Connor Finch on Jack’s Growing Sense of Belonging in Bookish
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For Connor Finch, one of the most important things about playing Jack in Bookish was making sure his guarded nature was never mistaken for coldness.
When audiences first meet him, Jack has recently left prison and is stepping into a completely unfamiliar environment. He has every reason to be cautious, but Finch was interested in the genuine person underneath those defenses.
“I think he is a very genuine person,” Finch says. “He had to do whatever he did to survive. He admitted that he did wrong. He served his time and then he wanted to turn his life around.”
Finch had an unusually long time to sit with the character before filming began. After a months-long audition process and two chemistry reads with Mark Gatiss, he had another stretch of time before production started to figure out who Jack was.
“I didn't really think about it too much as a period drama,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘Let's just treat this character as he is now.’”
Much of that came down to finding the right balance between Jack’s instinct to protect himself and his willingness to let people in. His past has taught him to be careful about who he trusts, and even as he grows closer to Book and Trottie, those defenses never disappear completely.
“Even though I think he does gradually knock those walls down for Book and Trottie, he knows how to put them up again quite quickly.”
Nora is one of the first people to challenge that instinct. Their initial connection comes from recognizing something familiar in each other, with her openness giving Jack the confidence to reveal more of himself in return.
“I get what you're saying, so maybe you'll get me.”
For a character who rarely volunteers much about himself, those moments of mutual understanding become particularly important. Jack may not immediately trust everyone around him, but Finch never wanted that caution to prevent him from forming genuine connections.
His quietness also makes him particularly useful during Book’s investigations. Jack is often content to stay in the background and observe, picking up on details while other people may barely notice he is listening.
“There's so many scenes that he's in and his presence is so present, but he doesn't really need to say a lot,” Finch says.
That creates an interesting challenge for Finch in scenes where Jack has little dialogue. His performance instead relies on listening and reacting, with small looks sometimes revealing that Jack has caught something the other characters have missed.
“He's always on it. He doesn't really switch off, but he's sort of always in the corner just listening and picking up on things. You got to be careful what you say around Jack.”
Who Jack is investigating alongside can change that behavior too. Around police officers, his history makes him more alert. When he is with Book, Finch sees Jack looking to him for reassurance before pushing too far. On his own, he is more likely to follow his instincts.
Those differences become less pronounced as Jack grows more confident. By Season 2, he is contributing more freely and beginning to recognize that his intelligence and perspective have real value.
Finch sees that as a meaningful shift from the young man introduced in Season 1, who assumed his past would determine what other people expected from him.
“He's almost discovering these things that are possible for himself.”
There are small visual signs of that change as well. Finch points to moments in the first season where Jack would stand off to the side during an investigation or perch on the arm of a chair. Now, he is more likely to place himself among the group.
His relationship with Book has evolved alongside that confidence. Finch and Gatiss became close while filming the first season, developing their own jokes and shorthand off camera that naturally began finding its way into their performances.
“It felt very, very natural this time round,” Finch says. “So much of that is what happens offscreen.”
That familiarity becomes especially useful in the quieter exchanges between Jack and Book. As the characters have gotten to know one another, Finch and Gatiss can communicate more through looks and reactions without needing the dialogue to explain exactly what is passing between them.
Their relationship also becomes increasingly important to Jack’s search for answers about his father. Before meeting Book, a photograph was virtually all he had. Learning that Book actually knew his father gives Jack a real opportunity to understand a part of his life he had assumed would remain unanswered.
Rather than satisfying his curiosity, having someone who can finally provide those answers only makes Jack more determined to find them.
“He's more so on a mission this time round to really find out.”
The Season 1 finale brings those different parts of their relationship together when Book offers to investigate Jack’s father alongside him.
Finch approached the scene believing Jack would try to contain what he was feeling. He saw him as someone more accustomed to turning hurt into anger than openly expressing it, and initially went into the scene determined that Jack wouldn’t cry.
“He gets angry and that probably is because he wants to be upset, doesn't know how.”
Instead of deciding exactly where the emotion should land, Finch and Gatiss allowed the scene to develop naturally.
“Whatever happens, just go with it.”
The moment sets up a different Jack heading into Season 2. He still has questions about where he came from and some of the same instincts that once kept people at a distance, but he is no longer approaching every opportunity with the same uncertainty about whether he belongs there. As Finch puts it, the change is moving away from Jack constantly asking “Why me?” and toward something much simpler:
“Oh yeah, no, they do want me here.”
