Memories From The Set: Titus Welliver
titus-welliver-nypd-blue
NYPD BLUE
When Welliver learned that he was going to audition for the role of a medical doctor on the ABC cop drama, his hopes fell. He remembers saying to his manager at the time, 'They're never going to cast me as a doctor. Everybody thinks that I'm an Italian thug from New York.'" Nevertheless, "I remember pulling myself together and actually wearing a button-down shirt and combing my hair, and I think I wore my reading glasses — anything I could to soften my look." Apparently, it worked. Producer David Milch wound up awarding him the role of Dr. Mondzac — which was supposed to be a one-off but turned into a recurring character — on the spot.
titus-welliver-sons-of-anarchy
SONS OF ANARCHY
"That was another thing where literally I got a call on a Wednesday and my manager said, 'Look, you're Irish. How's your Irish accent?' I said, 'I don't know. I haven't had to do one for years. Why?' 'Well, there's this great role. You've been offered this great role on Sons of Anarchy playing this guy Jimmy O'Phelan, but he's Irish. He's from Belfast.' And I went, 'Oh, Jesus. Okay.' The one caveat? The role was shooting in a few days' time. Welliver recalls doing as much prep as possible, which included calling a few cousins in Ireland and just listening to them talk, before he shot the part. "I had to kind of make it up as I went along, to be honest with you," he adds, chuckling as he notes that his son found someone online saying that his portrayal involves "the worst Irish accent ever."
titus-welliver-x-files
THE X-FILES
"I got warned off The X-Files," Welliver remembers. When the sci-fi show was in its first season, the actor was a fan — but his then-manager wasn't. "He went, 'Oh my. That show's awful. Why would you want to do that? It's not performing.' He's like, 'It'll be lucky if it sees another episode.' And I said, 'Well, I don't care. I really like it, I think it's smart, and I want to do it.' Lo and behold, I got lucky and this role came up." Welliver played eco-terrorist Doug Spinney "and became longtime friends with [David] Duchovny," he notes.
TITUS WELLIVER, MARK PELLEGRINO
LOST
Deadwood scribe Elizabeth Sarnoff eventually began writing for J.J. Abrams' ABC mystery drama, and she phoned Welliver with an enticing — if vague — offer. "She said, 'So I've got this really interesting character for you. I can't tell you anything about it,'" Welliver says, laughing. He signed on in good faith and soon found himself shooting his first scene "on the beach with Mark Pellegrino. It was very abstract and kind of obtuse to me, because I hadn't watched the third and fourth season." Still, he waved off producers' attempts to explain his character's backstory, feeling the knowledge unnecessary to his performance. But then...
welliver-bosch
BOSCH
Season 4 of Welliver's current gig, Bosch, premiered earlier this month on Amazon and finds the titular detective assigned to work a high-profile murder of a civil rights attorney. "The stakes are high, because potentially if this goes south, you know obviously, the black community is very concerned about the fact that an African-American chief of police has assigned the case of a murdered civil rights leader, activist, and attorney has assigned that case to a white cop," Welliver previews. "Then it's the city trying to kind of keep a lid on this boiling rice pot that could potentially explode and turn in to another Rodney King verdict, LA riots situation."
welliver-murder-one
MURDER ONE
Steven Bochco "had this troupe of actors, producers, writers and directors," says Welliver, who worked with the prolific producer on multiple projects, including a Murder One arc in which he played a shady campaign manager named Larry White. "Working on a Bochco show was like doing a play in your backyard — it was very familial, very nurturing, really kind, well-run and respectful," he says. "That was a really good experience."
welliver-supernatural
SUPERNATURAL
Welliver played one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on the CW series, thanks to his friendship with producer Bob Singer, who worked on the short-lived CBS crime drama Falcone starring Jason Gedrick and Welliver. Hanging with Sam and Dean "was a blast... I love those guys," he says, adding that his reception among Supernatural devotees was a pleasant surprise: "I had no idea the epic nature of the fandom for that show."
welliver-deadwood
DEADWOOD
Welliver read the pilot script for David Milch's HBO Western, thought it was "amazing" and was briefly intrigued by the Sol Star role, but "there wasn't really anything in it for me," he says. Milch eventually fixed that by adding Silas Adams, the bag man from Yankton whom Welliver wound up naming. "David said to me, 'I haven't come up with a name for this character. Do you have any ideas?' And I said, 'You remember my brother passed away a couple of years ago, and this is a show he would've loved. I'd like to name him Silas, after my older, dearly departed brother.' And he said, 'That's great. It's a Biblical name. It's a great name. It's perfect.'"
TITUS WELLIVER, NESTOR CARBONELL
LOST (cont'd.)
So when the big reveal came — that Welliver's Man in Black was the island's smoke monster — he was as shocked as everyone else. During rehearsal, after the Man in Black admitted he was the ominous entity, "Nestor Carbonell's looking at me, and he goes, 'Holy s—t." And I go, 'What?' And he says, 'Do you realize the weight of what you just said?... In the Lost world, that's the equivalent of saying, 'Luke, I am your father.'" Welliver laughs. "He said, 'Titus, you're the f—king smoke monster,'... and I went, 'Oh, that is really f—king cool.'"