When Jaina Lee Ortiz nabbed the lead role of Detective Annalise Villa in TV cop drama “Rosewood,” she didn’t have to do any research for the role — she’d grown up with the character. Her father, Joe Ortiz, 50, has worked for the NYPD for 22 years, first in narcotics and now as a homicide detective at the 41st Precinct in The Bronx. Photo: Brad Marques “As soon as I read the character’s breakdown it was like I had a flashback. I told myself, ‘This is my life, this character is me, I grew up with this,’” Ortiz, 29, tells The Post. “As I got older, into my teens, [my dad] started bringing me around the precinct and guiding me through the ins and outs of what he does on a daily basis.” In “Rosewood,” currently airing its first season on Fox (Wednesday at 8 p.m.), Jaina plays a tough-as-nails detective with the Miami PD, who teams up with charismatic pathologist Dr. Beaumont Rosewood Jr. (Morris Chestnut) to solve the city’s most challenging cases. In any given episode, Villa is questioning witnesses, examining evidence or engaging in a shootout — scenes for which Joe proved an invaluable cheat sheet. “He taught me how to talk the talk, walk the walk, the police jargon, how to conduct yourself as a police officer in public,” she says. “[H]e also taught me how to turn it on ‘in the box’ — the interrogation room,” she says. “Detectives should always command attention at crime scenes and when interrogating subject’s in the interview room,” Joe Ortiz tells The Post. One way to do this? Dress well. “A homicide detective should always look sharp,” he says. Jaina’s parents divorced when she was 7 years old, and she, an only child, was raised by her mother, Daisey Acevedo, in The Bronx’s Castle Hill neighborhood, though she saw her father regularly. Jaina says he would have nightmares that she would be exposed to the crimes he saw daily on the job, but she often felt just as scared for her dad. “I started to realize how dangerous being a police officer is and I would have thoughts of him never coming home and [of] never seeing him again,” says Jaina, who now lives and works in Los Angeles. “Growing up, he constantly taught me to always look behind you and be alert, especially in The Bronx.” Jaina has settled into her “Rosewood” character since the show started airing in September, but she still calls her father to vet the accuracy of certain scripts, like an episode that included a SWAT team raid. Morris Chestnut and Jaina Lee Ortiz in an episode of “Rosewood.”Po: Getty Images “He said [the SWAT team are] the only ones in the [full tactical] gear; [detectives] just wear a tactical vest, long-sleeve ray jackets and no helmets, and just our gun,” she says. “I went to wardrobe right away and said, ‘Well, this is the real deal.’ And they changed it.” And her dad’s not shy about pointing out her mistakes either, like when he caught her improperly her gun with her fingers placed incorrectly one episode. He even appeared as an extra in the pilot, as a cop who arrives as backup to arrest Villa’s suspect, and in the second episode, where he got the chance to dole out his expertise in-person. While filming the cameo, Joe advised the background actors who were playing officers about “walking with purpose” when inspecting a crime scene — a Hollywood experience Jaina was grateful to share with him. “This being my first show, to have him there watching me playing this character that he’s been living truthfully for the past 22 years, I think he’s happier than me,” she says. “I’m also happy, but I feel like he has more fun being on set than in his real job.”
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