The last time Bosch fans saw Jen Kowski, she was pouring her morning coffee, listening to an update on the news about the mayoral race. Irvin dropped out of the race, endorsed Susanna Lopez and as a result Jen dropped her cup when Ray Thacker walked out in a bathrobe.
Based on the fictional book series by Michael Connelly, Daya Vaidya’s character, Kowski, doesn’t exist. Originally a male, the writers thought a female would better suit the role and they’ve never looked back since.
The Koaliiton spoke to Vaidya about her role, what fans can expect for season 6 and more.
“I love this show! One of my favorite shows I’ve ever worked on by far. This season is really great because my character Jane Kowski gets to kind of take off this season. She has a lot of fun things she gets to be involved in. I get to have a little more power and I think out of all of them I’ve enjoyed it the most.”
“In terms of the whole show, I think the fans really need to tune into this one because you find out a lot of the things in the books or in the storylines that we’ve been waiting slowly to just get tidbits of it all through each season, a lot of those things are getting answered, a lot of those questions get answered in season six. I think as a fan, you know how you’re yearning during a show to get some of those ends tied up, we’re getting closer to that. It really matches what’s going on in real life, so it’s an authentic show, it really takes you on a ride and makes you feel like they’ve plopped you right in L.A., right in the center of being in this city, in the middle of it all.”
Kowski is a political operative. She is initially the Chief of Staff to Hector Ramos, the Mayor of Los Angeles. She defects to become the campaign manager for Chief of Police Irvin Irving as he makes his own run for Mayor. She’s fierce, determined and originally written by author Michael Connelly as a man in the book series.
“She was written actually as a man in the book, she was the Chief of Staff of the mayor in the books. When they created it as a woman I thought that was super intriguing and I was really excited about incorporating what that would mean for the character to be thought of as a man first and now she’s a woman. I think that gave me more freedom to really go for it. I think sometimes women characters, even if it’s not consciously so, are held back or they’re not suppose to be as harsh or mean. I felt like I had more room to really go there and kind of play with her darker side and more competitive and powerful side. That was my intention, I want a character that wants to win at all costs and how do you do that without showing your cards too much. You still want to win but you don’t want to be evil or unlikable or playing a stereotype. That’s kind of what I was playing with, with her.”
As the season expands and the audience gets to see more of Kowski, her willingness to win at any cost could cost her more than an election win. However for Vaidya, this makes the character more of a standout this season that will delight the fans.
“[Her] best quality is that she’s the most ambitious person in terms of she’ll get it done. If you want to hire her, if you want to win a campaign, if you want to get further, you hire her. She’s smart, savvy, and really good at what she does. Her downfall is that she can be unscrupulous and she can get into trouble by bending rules, breaking rules even breaking the law if she needs to get it done. That side she gets to dark and then she can lose it all if she’s not too careful.”
“Jen is inspired by the Chief of Staff in House of Cards and also Game of Thrones. I like watching the women in Game of Thrones because that show knows how to write a powerful woman but also have all these different layers. I would watch that show a lot, I would watch that show at the same time as I was filming Bosch. It was always airing during the time of filming. I would go home and watch it and it would inspire me with my own character. I would steal from the best actors. You got to, you watch acting and you get inspired by it. I love that show, the female actors on Game of Thrones are killer.”
Gearing up for its sixth season, the stakes are even higher after a medical physicist is executed and the deadly radioactive material he had with him goes missing, Detective Harry Bosch finds himself at the center of a complex murder case, a messy federal investigation, and catastrophic threat to Los Angeles — the city he’s pledged to serve and protect.
“[Bosch] takes a complex murder case and a catastrophic threat to L.A. and wraps it up in a really really high stakes situations that’s actually taking place in our world right now. So everything that’s happening in the show is almost mirrored by what’s happening in real life and so that stakes couldn’t be higher because we’re seeing it around us in real life and you’re seeing it on the show. It’s almost like the writers know what’s going to happen in the world, it’s crazy. I don’t know how they do it.”
Check out Bosch on Amazon Prime and to learn more about Bosch season six check out our full interview below.
