Many actors have that one role in their careers with whom they spend a long enough time that they strongly identify with them. For Titus Welliver, Harry Bosch of the Los Angeles Police Department is that character. Based on Michael Connelly’s eponymous series, Bosch follows the titular detective’s quest for justice in the often cynical world of crime in Los Angeles. Welliver played Bosch for seven seasons in the original series Bosch and three more seasons in its spinoff, Bosch: Legacy. One of the most interesting aspects of the character is his constant internal battle between professional ethics and morality. Bosch often follows due process to bring justice, but he sometimes disregards protocol and follows his own moral compass to solve a case. “There are two different versions of Bosch, and as he says very early on in the original show, inside of everyone there are two different dogs fighting. There is the good dog and the bad dog. What you become depends on which dog you feed,” says Welliver.
Bosch’s past as a Vietnam War veteran also fuels the conflict between him and his daughter Maddie Bosch (Madison Lintz). He says, “Harry’s military service was long and distinguished. But Harry doesn't discuss his past. When Maddie hears this story about an interrogation it makes her question his moral compass.” According to Welliver, another factor that adds to the conflict is Bosch’s tendency to take a personal approach to each case, especially those involving children. “Any detective who handles homicide cases will tell you that they carry all cases home with them. This requires them to look into the darkness, into the abyss. And that is difficult to navigate.”
When we first meet Bosch, he is a lone warrior, still grappling with the loss of his estranged mother in childhood. The episode where Bosch finally finds closure is the one that resonates the most with Welliver. Explaining that Bosch became a cop to find out his mother’s killer, the actor states that her career as a sex worker in a marginalised part of society and the lack of effort from law enforcement towards solving the case added to his trauma. Welliver explains that this fuels Bosch’s egalitarian credo, ‘Everybody counts or nobody counts’. Recalling the aforesaid episode, Welliver says, “I always say that Michael Connelly is the master of literary judo. We thought that the killer was one person. And then we discover it is an entirely different person.”
Even though Welliver gains firsthand knowledge of suspenseful moments in the series as an actor, he goes through a different viewing experience as an audience member. “Despite the fact that I read the scripts and acted the scenes, when I see the final assembly of a show, I am able to separate myself enough to not re-experience it but experience it in a visceral way. When you are acting, you know that it is incomplete. And when it is assembled, I can experience it, to a certain degree, in the same way that the audience does, with no knowledge of what is coming. There is a lot of that occurring in this season of Bosch: Legacy,” he says. Speaking of which, Welliver says he did not know that season 3 would mark the finale of Bosch: Legacy. At the end of his journey with the character, the actor says, “I feel sad because I forged close relationships with actors and writers and producers and our crew over a decade. It has been a ‘perfect storm’, for lack of a better word. There are many more stories to tell, but I miss Harry. I am not an actor who brings my work home. I am an actor portraying a character. But I formed an emotional bond with that character over the years. I wish that I could call him up and go and have lunch with him.”
Further adding about the legacy of the detective, Welliver shares, “If a person was a victim of a crime, they would want Harry Bosch to be working the case. Because it is all very personal to him and he is relentless. He will not give up. And that is what you want. He goes into a building that everyone is running out of. And that requires tremendous courage.”