When Michael Connelly originally published The Safe Man, no one had any idea that the prolific bestselling author behind the Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller books was the short story’s author. Now Connelly’s adapted his short story into an Audible Original, with Jack Quaid and Titus Welliver bringing his characters to life.
The Plot, Courtesy of Audible Originals: “The Safe Man tells the story of Brian Holloway (Jack Quaid, The Boys) who was hired by famous horror author Paul Robinette (Titus Welliver, Bosch) to crack an antique safe in his home, he had no idea what he was about to encounter. Opening that safe door unleashed something sinister — something that continues to haunt him. But what exactly? And can whatever slipped through that threshold be stopped?
Plagued by a series of disturbing supernatural encounters, chilling prophecies, and a criminal investigation into a missing girl, Brian begins to realize that he is inexplicably linked to the eternal and that he must defy fate if he has any chance of saving the most important person in his life.”
Michael Connelly and Jack Quaid took part in a panel at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con to discuss the Audible Original released on May 16, 2024. Connelly and Quaid also participated in roundtable interviews in support of The Safe Man.
Jack Quaid The Safe Man Interview
You’re so busy, how do you decide what projects you’re doing at this point?
Jack Quaid: “I mean, it’s just like, it’s got to be a good project. It’s got to move you, you know? It’s got to be a story that I would want to either listen to or see, or I think I just try to choose things that I would be a fan of if I were not in them.”
What are the particular challenges when recording for a podcast or an Audible Original versus live-action? So much has to emote from your voice.
Jack Quaid: “Absolutely. Well, it’s even different from animation. Animation, you at least have a character who, I do some animation, and you at least have a character that’s gonna be on screen. And like, you know, they call it lip flap when they actually talk. It’s a very odd term for a very real thing. But you know, you have a character representing your voice. But with an audio drama, you just have your voice. You don’t even have a cartoon. So, you really have to bring it in your voice. You really do. It has to go all there.
I do have a little… This is going to sound weird, but I do have a little bit of experience in this arena because I produced this Dungeons and Dragons podcast that my friends do. And the way they do it, you don’t hear any crosstalk. You don’t hear people talk about what moves they’re going to make, they just kind of make it. It’s called Hero Club – plug. But no, they kind of package them as radio plays. So, I’ve done a bit of that where like you see, you know, there’s no animation. But this was so cool. It was so cool to work with Michael and to work with Titus Welliver. And I just thought the story was amazing and I wanted to be a part of it.”
Your voice often comes across as comforting, even in really scary or stressful situations. Is this a conscious choice you’re making in your roles, or is this just how you speak?
Jack Quaid: “I think it might be how I speak. I don’t know. It’s funny because I don’t think I’ve ever heard my voice described as comforting before, so thank you. In my head, I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m just a very anxious man,’ so I hope, I’m glad my voice could be a comfort.
No, I think I just, again, I think it’s just back to the story. The story, first and foremost, and then there is an element of I think roles kind of find you. If it’s not an audition where there’s a process and they’re choosing somebody, if I’m ever given the privilege of being offered something, I also want to make sure I’m right for it. So, I try to if I’m offered something and I’m like, ‘I don’t think it’s going to work with me,’ like I tend to turn it down. But usually, people know what they want and go for it. And this, I just had to be a part of. It was awesome.”
Why do you think Brian does this type of work even though it’s the type of skillset that sent his dad away for all these years?
Jack Quaid: “I mean, I think cracking safes is kind of his way of making money, like providing that service. But, you know, obviously, he has a family history with crime that he’s trying to get away from. I found that a really compelling line to walk, that he was constantly being kind of swayed in the direction of two different worlds. I just thought that’s what makes him a really great character. I think that speaks to Michael’s writing.”
You seem to have a soft spot for characters that make a little bit of a mess and then try to fix it.
Jack Quaid: “Yeah. Sometimes the mess is on me, sometimes not.”
Do you think that that’s something that drew you to Brian?
Jack Quaid: “Oh, man. I mean, it was that. I do like that he’s kind of a guy who’s in between two worlds. I just thought the idea – I think – I’m sorry, I keep repeating myself, but the story was just that good. I like the fact that this was, Michael’s an author known for his crime stories, and I like that it had this supernatural horror bent to it as well. I think that was just such a cool [idea]. I like that he’s the son of a thief, and he’s trying to make an honest living, and he has a girlfriend. I like that he’s trying to get away from that. He comes from crime. I love that crime contrasted with a ghost story. I thought that was so cool.”
What did you most connect with with The Safe Man? What do you hope listeners will connect with?
Jack Quaid: “I just think I really love a good ghost story. I think it’s something that – I’ve done horror, but I’ve never really done a ton of supernatural horror, and I always think that those are some really, really effective stories. I just saw an incredible script, so I just hope audiences can just kind of be taken along for the journey, because I think it has so many cool twists and turns.”
Michael Connelly Interview
How do you decide how active you’re going to be in adaptations of your work?
Michael Connelly: “Well, I’m always looking for new things, you know, and I’ve been very lucky. My stories have translated to film and TV and it’s like, you can’t believe it. But I’d never done something like this, so I got all in on this because I’m a consumer of these kinds of [things]. I’m a big audiobook guy and then as that genre, whatever you want to call it, grew into these dramatic adaptations of things, I got really excited about the possibility of doing this because I’m, as I said, a big consumer of these type of things. So, I was all in on it.
And, yeah, so usually the decision-making process is if it’s new to me. You know, I’ve been very lucky. I feel weird even talking about this. Like I’ve had a TV show on for 10 years and I was all in in the beginning of that. And then, the last few years, I’ve tapered off my involvement because I trust the people that are making it. I know they’ll do a good job and I can find something else new to do like this.”
Is there a different approach when you’re writing for audio versus writing a book?
Michael Connelly: “Well, on this project I knew that …, you know, it’s weird. I trust readers, listeners, whatever the consumer. So, in my books, I don’t do a lot of descriptions of the characters. I write like I read. I like to create in my head what this person looks like or how they sound. And I’ve done that for like 20 years, and then in the last 10 years, I’ve been very lucky in Hollywood where they’ve made movies. And so, for 20 years, I didn’t really say what, for example, Harry Bosch looks like. Now there’s a show that says this is exactly what he looks like. And I realize that’s a risky thing because reading and listening is a sacred process for you. It so demands your imagination to be front and center, whereas a TV show or a movie doesn’t. It’s just right there for you. And so, I love going back to something like this and writing something where you trust the reader, the listener, to fire up the imagination.
So, it does affect the writing. I knew when I was writing the scripts for this that I had to kind of put phrases together that would open a window of imagination and let the people see it. You get a lot of help from the sound design, and we have a fantastic sound design on this project, and that is very helpful. In fact, you know, I write the scripts and all it is is words and then we got the actors and so forth. But then when they added in the layers of sound, it went from being, ‘I think this works,’ to really kind of getting chills at times, the way little things are said. I’m not just talking about scary stuff. I’m talking about like there’s a point where, I mean, I have a daughter and the writer in this thing has a daughter and she gets frustrated with him. Just the way she goes, ‘Dad! was so accurate to what I’ve had in my own experience that I just got a thrill out of just hearing that one word, the way it was delivered in this thing. So, there’s a lot of, yeah, I get a lot of fulfillment from this kind of storytelling.”
When you have an actor like Jack Quaid coming on board to star, and everyone knows what he looks like, does that affect your writing?
Michael Connelly: “No, I don’t think so. I mean, yeah, a lot of people know who he was, but I didn’t know him before this. But Titus has done stuff with him and he knew him, and he kind of helped us bring Jack into it. And so it is a balance. Like, do too many people know what this guy looks like and will that affect the process? Or is the idea that you get someone like Jack Quaid to overrule everything? And I think that did.
I mean, I think the guy’s a lot like the guy in The Boys in terms of his frenetic energy and stuff, but I don’t know. I just remember the day that we heard he was going to do it, I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, wait a minute, too many people know him.’ I was more like, ‘Wow, that’s great,’ because I thought that would bring more people to listen.”
Can you talk about expanding the world of the story to include Cassadaga?
Michael Connelly: “I knew I had to expand the story in a lot of ways. And to me, this was like a no-risk thing. We weren’t even sure. I wrote it all before we tried to cast it and go from there. So, I had a lot of freedom in writing it. It’s set in Tampa, Florida where I’ve lived, where my wife is from. I was really hitting a lot of touchstones of stuff I knew and I wanted to include. It goes with the territory.
The original short story was written because it was a charitable effort. I forget what agency this book was going to support, but they went to all these writers and said, ‘Write something you’re not known for.’ I’m known for detective and legal stuff, so I went into horror. I’m also known for writing about LA, so instead I wrote about this alter life I have in Florida where I grew up and my wife is from, and we had a place in Tampa and family and things like that. So, it was really hitting stuff I knew but people didn’t know I knew, if that makes sense.
And so I was trying to hit a lot of the highlights of Tampa and Florida. The whole thing about Cassadaga, the spiritual community, that’s a real place that I’ve been to several times. My first job in 1980, out of school, as a newspaper reporter, I covered Cassadaga. And it’s a place that’s always stuck with me and I’ve always wanted to put into a story. And this was my opportunity.”
[Spoiler Alert!]
Speaking of the story itself, why did Paul (Titus Welliver) send Paul (Jack Quaid) the shirt? Was it for writing material? Did he want the prophecy to come through?
Michael Connelly: “I don’t know if he wanted the prophecy to come true. The way it’s kind of built there, or built into the story, is that he thought the coast was clear, that we had gotten past that, and he was not as aware as Brian was that we had to get to midnight. So, yeah, I don’t think he meant harm or anything like that, but he made a big mistake.”
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