Bosch’s Sarah Clarke

Bosch star Sarah Clarke (Twilight24NCIS), who plays Eleanor Wish, a former FBI agent and Bosch’s ex-wife and mother of his daughter, Maddie, speaks to TV Drama about her character and the series.

The Harry Bosch detective novels, written by Michael Connelly, serve as the basis for the Amazon original series Bosch. Produced by Fabrik Entertainment, part of Red Arrow Entertainment Group, for Amazon Studios, the crime drama stars Titus Welliver in the lead role as the tenacious LAPD homicide detective.

***Image***TV DRAMA: What appealed to you about playing Eleanor?
CLARKE: Eleanor is a fascinating character. I loved that she works in a world that scares me to death! To be an FBI profiler you have to be highly intelligent and also so brave. The [FBI profiler] that I spoke with out of Langley, [Virginia,] told me about how she would sit there and have in-depth conversations with people who had done horrible things. She admitted that she was scared at times, but that they trusted her, that in some ways it was one place where people could see beyond their crime and see who they were as a person. Sometimes, though, she felt like there was no person [inside]—what they were lacking was the ability to empathize and that’s the sickness. It’s bone chilling! That’s as far as I could go to really getting inside the mind of what she had to deal with. Luckily, the first season of Bosch with the serial killer is much more gruesome than the second one where it was all about mob ties and what they could potentially do.

TV DRAMA: What has it been like to play a character that originated in a book series?
CLARKE: Ordinarily you wouldn’t have anyone else weighing in about what [your character] would be doing! On this series, I haven’t had a lot of that though actually. I had much more of that on Twilight. I’ve had nothing but positive feedback with Bosch.

In the book my character seems a little grittier. Maybe they’re softening it for the show because she dies so soon in the books. Clearly my character hasn’t died by the time Maddie is 15 [in the series], but in the books she would have already been dead.

I’m always grateful to have more information to help feed me. Luckily with this series, because the writer is part of the show, I can ask questions. [Michael Connelly] is very supportive of the whole process.

TV DRAMA: Did you find any more freedom as an actor working with a streaming platform than for a broadcast or cable network?
CLARKE: We feel the difference in the production value when people are given more of a creative license. We’re not feeling like, You can’t do that! I had been so used to working with Amazon, where it’s about, What is the vision of the story, as opposed to, Will this fly on the network? I had a situation recently while working on NCIS and that was a time where I felt creative differences in terms of what we can do on this that we can’t do [elsewhere]. Usually, though, you go in and the character is the character and it’s set out based on their own guidelines. On NCIS I did get to do some fun things, but I could see in the way they edited it they had to parse it down a little bit.

TV DRAMA: How has it been working with Titus?
CLARKE: Titus is great! He’s so wonderful. He’s the consummate professional; he really does want to make it the best it can be and honor the books. I knew Titus a little bit before. He’s such a fun actor to work with. And having Michael on set really helps to keep it on a track that’s exciting. I feel very blessed.