1 of 3 | “Boston Blue” — starring Donnie Wahlberg and Sonequa Martin Green — premieres Friday. Photo courtesy of CBS/Paramount+
New Kids on the Block singer Donnie Wahlberg says his new TV show Boston Blue honors its Blue Bloods roots while introducing a new setting, story and characters.
“There are many ways to do that and some of them will jump out at you and some of them will be more subtle,” Wahlberg, 56, said during a recent panel discussion after a screening of the first episode in Manhattan.
He teased that his New York Police Department detective Danny Reagan will be seen in the pilot for Boston Blue enjoying a romance with someone familiar from Blue Bloods before he rushes off to Massachusetts to deal with a family emergency.
“That was something, to me, that had to be addressed and it was like: ‘When Danny gets a call at 1 a.m., who is with him? Is he alone?’ And it’s like, ‘Let’s write it.’ And we wrote it and [director Anthony Hemingway] suggested we do it with no shirt. So, I had to stay in shape.”
Also reprising their roles in the spinoff — which premieres Friday on CBS and Paramount+ — are Mika Amonsen as Danny’s son, rookie Boston cop Sean, and Bridget Moynahan as Danny’s prosecutor sister, Erin.
The new show finds the Reagans befriended by members of the Silver law-enforcement family, led by matriarch, District Attorney Mae (Gloria Reuben) and her cop kids Lena (Sonequa Martin-Green), Jonah (Marcus Scribner) and Sarah (Maggie Lawson).
“This idea was just really good and the script was really good and I looked at it and I saw the possibilities of weaving the Blue Bloods world into it and I saw a chance to play Danny in a different way,” Wahlberg said of what he described as a fish-out-of-water adventure for the Brooklyn detective.
“It’s not only Danny with a new partner meeting this new family. It’s Danny being a dad and worried about his son, making sure he gets home safe every day and teaching him the job the way that his family taught him the job.”
Like its predecessor, Boston Blue shows characters praying and getting together for family meals.
“I do like to eat — a lot,” Wahlberg, said joking that over the course of 14 seasons of Blue Bloods, the cast figured out little tricks to look enthusiastic while eating copious amounts of cold, unappealing food during dinner scenes that seemed to take forever to film.
“Bridget re-positioned her mashed potatoes. Tom [Selleck] would butter his roll for six hours,” Wahlberg added. “On Boston Blue, we have Welch’s grape juice [instead of wine] and the sugar can get you kooky after a while. Six hours of sugar and, if there was dessert with whipped cream, I was already bouncing off the walls. Forget about it. It was hard to slow me down.”
Wahlberg said he sought Moynahan’s advice and she graciously came on board to direct an episode of the spinoff, as well as to guest-star on it.
“She is one of the unsung heroes in this journey because when I was deciding to do the show, I called her and she was so sisterly in the conversation,” he recalled.
“It wasn’t like: ‘Oh, wow!’ Or, ‘What about me?’ It was like: “What are you doing? Tell me about it. OK. Why? What’s pulling you? What’s good? What’s bad?’ She gave a real, honest conversation and there was no ego and was just my friend and sister talking to me about it and challenging me.”
The actor said he was grateful to the police consultants who taught him everything he needed to know to authentically portray someone tasked with protecting and serving the public.
“This is Sonequa’s first time playing a detective and I get to share the wisdom and the knowledge I’ve gotten [from experts],” he said.
“Everyone’s going to think: ‘Oh, there’s a dinner season like Blue Bloods. There’s faith, family and tradition,’ but there’s so much more that just will never really jump out of the screen,” he added. “We can never get it right, playing law enforcement on television. But, hopefully, we tried our best on Blue Bloods and we’re going to try our best here.”
