been around the world enough to to see people who have nothing anime I think that what I have what I have done what I what I have strived to do with my kids is to teach them gratitude and to and kindness and that and I see that in them they have great empathy they're kind they're they're not angels I can tell you that they are disciplined to a certain degree but they're also you know 13 17 and almost 20 so they're they're very normal in that way I know they're all on your TV show they're all yeah yeah Eamonn pleasure son that's your younger one Quintin place you're young you're you're younger young he plays the younger Harry Bosch okay and then my daughter did a little a little cameo but just to to speak to nepotism that they came to me when they wanted to cast someone who's gonna play in some of these flashbacks they had they had met my kids Eamon was slightly older at the time and they asked they said you know does your does your son Quinn you know he looks so much like you would you know we want to maybe we could use him for these flashbacks and I said I don't know and so I approached him about it and at first he was nervous and sitting here I don't know dad I've only you know you know I was the teddy bear in the Christmas play etc etc and and he ended up doing it and and and he's really good on the show but that just you know full disclosure I didn't go to them when they were Cassie and saying hey how about hiring my kid and then Michael Connelly had written the scene on the beach where this little girl comes and asked my daughter if she'll push her in this wing because the father is completely glued to his cell phone and and Michael had written that scene he said you know be great to court could do this which he want to do so there's that now that being said what's kind of great with having all three of my kids being actors that certainly with my sons for as long as we do this show we can move them around in different points of Harry's life because they're both they're both really good actors and I certainly never you know the same thing as my father I never pushed them into that I never said so do you want to be an actor when you grow up and they're both they're both musicians they they play a lot of music so who knows what they'll ultimately end up doing my and my daughter she's she's 13 I mean yeah you never see wants to be at she's really interested in in in being an actor but she's also very interested in her iPhone too so that becomes the you know thankfully we didn't we didn't have it distractions like that I mean my father felt that we didn't even watch a lot of TV I watched television of my mother's house because my father was kind of anti TV hmm you know it's the six o'clock news we didn't even have a color TV I don't think until I was in high school yeah there there is an important relationship between boredom and creativity yeah that we're losing our connection with that that scares me you know I have you know an 11 and a 15 year old daughter yeah and yeah they love their iPhone you know and I it's problematic yeah it is particularly when you try to say hey given giving that a break you see the the it's like trying to pull a beer out of an alcoholics hand yeah well and there's more and more you know data that's showing up now that that the the the relationship to these phones because they're not phones they're they're basically personal computers their laptop their slot machine your hands yeah there's slot machines and so you know it's that they're it's addiction mm-hmm you know I find myself what I I've got this thing on my phone now that tells me how much time spending on the phone yeah it's alarming it is alarming even when I feel like I'm consciously being careful to try not to use it and there there is a certain amount of some of it which is a necessary evil to a certain degree as we are in a business of having to the things that we do and social media is a very good way to do that and to reach people so you can and you can tell yourself that that lie like oh well I need to do this for my work right but in truth you know it is an addictive relationship and and you know creativity spawns out of Solitude yeah right and so you know how do we you know cultivate that and our children's lives in our in our own lives like it requires a lot of discipline you know that discipline you know and really being good with boundaries well we don't have the weed and grow up with the same yeah I was informed by it we had we had radio we had high fives as at home we had record players and and we had television and movies were movies there were no I didn't you know the VCR came along well after we didn't have that yeah and there are so many things to distract and now it's all you know compressed into this one little thing that we carry around as being a form of communication it kind of bums me out I hate to sound like you know when I would bring my kids that's a little too much you know we're gonna cut it down to this amount and I remember my older son saying I mean that we're not Amish and I said you know we're not Amish but I said the amount of time that you know you spend playing video games is it's not good it's not good for you yeah and as somebody who's trying to you know find their voice you gotta you gotta find space first well you have to find you also have to you have to be able to what it goes back to what I said you know you have to be comfortable being by yourself you know to say never have to be alone anymore if you know when we as kids if we said we were bored it was the worst thing you could possibly say around my father because he would then find a million things for you to do that you didn't want to do and there was some you know I can ruin I'm saying I was bored and my father's remedy for that was go upstairs and and get the a encyclopedia I went upstairs get the a encyclopedia bring it down okay what do I do I read it ha ha ha what do you mean read it yeah start and so what was interesting was I was furious and sat there and he he never let anything go so it was ours and I'm saying that if he told you to do it you were gonna do you did it because we were we had a very healthy fear of my father and and then and then it started to become this thing and reading the encyclopedia and what was interesting was at a certain point it started to get good to me uh-huh and I suddenly realized that these books that that were you know like the monolith from 2001 they were always so intimidating to me were actually great and I could skip over what I you know I didn't I didn't have to read everything but what it did was it it in it was a level of solitude because it wasn't and my father would say don't go and sit in the in the middle of the living room with that book you go to your room and you close the door and it was you know I suppose that's why sometimes there are nights when I can I can run the board on Jeopardy and and and I always say tribute that I'll turn to to my kids and go I don't I don't know how yeah no I know how I did you get all the way to Z no no I got I'm trying to remember the last I got somewhere around em uh-huh and then I was out of the house yeah I mean you can't even find encyclopedias anymore I still have them I still have my Encyclopedia Britannica's yeah and we had another one that was the dealt purely with science which was great the encyclopedias of science I think but also I love to read you know my thing when I was a kid with my my iPhone when I was a kid were toys and comic books and that was my my father would say I don't want to you know why don't you read a book you're always reading that Fantastic Four and no no no no no no read a book and I love to read I you know I I knew how to sort of divide my time that's been the one thing with my kids that I have felt that I've I've really had to kind of push a little bit harder on and that's reading yeah because there's it's tough it's tough to get young people to read and then once they start to do it you know hopefully they get hooked I mean my my kids read not as much as I wish that they would but the flip side of that is that all of my kids love films and they and they love to to sit and and and you know I can sit with them and watch three three or four films if it's a rainy day it's a perfect opportunity to just sit and I'll say oh well we're gonna watch Godfather one and Godfather two and you get to work with them it's pretty cool which is really you know that's the that's the that's one of the many things but and also music I mean there's there's still within the household with with all the distractions of iPhones and iPads of which I suffer this you know the same malady there's there's music playing all the time my kids love music and and they like to look at art they have you know they're that's the thing I mean somebody said oh you know watch your kids we'll all end up being lawyers or doctors and I say well look you know same thing my father said to me I don't care what you do as long as it gets you up in the morning and as long as it fulfills you and but alas I look at all three of my kids III would be surprised if they come to me and say I'm gonna go to medical school I'm gonna go to law school they're artists and I think that's that's kind of either it's in your DNA or it's not in your DNA so where's the the first like break you're living in New York that was a lot of theater years and years of theater doing theater for no money having no age and agents were very very hard to get when I was coming up and ironically I got sort of discovered in a bar an agent who had seen me in a play I was actually a Mamet play American Buffalo that I went on off-broadway and I was I was in the saloon that I worked at it was my night off and I was shooting pool and this guy came over and said you're tired of Oliver and I thought Jesus you know I mean maybe yeah well that's you know that was always a consideration and and he said he had seen me in this play and he asked me who my agent was and I said I don't have an agent and I you know as you sort of navigate that you know that whole weird world you know you occasionally you know you connect with somebody and they seem legitimate and then there's all other there's a weird angle so I was very I didn't jump right in and I didn't call him back I mean initially he gave me his card and he said give me a call I wanted I want to talk to you about representing it I didn't call him I just thought it was another BS thing and and then he tracked me down back through mutual friends and the bar cause he he drank at the at the bar and and so you know he said you know what's going on are you you know you you want representing representation or not and and I ended up going and taking a meeting with him and he immediately had set me up with meetings and the third audition that he sent me on I got I got the part and it was a sort of a small walk-on scene in a movie called Navy SEALs where I played this obnoxious redneck and who goes after Charlie Sheen and Charlie Sheen's this Navy SEAL and he kind of beats me up and and then I did the doors with Oliver Stone right and that was kind of a that was a long long shoot so they would they're you know over months and months they'd fly me out for two days and they'd say yeah we're not gonna use you so they'd fly me back to New York and this kept going on and then I got cast in a film called The Lofts Capone which was a was a Turner a TNT sort of movie of the week miniseries thing about Al Capone and his brothers and Eric Roberts played Al Capone and Adrian Pasdar played the lost Capone who was Jimmy Capone who kind of fled Brooklyn after he thought he was responsible for a a opposing gang members death and he went on to be the become this marshal and change his name to James Hart to gun Hart and during Prohibition he was knocking over Al's illegal shipment Sabu's at least that was the sort of the version that we told I mean it was a little bit glorified because apparently he he wasn't the most honest guy but that that and that was the thing that I put on a bunch of weight for right and like 60 pounds yeah yeah got you know and then was pissed because I wasn't getting called in for the leading man roles and it took me a year to lose that and you know it's kind of a my career in that way has been kind of a slow burn you know and I think it better better than too much too quick certainly because I while I was disciplined in my work you know I was very much out and about all the time big partier and I don't know that I would have been able to handle success as he watched a sim I think it would have I would have probably crashed and burned but you've like it doesn't look like you had any dry spells like you've basically been consistently consistently working for sure but there were definitely periods where you know where there were dry spells and also me trying to step away from stuff you know I would get because one of the one of the you know the it's such a cliche but you do you can if you do something well sometimes you get the engine hold I mean how did you become you know the kind of hard-ass cop do you have like a sweet guy you know I don't I don't you know in spending time with you personally it's not like you come off naturally that way no maybe you do were when you were partying oh no I I mean yeah definitely when I was when I was when I was deep in the tank I was certainly you know there's a long and and somewhat undistinguished list of people that I've you know had physical altercations with in in in my younger years and to a certain degree had had a bit of a chip on my shoulder so I was very for me it was easier to gravitate towards confrontation than not and some of that has to do with the way that I was raised the kind of guy my father was he was a very confrontational guy so I grew up in an environment where that was there all the time and kind of underlying and but I spent a lot of time I tend to sort of NAB those roles the cop roles because I spent a lot of time around cops I was around cops had a lot of cop friends so I'd go in to read for these characters and it would resonate the people kind of go oh that's kind of great this I mean I remember a couple times people saying are you were you a police officer before no no no I'm you know Oh what happened to your accent I thought you were from Brooklyn no I don't have an accent I you know but so I don't know I don't know I don't you know I certainly now that being said I was doing those roles in it and that was fine but I started to get a little bit bored mm-hmm because there's only so many ways you can reinvent the wheel particularly if it's not on the page and it well it came all in time it was the second I want to say the second season of NYPD Blue the word all changed where I got a call oh they want you to come in and read for this role of playing this this trauma surgeon this doctor and I thought because I had been so conditioned to what Hollywood's perception of who I was and what I what I should be playing I remember saying I'm manager I don't want to waste a meeting with David Milch and Steven Bochco for a role that they're not gonna cast me in and I said well that's the one that's the one so I went in and I kind of pulled myself together I put on my reading glasses and button myself down and comb my hair and and and and end up getting I was sort of cast right on the spot Milch milf said to me you want to play this role and you know it's you and that that came in a moment and it completely changed the perception of of a what I could do and suddenly I was playing well I said I went from being mono syllabic to polysyllabic and with with one with one character and and and that was this role of dr. Mons a con NYPD Blue and I they would bring me back here and then I pulled me back in for something you know Sipowicz was Dean had a friend who had dementia or he was having you know which tenet did you do run out this was was the American Buffalo that you did with Denis France no no no that was a that was a camera with the directors name that was with Dustin Hoffman and I came over the kids name who that was the film the guy was from Providence were Alan anyway so then all of a sudden I'm not being you know called in to be the cop or to be the Knockaround guy and I was playing lawyers I was playing playing dads but there was always sort of a poll also and by the same at the same time to play tough guys right villains which I don't I there they're actually they're fun characters to play I would say it's it's more fun to where the guy with the black is it play the guy with the black hat than the white hat for one thing you know the sort of sky's a limit you know you're playing villains these are people who don't play by the rules and so there's something kind of insanely heady about playing people who don't play by the rules they just kind of it you know and I and I knew guys who were who were in organized crime I observed those guys so I knew who they were you know and to watch them come into into an establishment where people knew who they were and the kind of deference and also still the kind of yeah fear that they instilled in people despite the fact that they were being incredibly charming when they would walk in shaking everybody's hands and hey how you doing no no no no no no no you knew that 90% of the people that were interacting with them were they felt that it was out of survival they were scared they didn't they weren't looking at these people and saying oh you know hey killed a couple people but really at the end of the day is just a nice guy yeah so those and also I don't like to stigmatize characters as being you know if you're playing a villain you know you can't have judgment honor you can't have judgment on don't play the result don't come in you know unless of course you're doing a Disney character or something like that where it's required to Telegraph that and well that's a more one-dimensional you know portrayal yeah and it's not as interesting a bad guy yeah it's just not as interesting so those and some of those villains were they were really fun to play I mean Jimmy O on Sons of Anarchy just you know that was a really that was a bad dude he was a really bad guy he was a really and and yet my thought about him was just a guy who he was just a businessman who had initially kind of started out as a guy on the righteous side of being in in in the IRA in the Irish Republican Army you know under the tyranny of the British government that he was that the guy had a you know as a soldier he was doing but then he got into selling guns and then he kind of got corrupted and sort of lost his way and became just another common criminal how is it working with Curt great it was great Sutter and I had a lot of fun we remain friends to this day and he's been always been very supportive of other work that I've gone on to do I really enjoyed working with him a lot he's an you know an extraordinarily bright guy and and very funny I mean I always cracks me up the way he he refers to himself as Walter Mitty with anger issues I mean oh yeah he's a I mean he's another guy who when you spend time with him you're like he's kind of a sweet teddy bear but he has this persona this larger-than-life bad guy persona and he's intimidating he's a big dude yeah he's got some anger stuff yeah for sure but but he's sweet yeah the the the at his core you know he's very very sweet guy mm-hmm and you know people you see him with his kids yeah he sees well I think with all of us right that's that becomes the thing I mean you know that which we how we are in the world and then you know it's our children our our lives all Tianna in that way right people always say oh when you're what is it how do you define being a parent and I say you define being a parent is when when you become a parent you have one of two things either you you go oh I'm a parent or you have the realization it's this incredible Epiphany of what a what true love is and also selflessness hmm it's at that where you say I would I would make the element the ultimate sacrifice this is where I would do that yeah and I think Kurt is one of those people I mean I think he uses his art his writing his creative expression as a way to exorcise the demons house within absolutely you know present and loving you know partner and and and father yeah so we're how does how does a Ben Affleck come into the picture because you become like his dude you're in all his movies I mean they're all like crazy awesome he's a great listener I mean the mustache that you were rocking in Gone Baby Gone is like will go down in cinema history what are the all-time great mustaches in movies except for sample yet he's still that's - yeah well nobody can grow a mustache like that saying but but that you know the handlebars down the side that was something to behold that was a the chops I had just finished shooting Deadwood or we were finishing it up and I and I read the script Gone Baby Gone thought it was great went in to be put on tape for him to see and it was also the first time that I had seen something since the Friends of Eddie Coyle which was a film that I love so much that takes place in Boston really deals with those kind of underworld characters and so I went in and I got put on tape and then I didn't hear anything for ever and ever and ever and and then months later my my then manager says hey you got a callback for Ben Affleck and I said for what for Gone Baby Gone I said talk Jesus is that still going on he said yeah so I go in I kind of prepare myself again and go in and and read for Ben and it's sort of like the typical come in hi hi okay let's just you have any questions no I'm just gonna jump in and do the couple of scenes and then Ben starts you know he starts the conversation after the audition and uh like a half a minute in he goes what happened to your accent what accent no so are you from Boston I said no I'm not from Boston where do and I said no my mom lived in Boston I went to boarding school in Maine and I have a lot of you know I've had a lot of you know connective tissue in with New England and everything so I know that I I know the accent and I when I when I got there before the meeting I was looking around and and the waiting room was filled with all these fosston guys well no they weren't they were but they were all really established character actors who were older because that character was at least 15 years older than I was when I played it on screen so I remember thinking to myself it's gonna be a stretch now I when I went in I had hair down to here and my I was still doing Deadwood so my beard was twice the size it is now so I kind of you know had my hair pulled back and made a little bun to try to pull that off and but I remember seeing all these character actors and just thinking yeah you know it's great that I can even come in but it's not gonna happen and so and then I was cast and I think the first of all Ben's an extraordinarily bright guy he's a really really intelligent man yeah I've heard that from a lot of people and very funny I mean hysterically funny and and we just we kind of hit it off not kind of I mean we really really hit it off and then when we after I was cast you know he said look I don't want you to don't cut your hair and don't shave off the beard because I don't we got to figure out what we're gonna do with this characters look and and so we got the boss and we sort of ran through the whole thing and I said look this long hair and this beard isn't gonna work for this character but I'd like to you know have like a handlebar mustache and cut my err short but get it cut either I'll cut it myself for you no because I don't want to look like a guy who spends a lot of time on his appearance and so I went into the to the hair trailer and and my friend Trish Sweeney who I worked with her on a couple of things I said let's just make it look like it's it's a bad Supercuts job which took more effort to make it look like a bad Supercuts job and then and he and he signed off on the mustache so I you know I took it all off in the mustache but that hold the whole process of making that film here was Ben who was that was the first time he was directing and he just never had a sense of that I mean his confidence I mean his great humility don't get me wrong but he knew exactly what he was doing hmm he was so well prepared you know it was a great cast I mean now you know I was you know ed Harris and Morgan Freeman just the name name you know and and then Amy you know we we played siblings and and and amy madigan played my wife and it was just one of those you felt like you were you were making a small independent film with a better big-time actors yeah yeah but it was great I mean just the energy on the set and Casey and and Michelle was such a wonderful cast of actors it holds up so well I mean you really see somebody who understands their craft you know the guy who made that movie I mean for a first-time director ya know even given that he's been around for a long time I mean that's a you know a tall order to fill well and that's because the scope of that film was very very big it's not a small independent movie that is a no it's not it's a big movie the first time he showed me his first pass of the film I can't remember how long it was but I can I remember I went with my with my late wife we went to his office and he said up with a big screen in one of the offices and and it's a long film but it seemed to go by like that and it was kind of patiently waiting and went what do you think and and I honestly couldn't answer him I was still in the film you know I said don't my right I don't know what to say and he what do you mean and I said I have to this I have to digest that what I've just seen because it was one of the first times where I watched something that I had acted in and was not aware right you weren't like so this was that was the day that you know we started late and you know there was none of that nor was I watching my performance and going yeah or that take or I don't like that angle or I just I was completely drawn into the film and got lost and in in the film and and then of course he went on to do the town which now was it still had that energy of being a very familial kind of independent world but really a huge budget and and that's the way the he creates an environment a creative collaborative environment where you you you will you know that you're involved with something that's that's special so you have a sense when when you're in the midst of shooting of the quality of the product that it's gonna become because I you know often I would imagine you might think it's all going great then you see it later and you're like that movie your harmonica unfortunately I've had a lot of those experiences where the thing feels like it's it's something and then you look at the final product and you you know i-i've just been gobsmacked at times where I thought how could you take something that felt so right and and the end result just be so completely off the mark and wrong but that's book you know without without failure certainly I mean in in all degrees and in life without failure you can't have any any true success you don't learn but well it's it's a miracle any movie gets made you know and when you see a bad movie nobody signed up for a bad movie you know you know everybody went in with the best of intentions it's just so difficult it is and when something turns out great I mean that's just miracle upon miracle well and also the the whole kind of when I was coming up the independent film market was still really really strong you just see less and less of these sort of interesting little films although they kind of they end up getting these these lives in the streaming thing yeah I mean we're seeing you know whether it's Amazon or Netflix or Hulu and all these other streaming platforms are filling that void that used to be you know the Focus Features and the raw maxes of the world you know it's it's it's an ebb and a flow on some level it seems like there's more outlets and opportunities now to work you know there's so much content being critic you know I'm like two seasons behind on Bosh I can't keep up I know everything that's coming at me now no it's hard because there is I mean every time you turn on the thing there's something new there's something new which is good and also you know with with technology being where it is I mean people are going out and making films on their iPhones right and they have this soda purchase made that that movie high flying bird yeah all with an iPhone yeah right so you know back in the day if you had a VHS you could you could make you know a funky little thing but it was never gonna yeah I know I saw I watched our ago a couple weeks ago that movie holds up so well it's a good film it's so good it really I really hope Affleck finds his way back to that kind of work oh yeah he's he's always got stuff going he's always gotten things going you know and he but he's a you know he's a triple threat he's a really really great actor and he obviously you know an Oscar Oscar winning writer and just I have to say pound for pound one of the best directors I've ever I've just what is the difference between a great director and a you know a an everyman director you know what are the qualities that you look for well I think first of all he's a very he's the most prepared director I've ever worked with and that's not to say that other directors that I worked with weren't prepared there's he has an understanding of it in its totality I mean you can sort of that the whole film is in his head when he's working and he's not flipping open a screen and looking at a storyboards and a pre-visualization the whole thing is in his head it's it's cut in his head and he knows he just knows every aspect of it you know he's been he's probably committed the whole script to memory and there's just something about his excitement he's still he hasn't become cynical in all the years that he's been acting and in this business and making films he's not cynical he still has that excitement and and that's very contagious and he's very collaborative he's very clean he's very open and you don't always find that you know sometimes you just feel like a guest in somebody's house and and you know and you you don't want to turn down the broccoli or something for fear that you'll offend he's just very he's he's inclusive in that way within within the process and you know and he's also a guy who will who will say we got it is there anything you want to you want to do a free one you want to just throw it up in the air and see what happens he's very smart and I think that is just you know what it what it is he's very very he's very intelligent so he has all the departments are kind of covered he's very literally as a very literate mind he has a really great technical mind so he understands the camera completely and editing and it's just a lot to be said for being very well-prepared I mean there's nothing it's it's all been carefully conceived which doesn't mean that he won't deviate from from that which he the ideation knows exactly what he wants clear vision but it's online did in collaborative yeah yeah and so you've been in all of his movies if I if he was sitting across from me right now and I was likewise Titus your dude I don't know I don't know what he would say he would say something he'd make a smartass remark yeah he'd probably say so we didn't answer it directly now hey you knew you probably not gonna tell me no no I don't I did you know he would definitely make fun of me because he's he's prone to there's a lot of ball-breaking also which is we just want to heat the the sets are I mean some of the it's just a lot of laughter I mean I I even in the Serie particularly the more serious a subject the more laughter there is which is always kind of it's nice because it takes the takes the edge off but I mean I can remember days of doing scenes on the town where he he just can't help himself you need do you do it do us do a scene and you know nail it and like cut you go okay and go yeah yeah well we have to move on but yeah it was pretty good then you can go oh do you want to do it again oh it's not it's not getting any better I mean it's just sort of this thing where it's just a constant taking the piss the day goes faster but there's I don't know there's something about that it just makes it more fun and I always feel like you know in actors who work with him they they get that with Ben you know they they because he he's not gonna leave until he sees you okay which is which is something that you don't always get you know he'll he will not move on till ago you okay you good yeah you sure to which the first time he ever said that to me I said boy why why I asked me if I'm sure because are you sure he came up as an actor and he cares and he knows he knows the agony of that thing of second-guessing that sometimes actors can can go but you know if somebody said to me for the rest of your career you're only gonna work with Ben Affleck I would be more than happy with that yeah that's cool is is there a huge difference between that I mean you've done these huge movies like transformers I mean it's gotta be a whole different animal altogether yeah because that those things really become less about performance I mean well you have to you really use your imagination with those sounds so in that way they're really fun but the but doing the Transformers film was the most physically taxing job I've ever had to do because you're just you're you're constantly running running or shooting or fighting it's like to be Tom Cruise it's like again well and you know he's the master of that and you know it's and it's a very very very technical those films because we're you're you know you're reacting to things that aren't there and and you know once again Michael Bay very very well-prepared guy I mean he's he's got it all in there and yet he'll throw stuff at a left field sometimes he'll just the world is his muse he'll come up and say you know what we're gonna do it this way seems counterintuitive to what you're trying to do but he's very smart and he'll throw it up in the air but I had fun I had fun doing that film I mean I I you know Michael is a he's a Yeller man he he yeah there's all these he gets mythic stories he gets loud he gets loud and he but he's also you know he's he's a taskmaster he wants he wants it to be great he Michael never wants something to just be good and I don't think any director worth their salt or actor or anyone just wants something to be good serviceable I mean he wants it to be great and and then and beyond great and he puts you know an incredible amount of energy into that and he expects everyone to do that and sometimes people don't meet his expectations and he's just not always very good or diplomatic and expressing his his concerns or his dissatisfaction but I found him I liked him very very much and we we worked really well together and he's also a guy who who will torment you and break your balls but then right that kind of that kind of worked well as a big comic book guide you like would you want to dip your toe in the whole Marvel Universe yeah I would it's just I mean you know I did I recurred on the show agents of shield I came out of doing on this Marvel short which they put on the blu-ray release of Avengers called item 47 it was like little short film Easter egg films that they make and now when you go to see a Marvel film you know that you got to hang out because there's at least one if not two Easter eggs so you're solidified in the Canon as that person yeah I mean look is it you know it was it was a dream when I was a kid to just know you never thought that they were ever gonna make us play movie and they weren't they weren't making those any when they finally made the the Superman movie with Christopher Reeve it was you know I remember thinking great now the doors are gonna open and you know Marvel will start doing this and you wait until your fifties yeah but I enjoy those films I mean I thoroughly enjoy you know they're they're really well crafted and I feel like the whole the whole Marvel Universe those characters is very sophisticated Stan Lee had a kind of genius you know himself and all the people that he surrounded himself with and collaborated you know it's I look forward to then people complain they go I don't want to see another superhero movie and I get it to a certain degree but I'm ok with it because you know it's it's such an interesting thing like if you didn't know that about you like you just don't stray me as you know coming from this artists background and you know serious painter father and all of that you know NYU David mammoth theater you're you don't I wouldn't I wouldn't presume that you would be like this comic-book guy but I know like how like he'll you much of a fan you know all my yeah because cuz her side you're a week for sideshow yeah I'm a total nerd I'm a nerd I mean and and I was exactly the kid turns into a kid when he cut yeah I know I can't get rid of this guy wants to come sideshow every day I know they gotta give me a key card although you know but that that that's my I don't know that I I've always been immersed in sort of pop culture but of course I you know growing up in the 60s that's when that pop culture kind of exploded everything became bigger and more colorful with the psychedelic art and you had Peter Max and Roy Lichtenstein and and Marvel Comics kind of blew up and toys were kind of in you had Hot Wheels cars and GI Joes and Easy Bake Ovens and all this stuff and you know there's a part of it that that we just don't have any you know it's like now we have we have phones yeah you know my when I was a kid I had all that so I had comics and stuff but I have the little plastic soldiers and big chunks of modeling clay and you just lose yourself for hours doing that stuff and and I just think it was just part of my life and it just never left to me it's sort of like comfort food to a certain to a certain degree and I like and I you know when I saw sideshow I mean this and that was a when sideshow came around it was a game changer you know and they and initially and I was hip to them from when they came out publicly and they're they're they're first stuff was you know the the World War one things and and the the you know the General Custer and the Billy the Kid and all these kind of interesting it-it-it took that whole thing to a different level I mean it's Greg and I have had those conversations where I've said to them you know all these people who work not only at sideshow in the different ways that they work there whether they're sculptors or the boxart people or the photographers or the mold makers the painters these people are are they're all artists yeah incredible artists incredible artists people if they wanted to be just working within the fine art world but then I say but then how can you really differentiate what because it's you know it's still art to me as it's pop culture yeah but so people sort of tend to sort of poopoo it and we should say for people that are listening I don't know sideshow is a is a company that's run by our mutual friend collaborative partner in my case Greg Anzalone and they make very high-end limited edition runs of collectable figures from pop culture so the Star Wars movies marvel over CC and then their own stuff and they do sculptures they do 1/6 scale you know 12-inch figures and there are 33 points of articulate yeah and it's staffed by these artists as you mentioned who are incredibly skilled at you know painting in the greatest detail or crafting you know costumes and sculptors people that if there was no sideshow yet when it will wear with these people be able to do what they do like they they have this home where they can go and do what they love and do it incredibly well in a supportive environment to create these things that people love I mean you know I didn't grow up with comic books and this is you know a new experience for me like tapping into this subculture but you got a comic-con and they have this second-biggest booth on the floor yeah people are freaking out and there's collectors all over the world I mean caramel del Toro like as a whole oh yeah room in his house filled with this stuff no his house is a museum collected a bunch of it as well oh no I have a and there's a whole world it's easy for it to take over but I have a room which is sort of like we'll call it the the screening room for because I just man cave just it's just a word that really bugs me man cave that's like I don't know it's like the little rascals what was at the the he-man girl haters club that the the alfalfa had you know tacked on on the tree house the toxic masculinity oh I don't even need yeah I guess so maybe it's the toxic masculinity but but I have this room where my my screen TV is in and where I go and watch movies and things like that and it's just a series of shelves that are just you know filled with sideshow stuff yeah and and it and and that's my that's my sort of you know my fortress of solitude I can go in there and close the doors and it's not like I'm I'm getting up and posing these things all over the place but a lot of them because they relate directly to two films that I love there's something there's this odd connection between looking at you know Ironman on in the movie and then looking over in the shelf and there is there it is and you can you know there's that tactile experience of lifting up the visor and there's Robert Downey jr. 'he's face and the fingers are articulated and all that stuff I mean you know it's it's it's hard at times to sort of articulate that to people who don't have any connection to it they'll kind of but eventually people sort of come around to see us no they think aesthetically but then the the the other irony of that is that people will come to my house and you know for a dinner party or something and everybody ends up down in the well at some point because it seems like a museum both men and women will come in and go wow this is this is incredible what are all these things or or they'll say oh I remember that's from this movie or that movie would be and they get it I mean they do get it whether it's something they want to do themselves as it's a totally different thing but they get it there's a I don't know there's some sort of a connection and I always say you know it's not it's not hurting anybody yeah yeah what's the the project that's still out there that your spirits yearning to do is there a movie you've always wanted to make or a character you've always wanted to play well I've started to I I wrote a television pilot for myself several to television pilots for myself a couple years ago when I was kind of disenfranchised with the whole business and and I thought you know I I gotta create something that I can really connect to and you know interestingly enough just as I was getting ready to go out to the to the pitch phase with my manager to start to do that is when Bosh landed on my on my desk but I've I started writing a screenplay with my oldest son Eamon last summer and I've got a lot of stories I have a lot of stories and the TV pilots I don't I you know they're good I'd like to but I maybe for one I think I might be a tad old for it now mm-hmm which is okay and I'm you know I'm hoping that will that Bosh will run for for many many years because it's such a character it's a character that I'd love playing you know and he's you know even in his 60s in the books and the whole chronology the books he's in his sixties is he still working it's like a volunteer yeah cold-case detective left on this thing you know he's he's not going anywhere so I I guess what I'd like to ultimately do is to start to direct and or act in films that I write and do them with my friends and do them with my family because I think there's those have always been kind of dreams of mine then that they don't need to be gigantic films but that's always been and I've experienced that working with Ben and with laurence fishburne when you work with a and now so with with bosch when you work with a with a group of people that are you know family and friends you get you get a lot more done and I think you get the best stuff done when you're working with a group of people or there is mutual respect and Trust and you don't feel necessarily like you're a hired gun and and I know that it probably sounds Marxist to a certain degree but it's it it's worked it's worked for me when I've had those experiences I've always thought I'd really like to recreate this at another point and have a little bit more control over it mmm do you look back on your career and wonder how it all came to be or does it feel like ya supposed to be here doing what I'm supposed to be doing yeah I felt that I mean there have been times when I've thought particularly in the dry times in the lean times in the hard times you know I can remember early on kind of thinking to myself am i I'm I'm either either this is a great decision or I'm the most irresponsible person on the planet and and and and you know the pursuit of being an artist in whatever discipline of art you know by by society's estimation it is irresponsible you know so it's just things people say what are you gonna fall back on you know right it is kind of an outlaw you know way to live your life I'm okay with that axe yeah I'm okay because it's to me I remember at one point when I I had kind of a bumpy semester when I was at NYU I wish I never said you know I had a girlfriend that was in in another city and I was you know not going to class and going to see her and and my my father was was agitated with me and kind of brought it up and said hey I just got your midterm grades you know and you're kind of you're floundering here and there and and it's time for you got to go back to inward bow well I thought yeah this is round two right yeah although at that point I was old enough to say well I'm you know I'm 21 you can't you can't pull me back into the graduate school of inward bound camp [ __ ] up and and he he said look you know nobody's nobody's forcing you to do any of this stuff I mean if you're not you know and I don't think that you need a college education in order to to achieve success but you know if you're not gonna if you're not gonna see this through then you know don't waste don't waste time don't don't waste money and and I realized that because he said to me all arts a little long a little boring and I really resonated with me because it was it was at a time when I was kind of going yeah you know I don't know I don't know is this what it's because there's so much of that in the beginning as an out of so much desperation there's so much pressure and and you see not only yourself but other people so focus sometimes on entirely the wrong things you know they're talking about you know the social aspect of well if like if I can you know get invited to some of these parties I could go and move and shake or oh I met this producer and you know at the end I'm here to tell you that that's [ __ ] it's empty it you know I've never been I've been in many many parties with famous directors and studio heads and producers that could you know they don't walk up to you at a party and say you need to be the star in my next picture kid yeah it's just I was just having that conversation with my eldest boy the other night at dinner it was his birthdays musician you know he's trying to make his way and and he's very grounded guy but I was relating that same thing there's this sense when you come to LA or whether it's New York and you're trying to pursue this career in the entertainment business that you got to be at all these parties or if you're at the right bar whatever you're going to meet that person it's like the people that are successful or into bed early and they're [ __ ] working yeah you know hard grinding for a long time and ultimately you know the cream rises to the top yeah and those are the people that become employed and make their way ya know it's it look it's it's not for everyone it's certainly not for the faint of heart you know that that thing I can remember you know being in a friend's house or something and they had a very different environment which they grew up in the parents would say so so Titus what are you gonna do if this doesn't work out and it never occurred to me that it wasn't gonna work out and that's not because I was arrogant I just I knew that this was the only thing that I really wanted to do yeah for somebody like you there's value in not having a plan B oh my you have the constant but I grew up with parents who'd that was the same thing my parents never had a plan B and people thought that my father was crazy and you know with my mother she was was very very gifted she got ended up getting a teaching gig very very early on but then also kind of realized that her focus was was being sort of you know watered down a bit because she had she had the security of having a fairly you know a regular daily job which she could depend on and she said you know I started to she said I got soft she said I got soft and I kind of lost my way for a minute because I was comfortable I felt safe and that's what my parents did and she said you know and she said and then I got a job I got a job being you know as a fashion illustrator and she said I stopped teaching and I get that you know that's so for you the job becomes how do you not get soft because you have you know you have predictable employment playing the same character for not just the foreseeable future but perhaps for a very long time right and it would be very easy for you to just kind of settle into that you know show up and check the box as an artist you know how do you maintain you know that that tension to keep pushing the envelope and testing yourself well hey you do other stuff right which keeps it fresh but also I mean one of the considerations that I had when I thought I wanted to go and do a series you know as this was approaching my my late wife was very very ill and McCain clear that she was going to die and her and I I realized that what I probably was going to have to do was to try to find a television series it's something that would be grounded stability keep me home and they would have some stability but of course there's no guarantees in those things so I was working on this thing for myself and it had legs and I thought okay I can do that but there there is always there was always a sort of a hesitation to a certain degree even when I desperately needed money and to survive to do the regular jumping through hoops of pilot season you know you'd read something and you you kind of go yeah yeah I'll do that and well you got to move to Vancouver oh really uh well maybe not but you need to make you know you know and I had three kids I had to take care of and and a sick wife and but when so when Bosh came along it became that thing of sort of I would start to write before that I was looking at pilot scripts and in in the process of working in this business particularly when you're kind of a hired gun and you're out and you're kind of working here and going to do that show and to that I observed a lot of times people who had been in shows that had been either running for a long time or maybe not only running for a couple of seasons but I saw an environment which people were not be and I think that happens sometimes people sign up to do something because it looks good on paper but and I just knew myself well enough that if I was going to sign on to do a series it had to be a character which is one of the reasons that was the impetus for writing my own thing is that I would need to have a character that was going to offer me some sort of intellectual artistic sustenance that would carry me through so that I wouldn't be that guy who would show up on the set not really happy with what the Karen the writers are doing with my character and and being a prick and kind of punishing everyone for getting this opportunity or being on a on a set where the two leads of the show don't speak to each other or they don't they they fight with the with the writers and you know and I just thought I don't you know it's it's hard enough to be for that grind of a television series and you know number one but if it's if you're knocking heads with people all the time I horrible and I looked at that remember Michael Connolly we were shooting the pilot and Connolly said to me let me ask a question how did he write the pilot he was one of the writers on the pilot with Erik Overmeyer but they worked very closely together it Mike said how long how long would do you think you'd want to play this character for and the honest answer was I'll play this guy as long as they'll have me because Bosch is the kind of character you're lucky if one character like that comes along you're your career I've had lots of characters that I that I've thoroughly I've been very lucky that way they've been very very few jobs where I've kind of gone Jesus this again I don't really want it but okay because I got a you know I got a mortgage and car payments in private school to pay for it's just the K he the interesting thing about re Bosch is that he as a as a person doesn't necessarily evolve his evolution comes out of circumstances around him yeah and so it's it's incremental the progression of this character but at its core I liked it I really liked this guy now I really liked Jimmy Oh Jimmy o'phelan as well he was a fun character to play I mean he was his moral compass was so magnetized and he he couldn't find his ass with a map but there was an energy and and and a kind of a pulse and a movement of that character that Kurt had created that made it very fun to play and so that's the short answer or the long answer about playing a character on a series if it's if it's really well realized you know I think if you get to a point where they run out of gas which wouldn't happen with the character like Bosh but I've seen other shows either they they come out of the box and they have tremendous success and it's explosive and ratchet and then you get into season four and all sudden you kind of you can see them losing their way or what they and then they lose their way a little bit and there's some criticism there and then the next season you watch it and it bears no resemblance to the show that you fell in love with because you go oh they're in the hamster wheel and so they're good there's more explosions you know and and aliens aliens and ass and you know what have you and gunplay and that's that's not to say that those things don't have value you know I always say you know they're people well all art yes all art is subjective but all art is not necessarily subjective because there's there's good art and there's bad art but the one thing I always rehearse something that my dad said was bear in mind though good art and bad art it takes an equal amount of energy to make bad art as it does to make good art so in that regard it is subjective but I think it I think it just has to do with as long as there is there has to be something there that is moving you hmm because it is easy I would say you know look and I I'm just been recurring on Law & Order Special Victims Unit and Marishka is an old friend of mine and they're in their 19th season moving into their 20th season how does she stay energized you know because the scripts are good yeah and the character is interesting and there and and they find ways to to move that character periodically out of out of the comfort zone once she's become an advocate for women as a result of the position that that role is placed her in yeah and that's and she would be the first to say as long as it's as long as they keep it interesting you know you don't have to they don't have to put on a rocket ship you know or cure world hunger to make that character interesting yeah but it is is formulaic as a show is going to be I mean there's certain beats it's almost like it's soothing because when you watch it cuz you just know you kind of know how it's gonna unfold right it's comfort food yeah exactly but it's also no harm no foul right I love you know stranger things I people either really respond to that show or they kind of go I don't get what everybody's know that show for me is pure crack I love every aspect of that show I love the performances the writing the cinematography the music the the whole concept of the show to me now does that tickle that collector pop-culture comic book nerd itch that I have yeah but I also think it has above the the the value of entertainment it has it has value and to me it's art yeah there's there's huge artistic merit in that show absolutely but I can also watch something like you know fixer-upper which is kind of but now and to a certain degree but I but I'm entertained by it you know but I'm not but I can't I can't watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or the Kardashians because that I I'm physically soul-killing its soul kill yeah and I'm physically allergic to that stuff in May it makes me ill and you know there there are I'm pretty permissive as a parent what I'll allow I mean I try to particularly with my daughter to not expose her to things or you know themes that might be a little bit too sophisticated for her age but the one thing that I'll put my foot down is that I don't want her watching that [ __ ] and I've said to her it's bad for your soul you know and if an adult wants to make that choice to watch that you know that's I don't I I just you know I don't I don't want her watching that stuff because that's not and not everything needs to be inspirational you know it's not that I just I don't know itta famous yeah it offends me it hurts it hurts my like you said it's so pushing I want to be respectful of your time we've been going a long time and I want to let you go soon but there's two more things I want to talk to you about if you will indulge me the first thing is you've mentioned gratitude a couple times yeah so I gather that you know this practice of gratitude is a central aspect of how you kind of navigate your life well I was I was raised that way because both of my parents grew up my mother I think was a little bit more upper upper middle or middle class mm-hmm my father grew up really poor really really really poor and there was a constant reminder to have gratitude for things that we have because there were so many people who didn't have things I remember the first time my father took us as a family to the Yucatan and I had never seen poverty like that before I mean I certainly growing up in New York and Philadelphia and stuff you saw slums but I can remember being in a going through a little village and being stunned and my dad was one of the also one of those guys who would who would you know grab a copy of National Geographic you know when he didn't want to eat cauliflower and you know show you children with rice belly and exposed ribs and but that's because he grew up with I mean they they hunted and trapped and and you know they were and made their own food and grew their own food and so my parents were very we're always very very big on gratitude and I realized that it's something that's that's always kind of served me well because I think you know it's very easy with things being so readily available to us that we take a lot of that stuff for granted but but gratitude is I just think it's it's integral to having you know to everything to make you a a a a sort of fully well realized human being I mean I I'm look I'm flawed I mean I I'm a deeply flawed human being and and I've had my struggles in many different areas in in my adult life but I've also found that that the parallel to that a lot of times was when I when I got myself into a dark place her into a place where trouble was that I had on some level disconnected a bit from being from being grateful well you seem like you know a pretty I mean I know you well enough to know you're pretty grounded dude you know you could be walking around like an entitled prick you know there's plenty of people in this town that do that but you know I've seen you you know with your family and you you just seem like you exude that gratitude and you know I think a byproduct of that is you know a level of humility that I would have to believe you know has been a bit of an engine in perpetuating this you know the longevity of the career that you've enjoyed well I think you have to look you you have to have self-confidence and something particularly in in the art world right you have to have self-confidence and and and almost maybe up to the edge you know of arrogance because if you don't if you don't have that strength if you don't have that that that belief and that Drive then you know what what is it what what what is the thing that fuels that hmm but when you also when you live in the real world and you are subjected to endless amounts of rejection and until you kind of arrive at the place of understanding that it's not personal it's it's debilitating you know it's really debilitating so how do you how do you square that with yourself and I think a lot of that is that it's those it's the pause you know moments of reflection where you can kind of go like okay this is overwhelming this is over you know I haven't booked a gig in three months and my bank account is is almost dry and I don't know if it's the laws of attraction but I just know that when you're in a positive place and you're expressing gratitude those things tend to I I don't know I'm you know I'm not Hawaii gets Phil I'm not Einstein you know I can't I wish I could solve the problems of the cosmos but there's I just feel that the gratitude and humility are things that that attract opportunity and success and the important thing is that once you obtain those things that you also have a healthy respect of them but put them in a place where they belong because it's I have seen people who have achieved tremendous success and they bear no resemblance to the person that I knew prior to that success and now I find that heartbreaking because part of that is yeah you have to have the humility because if you if you get to a place of success and people are whispering in both ears about you know you can have anything you want today da da da da da the rules don't apply to you the basic fundamentals of decency and kindness those are the things that really bother me when I when I see an actor or you know air-quote here celebrity being rude or acting entitled it infuriates me particularly when they're not talented because then I want to say boy you should be exercising the highest elbows I'm on the ground at a time on the gratitude because you're just lucky you're just lucky and I just feel that that's you know it's really the fuel minuul a where 'no self-awareness but awareness of the people around you you nave to be an empath in order to kind of and it's and it's hard because yeah you know we do we get kind of hammered down with all the stuff that we're dealing with with paying our bills and and our health and and so it's it's very easy to become sort of dislodged by that and and sort of thrown into the place of just you know circling the drain of going what what when when when and and typically you know it's sort of like you know on social media a lot of times on Facebook you'll see people vent about the you know and or you know post about every single trespass yeah or you know today I was at Starbucks and the barista was rude and and and and then the next day they go yeah I can't get an agent you know i I've been I worked in this business for ten years but I you know I haven't had an agent for three years I can't get an agent you know what's where the industry is doing that in and I don't need I always sort of go you're just you're you're a magnet for negative negativity that just be gets more of that becomes a self-perpetuating you know cycle of victimhood and blame well years ago and that when when that book in that video the power came out and everybody was making fun of it oh the secret you mean looking to see how yeah and then then the power which came afterwards I remember showing it to to my mother my mother went okay I'll read it and she read it and and she said you know this is just the laws of attraction the laws of attraction have been around for a long time you know you can you can manifest these things and she said so it's not or it's not really a secret and I remember being kind of taken aback by that like you thought you were gonna impart this drops of your mom's like this is old news yes she kind of said this is old news and a new wrapping she said but it's not to discredit it because she said I really think that you know as a society we we gravitate towards the negative so easily it becomes it's so much easier to complain than to about what we don't have then to express gratitude for what we do have and that landed on me in a big way and it's not cool to be earnest about positive things I know especially when you're trying to be badass in New York yeah and that doesn't also that's the other thing that you know you can always you can kind of spot that in a 40-acre field you want to go what are you so mad about you know mm-hmm it's it's the same thing of people making comments where you know they'll say oh it must be nice and you kind of go I'm sorry do I need to apologize to you for working my ass off well youyou got XY and Z social media is always good for one of those guys yeah you want to just say well you know what I happen to have the filmstrip of my life so look at chapters you know 3 6 9 all the way through to 17 and you can see you know that journey it's you know it's uh I don't know it becomes it sort of you know it's like death you know it's the price of admission I mean you know there are just certain attitudes and things that are productive and and others that are that are counterproductive yeah last thing I want to ask you about which is kind of the guiding principles for for living a successful artists life you know somebody's blazed this path for a long time who grew up in that kind of environment you know for people that are listening who you know are pursuing some kind of creative you know endeavor in their lives like what are some of the you know guideposts along the way that have you know kept you true and that have kind of you know empowered you through the more difficult times I well it goes back to gratitude but it also it's it's self-reliance and I think with ingratitude if you you have to find a place to be able to be by be with yourself and be and be happy with yourself even in the mistakes that we make but I I've always sort of repeated this particularly to young actors that to to achieve success and I mean you know at the end of they what kind of success I mean what is it this success I mean do you want to do you want to be famous if you want to be famous go you know do something and have your friends film and they can post it on YouTube or be infamous right and what you have to define one has to define some level of success Amin we all have to make a living and pay our bills so you'd say okay well that's you know I want to be able to make a living but I think I always say do this because you love it because you have to do it because if a person doesn't have to to be an actor if it's not the thing that you're thinking about dreaming about when you wake up then do something else do find that thing that that becomes your life force that becomes your drive it's not just because this whole idea of being you know goals and being goal-oriented work for certain things being goal oriented as an artist is a fool's errand well there's so little that you can control because you can't control it right now if you're if you're if you're running and you're trying to beat a time or something like that that's a whole different thing so linear yeah but by the same token we did help you're cruising along and you step on a bad pebble and you and you turn your leg now you're out of business for a while I think that it it's it's important to to be passion and I'm sorry passions kind of overused was to be to be really focused and centered and truthful with yourself am I doing this because it's it's what I have to do because if it isn't then do something else because there's lots of other things to do and I think many times people fall into the into the arts for well a myriad of different reasons you know they they're they're the big fish in the small pond in high school plays and so well I'm gonna be an actor or then they get out into into a really big pond and they realize that there are many many more people that are as talented if not more talented than they are and that's not what should inform your decision what should inform your decision is is that commitment and and that passion and then the rest of it is your head down you know it's the teeth of a gale you've got it because that's gonna be the thing that at the end of the day it's gonna move you past that place when it feels hopeless and you when you haven't worked or you can't get an agent so how do you facilitate that well then you get another job because you still have to pay your bills so you know doing things kind of willy-nilly you have to have discipline in that way you do have to have a plan you have to say okay if my rent is X and my cable bill and my gas is X then I've got to have a job that's going to give me that and then enough money for a little walking-around money to do whatever yeah and the discipline to weather the obstacles like if you presume like presume an even playing field between a couple different people that are all equally talented and equally passionate who are driven to do this you know the obstacles are gonna where some of those people down and they're they do they're gonna they're gonna be out they just the the person that will prevail is the one who can persistently continue to show up in the face of all of that negative feedback because they're driven by you know a power source that it's more powerful than that they can override that yeah I look I mean there were people that I went to NYU with it were staggeringly talented actors really good people that I respected and that inspired me and there there is less than a handful of those people who actually have gone on to have successful careers you know it's Hunter Thompson's you know when the going gets weird the weird term Pro and that's when that's that's my that's my mantra you know yeah when it gets weird do you you know you've got to be weirder and and because it's a all the all the other stuff that comes along the accoutrements that that's kind of fleeting at the end of the end unless you're a complete psychopath and a narcissist right now I'd be less than truthful to say when a person comes up to me on an airplane or on the street and says that they really enjoy a performance that I've that makes me feel good right but I'm also you're never gonna find me standing in JFK with a Bosch hat waiting for sanity and the deadwood t-shirt you know just kind of looking around like anytime yeah actually we should make that YouTube video that would be good just have people walk by no one's paying attention to you you just got brought no it's because that and the that at the end it is it's the I always say sustenance but that's what it that's what it feels like you know when you when I come off of a long day of shooting and yeah I am I am I tired absolutely and when we finish the season I'm exhausted but nothing when I wake up in the morning I'm in a good mood when I arrived on the set I have a smile on my face no matter what has happened because I know that I'm going to get to do what I love to do and there's it's a gift man there's nothing more fulfilling and and and that's when not only gratitude but tremendous joy right even even particularly when it sussed and I always joke I mean this is this is my my way of kind of breaking it up with a crew when you know we're into our 15th 16th hour on on you know which is now Saturday morning and there's just that that kind of you know grumbling hubbub of people just exhausted and III say out of the blue this show sucks okay and that will always by buy us another three or four hours because we all laugh because at the end of the day it doesn't suck yeah everybody knows that they're stoked to be part of this thing we're all working doing what we love to do and we don't want to be doing anything else we want to be doing that and we all care for each other we all respect each other and what are we doing we're we're entertaining right we're entertaining or we're making art and what a what a cool way to to make a living to to do that and so yeah this show sucks right it why do you guys a great place to put a pin in it this job does not say when do you when you start shooting again August 1st we go back in season 6 season 5 comes April 19th very excited for that to come out into the world I think it's not so the other great thing about working with this group of people despite the success you know the critical success and all that of the show no one has ever fell back and it sort of rested on there Laura mean each season you know you know the the effort to choose the right book to take it to the next level and to raise the bar for ourselves because you know Conley says we're only as good as the challenges that we present for ourselves which is true and and this season is is gangbusters I'm really proud of it and for the people who you know the diehards who love the books and love the show they'll they'll be well rewarded for their patience because I know it's a long wait so that that's April 19 April 19th 19th coming up man that's cool I want to come to the set any that visit any time any time as you get a hat and a t-shirt I'll go to JFK and stand there you go and we got to get you running again dude yeah I know you know I know all right we'll make it right after my next cigarette yeah cool all right Thank You Man thank you for great to connect with you today I really appreciate everybody man there's a lot of fun that's the luck man thank you brother peace peace [Music]

Channel: Rich Roll

Views: 63,069

Keywords: rich roll, health, fitness, podcast, inspiration, motivation, plantpower, plant-based, wellness, spirituality, mindfulness, meditation, self-help, amazon prime video, drama, film, gratitude, humility, literature, method, painting, thespian, Titus Welliver, actor podcasts, acting podcasts, television podcasts, Celebrity podcasts, art podcasts, artist podcasts, film podcasts, self-help podcasts, self-improvement podcasts, theatre podcasts, wellness podcasts, vegan podcasts, bosch tv show

Id: WbceoWH4NXE

Length: 162min 40sec (9760 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2019