Friday, October 29, 2010

Blue Bloods' Donnie Wahlberg: What Makes Danny Tick?

by Joyce Eng
As a proud Bostonian, Donnie Wahlberg knows he's going to get flak for what he's about to say.


"It's awesome being a New York cop!" the Blue Bloods star tells TVGuide.com. "Everyone at home is going to kill me for this, but New York cops are the best. To work so closely with them and to get to play one, it's a great, great feeling. Nothing is better than walking through the streets of New York. We did a huge scene outside a few weeks ago and there's hundreds of New Yorkers watching. This guy riding a bike goes, 'Way to go, Wahlberg!' He had a Yankees hat on. It's like, 'Wow!' What a great feeling. Keep the Emmys, give me more of that."

Wahlberg will get to hear more street praise, as the CBS series has been picked up for a full season thanks to strong ratings on a night that didn't seem to be so prime anymore: Fridays. But what on the surface seems like a death sentence was actually very shrewd scheduling for what is not only a cop procedural, but a family drama, too.

"I think Friday night really works for us. CBS does well on Fridays," Wahlberg says. "A lot of Tom [Selleck]'s core fans are going to be around Fridays and a lot of my core fans have families and husbands now. Who better to be watching the show? I think it's a different world anyway. I know when I was younger, Friday nights were my favorite nights to watch TV. You won't believe me if I told you, but I watched CBS when I was a kid. I was a Dukes of Hazzards guy. I watched Magnum, [P.I.]. Don't tell Tom!"

It's the family hook that has viewers, well, hooked on the Reagans, a multigenerational clan deeply rooted in law enforcement in the Big Apple, Wahlberg says.

Besides, it's the family's famous Sunday night dinner scenes that first caught his attention. "The dinner scene in the pilot — I can't even tell you. I just pictured my sister and me sitting across the table and arguing with each other," he says. "I think that was the moment I was seduced. ... But the great thing is that, as the show goes on, dinner's no longer the only time we intersect. Now we cross paths more on the job."

On Friday's episode, Wahlberg's character, passionate and hot-headed detective Danny, and his partner, Detective Jackie Curatola (Jennifer Esposito), investigate the deaths of three teens, who overdosed on a new street drug. They're helped by his younger brother and rookie cop, Jamie (Will Estes). Danny hands out some tough love to little brother when Jamie's inexperience gets the better of him during a interrogation. It's instances like these, Wahlberg says, that could affect Jamie's decision as to whether or not to take up the FBI's offer to probe the Blue Templar, the NYPD's rogue group of cops that their late brother Joe and — as we learned three weeks ago — Danny were (are?) part of.

"Obviously his instinct is to say no. This is his family here. But now he's regular beat cop and what happens to him could influence him as to whether or not he's going to do this," Wahlberg says. "He sees things, he starts to ask questions, and like everyone else, he's curious."

Well, not everyone.

Though he thinks the secret society is a "fun" storyline, Wahlberg, 41, has no interest in asking or learning where producers are planning to go with it. "If there's one way I've changed as an actor, it's that I used to want to know the answer to everything. 'Tell me what's going to happen in Season 20.' Well, how about we get through Episode 6 first?" he says with a laugh. "That's really where I'm at. I'm dialed into what's now. I trust in what they're doing and what my character is."

Danny is a cop, obviously. But he's also a son, brother, grandson, husband, father, uncle and Iraq War veteran — things that don't make him easily describable, Wahlberg says. But if there's one aspect of a rule-bender — if not rule-breaker — that the singer-turned-actor finds most fascinating is his relationship with his father, police Commissioner Frank (Selleck). Living and working in the shadow of a powerful parent is pressure-filled enough, but Wahlberg believes there's more to it.

"Danny also probably thinks he has [Frank's] power from time to time. He doesn't want anyone to think that and when he thinks they think he's taking advantage of that power, he probably resents that and further resents his dad," Wahlberg says. "It's so convoluted that — why try to define it? ... I kind of reserve the right to figure it out what makes him tick as I go. We've dived into their relationship a bit already and you know there's more to come."

With a full season secured, Wahlberg, who also played a cop on NBC's critically acclaimed but short-lived Boomtown, is solely focused on Blue Bloods until the spring, putting New Kids on the Block tour plans on hold until the summer. And after that? Hopefully, more Danny Reagan.

"We'll see. I don't want to get too far ahead," he says, laughing.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Blue-Bloods-Donnie-Wahlberg-1024885.aspx

Donnie Wahlberg on his new series, ‘Blue Bloods’, working with the cast and tweeting in front of Tom Selleck




It’s been 10 years since Donnie Wahlberg won praise for his performance on Boomtown and since then, he’s portrayed characters on both sides of the law. In the new CBS series, Blue Bloods, he’s back playing good guy, ‘Detective Danny Reagan’.

The show revolves around a family of New York City cops that’s headed by Tom Selleck as the police commissioner. Donnie plays his son; Bridget Moynahan is his District Attorney daughter Erin, and Will Estes (American Dreams) is Jamie, a Harvard Law grad who decides to become a beat cop.

I got a chance to talk to Donnie in a conference call where he talked about his character, his off-screen relationship with the cast and more.

How does the cast interact with each other – do you find that you have taken on those familiar characteristics like your characters? Is Tom [Selleck] the ‘dad’ on set? Do you and Will [Estes] have a brotherly relationship?

Donnie Walhberg: Yeah, it’s ironic how things usually turn out at least when people do a good job of casting. Bridget [Moynahan] and I have a very, very great relationship and it definitely – while in my opinion she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met – it is a very, very trusting, brotherly-sisterly kind of relationship. We’re both single parents, we talk about all types of stuff off camera and we help each other a lot as well off camera. I think it flows very naturally onscreen when we work together. Will – sometimes I look at Will and it’s like looking at myself 10 years ago on Boomtown. I see him wanting to explore certain elements of his character’s story the way I did on Boomtown. I remember walking around for the first 11 episodes saying, “When am I going to get to talk about my suicidal wife?” and carrying that with me into every scene that I did and I see Will doing that. And like an older brother, I’m able to identify it, see it, recognize it, and sometimes help and encourage it depending on what the situation calls for.

And of course with Tom he really is like…he sort of is like everyone’s dad. I’m sort of a nutty kid on set but Tom knows I’m professional and I come to play hard every day. Much like Frank knows that that’s what Danny is. Frank puts up with Danny sticking heads in the toilet the way Tom puts up with Donnie tweeting in between takes and letting fans know to watch the show and stuff.

What was your feeling of the police when you were a kid?


Donnie: Well, when I was in Boston growing up I pretty much knew all the cops in my neighborhood cause they had all arrested my brothers. [LAUGHTER] I’d see them around, they knew me, I knew them.

Now that the show’s off and running and people are tuning in, does it take some pressure off you or does it actually add some pressure?

Donnie: Well, if I think about it it only adds pressure so I try not to think about it cause in reality I control none of that. I just control what I do. For actors, for anybody dealing with numbers and polls and things like that, the more you look the more pressure you put on yourself. Cause if you get 20 million viewers on day one, if you look at the numbers on day two and they’re down to 19 million you suddenly start going, ‘Well, what happened?’ The reality is, I think we’re a couple million viewers more than I think anybody thought we’d get, and that’s good news.

What we do on set and what the cast talks about is really trying to control what we can control and that is finding the right mix of what works for our audience. Identifying who they are and servicing what they want, and also servicing our characters as best we can. It’s tricky but the pressure never goes away. There’s so many things at stake with every episode and we treat every episode very important. I don’t take days off and I think my cast mates are the same way. They know that I come to play every day, and to me it’s like a concert every day or a movie every day…a challenge every day, and I want to be as good as I can be every day.

Can you talk about the challenge of playing a cop hunting for a cop killer?

Donnie: I think the challenge is respecting what’s on the page but also respecting the character and where he comes from. What his choices may be in a situation like this and finding the balance, not going too far

What’s your favorite part about playing Danny?

Donnie: I think the freedom that I have with him. I think a great day playing Danny is when I remember to be free and try something different every day.

Sometimes things are written a certain way that they kind of guide an actor down a certain road and my favorite days are the days that even though I’m being guided by the script down a certain road, I’m still able to make discoveries and try things that are completely free and off the cuff. Today on set I kind of did like a quasi Colombo moment and it was really fun and it didn’t feel false. It felt within the realm of Danny and it’s what attracted me to this role. There were a few other opportunities for me to work in other shows and do other things but this part… besides the fact that I love the cast, I love Tom, and I loved the pilot script, I really loved the freedom that this character presented for me as an actor.

What makes this cop-drama stand out as opposed to others?

Donnie: Well, I think the audience is going to have their own opinion on what makes it stand out. For me personally what attracted mentioned the three things. I think the cast was amazing, the script was amazing, and my character in my eyes is a kind character that I don’t get to play very often. I can play an emotional beat if I want with a suspect, I can play an angry beat, I can play a fun beat, I get to really explore the different colors of this character. And the family stuff is what works for the audience and it’s a big part of what works for the cast as well.

I knew I was gonna have a good time doing it. I knew it’d be tense, I knew it’d be fun. When you’re doing television and it’s a grind and you’re working 5 days a week, I know personally, I look for something that’s going to make me feel alive. I think to feel alive a few days a week during episodic television…it’s a gift, sort of like electricity. I get to feel it I think more than most.

Can you give us a little teaser about what we’re going to see from Danny coming forward?

Donnie: I think my TV experience has sort of put me in a position where I’m really…I’m really kind of taking this show as it comes. If you’d asked me this question 10 years ago on Boomtown, I would tell you where I think he’s gonna go. But with this show I don’t press the writers to find out, I’m not pressing to know the answers myself. I want to discover it when I get there. I think I have a good grasp on this character, I think I know who he is and I’m connected to him and I think…I don’t think there’s anything that’s really gonna surprise me that they might come up with or that I will feel can’t be played honestly. And that’s what I mean by surprised, I hope they surprise me, I plan on being surprised but at the same time I don’t feel like I need to be thinking in week four about what’s going to happen in week 20. So, I feel I might as well let it be a surprise to me and see what happens when I open up that script one day hopefully.

http://www.dailyactor.com/2010/10/donnie-wahlberg-interview/

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Celtics fans Shaq up at the Garden

Wahlberg, who has a hit show on CBS with “Blue Bloods” also confessed to being a bit starstruck when the Big Shamroq hugged him before the game
“When he walked by me in green, it took my breath away!” he confessed. “I don’t care if he’s 84 years old. We’ve got Shaq and I love it!”

http://news.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1291821&format=&page=2&listingType=trak#articleFull

Cabbie With David Ortiz And Donnie Wahlberg


http://video.thescore.com/watch/cabbie-with-david-ortiz-and-donnie-wahlberg

Donnie Wahlberg Supports UnitedHealthcare's "Do Good. Live Well." (photos)

Ratcheting up the sports talk

Donnie Wahlberg (left) helped construct a playground for the Waltham Boys & Girls Club. (Bill Brett for The Boston Globe

Hours before the game at the Garden, Celtics fan Donnie Wahlberg joined a pack of New England Patriots, including No. 12 Tom Brady and owner Robert Kraft, at the Waltham Boys & Girls Club for the building of a colorful new playground — while a throng of fans snapped picture after picture. A great time was had by all, including Wahlberg, who costars on the CBS cop drama “Blue Bloods’’ with Bridget Moynahan, who, rather famously, is Brady’s ex. “. . . Everybody thinks that’s a big deal,’’ Wahlberg said, “but it’s not. Tom’s, like, the greatest and I’m a huge fan, and Bridget is, too.’’ Of course, Donnie isn’t above talking trash — when appropriate. “[If] the Celtics stay healthy, no one is going to be talking about [the Heat] in May or June,’’ he said. “. . . It’s like gossip page stuff now. That’s what the Heat are right now. They’re like gossip fodder.’’ Donnie was also optimistic about the Pats. “I’ll tell you, since the trade, which I was nervous about, it seems like they’re playing Patriots football again. I mean, they’re winning games the way they used to win them in the [Bill] Belichick-Brady heyday.’’ As for his own construction skills, Donnie was less confident. “I don’t even know what this is,’’ he said on the playground, holding a ratchet. “It’s a ratchet, I learned. I had a character in my show named Ratchet but I never actually used a ratchet. Hammer, nails, spray paint cans — usually for bad reasons.’’ Wahlberg’s less talkative cohort Brady gave us a pretty good excuse for not coming out to the Garden to root for the men in green. “I got work to do. I got a big football game this weekend.’’ Fair enough. Joining joker Donnie and Tom for the afternoon of community service were a bunch of Pats players and wives including Matt and Susie Light, Jerod Mayo, Sammy Morris, Vince and Bianca Wilfork, as well as UnitedHealthcare Medicare and Retirement CEO Tom Paul. Nonprofit KaBOOM!, which focuses on projects that give kids a place to play, helped with construction.


© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.


http://www.boston.com/yourtown/waltham/articles/2010/10/27/ratcheting_up_the_sports_talk/

Donnie at Celtics Game last night



http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/sports/nba/celtics-beat-heat-88-80-despite-31-from-james-25-apx-20101026

Saturday, October 23, 2010

New Kid in the Big Apple



Wahlberg ignores the hype for CBS’ ‘Blue Bloods’

By Bill Burke

Sunday, October 24, 2010 Donnie Wahlberg was acquainted with the police who worked the Dorchester neighborhood where he grew up.


After all, he said, most of them had arrested his brothers.
“They knew me, I knew them,” the New Kids on the Block singer, actor and producer told the Herald during a recent telephone interview while taking a break from shooting his new CBS drama “Blue Bloods” (Friday nights at 10 on WBZ, Ch. 4)


“We knew a lot of cops, anyway. When you grow up in a city like Boston, where I grew up, a lot of kids became criminals or cops.”


Wahlberg’s onscreen persona is among the latter - Danny Reagan, a detective from a family of New York City crime-fighters. Tom Selleck is patriarch and police Chief Frank Reagan, Bridget Moynahan is Erin Reagan-Boyle and Will Estes plays the youngest, Jamie Reagan.

Moynahan and her former boyfriend, Patriots [team stats] quarterback Tom Brady [stats], have a son together; Wahlberg’s divorce from his wife was recently finalized in California. The two cast members have bonded over their family situations


“Bridget and I have a very, very great relationship,” Wahlberg said. “While she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met, it’s a very trusting, brotherly-sisterly kind of relationship. We’re both single parents. We talk about all kinds of stuff offcamera, and we help each other a lot offcamera, and it flows very naturally onscreen when we work together.”


The New York City-set cop drama is shot on-location in the Big Apple - something Wahlberg says adds immensely to the production.

“We’re shooting right now in a building I live in that was built in 1885,” Wahlberg said. “I’m looking out the window at the Williamsburg Bridge and there’s a cool breeze coming in the window. I feel lucky every day.”

A recent day of shooting found the “Blue Bloods” crew setting up shop underneath the Manhattan Bridge. Between shots, construction workers shouted praise down at the actors, and at Wahlberg in particular.
“For a Bostonian, we live in the shadow of New York,” the 41-year-old actor said. “And to be acknowledged by New Yorkers is really the greatest feeling.”
Whatever the secret element - the writing, the ensemble cast, the location - the show is working and handily dominates Friday nights. Which prompts the obvious question: Can it be sustained?

“If I think about it, it only adds pressure,” Wahlberg said. “I try not to think about it, because the reality is, I control none of that. The more the cast follows the ups and downs of the ratings, the more the pressure builds around the set.” (On Friday, CBS announced it had given a full-season order to “Blue Bloods.”)
“It’s tricky,” he said. “The pressure never goes away. We treat every episode very importantly. I don’t take days off and my cast mates are the same way. I come to play every day - it’s like a concert every day, or a movie every day or a new challenge every day. I want to do the best I can every day.”

source: http://news.bostonherald.com/entertainment/television/general/view/20101024new_kid_in_the_big_apple_wahlberg_ignores_the_hype_for_cbs_blue_bloods/srvc=home&position=also

Q&A: Donnie Wahlberg talks 'Blue Bloods'


Donnie Wahlberg, one of the stars of "Blue Bloods"
Photo: CBS, 2010

Some people still might think of Donnie Wahlberg as one of the "New Kids On The Block," but in recent years he's carved out a career as a steller actor.




Some of his best roles have been as police officers, so it's probably not surprising that he often steals the show in "Blue Bloods." Wahlberg plays Danny Reagan, a top NYPD detective and son of Police Commissioner Frank Regan played by Tom Selleck.

Wahlberg recently spoke with us about the show and what viewers should expect from the remainder of the season:

Question: How is your relationship with your co-stars on set?

Donnie:
Brigitte and I have a great relationship and she definitely is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. It is a very trusting brotherly/sisterly kind of relationship. We’re both single parents and we talk about all types of stuff, you know, off camera, and we help each other a lot off camera, and it flows very well naturally on screen.

Sometimes I look at Will and I see myself 10 years ago on Boomtown, you know, I see him wanting to explore certain elements of his characters story the way I did on Boomtown. I remember walking around town for the first 11 episodes saying, “When am I going to get to talk about my suicidal wife?” And carrying that into every scene that I did. And I see Will doing that and like an older brother, I’m able to sort of identify it, see it, recognize it, and sometimes help and sometimes encourage it, depending on what the situation calls for.
And you know Tom is like everyone’s dad, I’m like the nutty kid on set, but he knows how professional I come to play hard everyday, like Frank knows what Danny is, Danny is a little nutty. So, you know, Frank puts up with Danny’s sticking heads in the toilet, the way Tom puts up with Donny tweeting between takes letting fans know to watch the show.

Question: Going forward, do we get to learn about Danny’s background and his time in Iraq at all?

Donnie:
Of course I want to get to it, but I’m not desperate to get to it. In a perfect world, we’ll have a couple of seasons to explore all of this stuff, and as you know that work in TV, you run out of material after a while on TV, so the more we can come up with good stuff, like Friday’s episode.

The more we can save for when it’s the right time when it’s needed. Obviously, I want to go into a lot of the stuff with a lot of these characters. Not just Danny, I want to know about Will, and see whether he’s going to investigate the Blue Templar. I’m very curious, obviously that’ll have implications for my character, perhaps.
But I want to see how it all goes, I want to see where a lot of this stuff goes. Fortunately, things are going great, and hopefully, we’ll have the chance to explore a lot of this stuff. It’s definitely what we all want, the writers and the cast.

Question: When you were a kid before you became famous, what did you think about the police when you were around Boston, and when you were in your wilder days?

Donnie:
When I was in Boston growing up, I pretty much knew all the cops in the neighborhood, because they had arrested all my brothers, so I’d see them, they knew me, I knew them, and we knew a lot of the cops anyways.
When you grow up in a city like Boston, a lot of kids become criminals or cops. I never really had a bad take on cops, except I hate when there’s one behind me on the highway. I generally feel like I just robbed a bank, even though I’ve done nothing. I don’t know why that feeling comes over me, I’ll never get used to having a cop behind me on the highway.
I think that throughout the years, I’ve got to work with so many of them, I’ve developed respect for cops in general, it’s grown so much over the years. As in so many parts of life, there’s always some guys, some people who just break the rules, and do things that aren’t right. I think certain people make mistakes, and the cops as a whole pay for it. 9 out of 10, maybe 99 of 100 people are trying to do the best they can, and very dangerous circumstances, they make judgment calls.
I know they don’t want to go around sticking people’s heads in the toilet, but you know they wish they could if it’s the right circumstance. When that character in the pilot all but admits that he had that little girl, it’s at that moment that every person in the world, the parents of the victim, the cops, friends of a victim, would all want to be able to take the law into their own hands and do something to save a child. Unfortunately, they can’t do it.
In our pilot episode, it worked out for Danny and the little girl, but it’s a tough spot to be in. Imagine the burden of having to save a little girls life, but having so many restrictions you can’t do what it takes. It’s tough, and everyone has to have rights, and we all have to deal with it.

Question: Now that the show is up and running, and people tune in does this take pressure off of you, or does it add pressure?

Donnie:
When I think about it, it only adds pressure, so I try not to think about it. I control none of that, I just control what I do. For actors or for anybody dealing with numbers and polls, the more you look, the more pressure you put on yourself.

If you get 20,000,000 viewers on day one, and you look at the numbers on day 2, and they’re at 19,000,000 you’re like what happened? The reality is where we’re a couple million more viewers than what they thought we’d get, and you know that’s good. What we do on set, and what the actors talk about on set, is really trying to control what we can control, and you know it’s a bright mix of what works for our audience, it’s identifying who they are and servicing what they want and also servicing the characters as best as they can.

It’s tricky, but the pressure never goes away. So many things at stake, and we treat every episode very importantly. I don’t take days off and I think my cast mates are the same way. I come to play every day and to me, it’s like a concert every day or a movie every day, a challenge every day, I want to be as good as I can be every day.

Question: I love that the show is filming in New York, what’s it like actually being there instead of a soundstage in Hollywood or Canada pretending to be in New York?

Donnie: Well, I’m sitting in a building that I live in that was built in 1885. think, I’m looking out the window at the Williamsburg Bridge, and there’s a cool breeze coming in, and I feel lucky every day. In the “Officer Down” episode in the climactic scene, where they take out the bad guy, which I shouldn’t give away, but I’m sure you’ve seen it, maybe you won’t give it away to your readers, but we’re shooting under the Manhattan bridge in DUMBO, and all these guys are up there working on the bridge, and in between takes all these guys would yell down, “Donnie we love you man!” and it was so much fun, so great.

I don’t know how anyone could hear in DUMBO, it’s the loudest place on earth, but those guys’ voices cut right through all the trains, noise, the traffic, and the welding. It’s nothing like playing a New Yorker and being on the streets of New York and having New Yorkers give you a pat on the back. Today I was walking down the street and this couple of guys doing some construction on a brownstone were like, ‘Hey, way to go Wahlberg.”
As a Bostonian, we live in the shadow of New York, and to be acknowledged by New Yorker, it’s the greatest feeling.

Question: Can you talk about the challenge of playing a cop looking for a cop killer? How is that a unique challenge for you?

Donnie: The struggle and challenge for me of playing Danny was sometimes the writer in the story has it’s own purpose, and that is to get from Point A to Point Z in an entertaining and dramatic way with information to keep the audience informed.

But for me, playing Danny, I looked at every single person connected to the case as a cop killer, and I think there’s an element of truth in that. I think that if an officer does go down, in the real world, anyone associated with it, is dealing with a cop being killed, and that raises the stakes for everything. So when I showed up in an early scene in the episode where an electrician is being interrogated, he was in cahoots with those guys, and I thought Danny’s take is that they’re all guilty, and they’re all involved, therefore they’re all cop killers.

The challenge then became how to bring that spirit into the scene, even if the scene didn’t suggest that. Just to see ‘Look, this guy will connect us to this guy, who will connect us to the actual guy who pulled the trigger.’ I wanted to bring a sense to Danny that every guy involved may have well pulled the trigger, because a young officer is gone because of all of their choices.
Had one of them stepped up, maybe it wouldn’t of happened. For me, the challenge is respecting what’s on the page, but also respecting the character where he comes from and where his choices maybe in a situation like this, and finding a balance of not going too far, of I’m going rogue on script and playing his own movie, but pushing the boundaries that Danny is doing everything he can do to make sure that justice is served.

Question: How do you view the real line between duty and vengeance? Especially when one of their own is killed. Isn’t that the line between good cop and bad cop?

Donnie: Well, that’s really an impossible question to answer. I’m not really a cop in real life, I could tell you if someone in my family was killed and what that might feel like, or if someone was violated that was close to me, I might tell you what that might feel like, or what I may want to do.

But, I’m Donnie playing Danny, his want for justice is bigger than he understands, I don’t think he knows what’s pushing him, I don’t think Donnie knows what’s pushing Danny. There’s still a lot to be discovered with these characters, and there’s a lot of curiosity as to what happens to Danny’s brother in the show and what happened to the other son Joe, he was killed in the line of duty investigating the Blue Templar, and it may be something he’s a part of.

There’s a lot of mystery to that and I don’t know what exactly is driving Danny, I know that in this episode, I played it the way that I think Danny should and he won’t stop or sleep until he gets the guy who did it, and as far as who’s involved he did it. So, they all need to be stopped.

In real life, would I take vengeance on somebody? Hell no, I’d like to think I’m a little bit more of a forgiving person. If I were out there on the street risking my life and somebody carelessly mowed down somebody who was doing the same, I’m sure I’d be driven to do all I can to get that person off the street.

question: What’s your favorite part about playing Danny?

Donnie:
I think the freedom that I have with him. I think playing Danny was good because I get to be free and something different. If I feel I’m doing something redundant, but sometimes scripts are written to guide an actor down a certain road and my favorite days are when I’m being guided by the script down a certain road.
I’m able to make discoveries and try something free and off the cuff. Today on set, I did a Quazi-Columbo moment, it was really fun and it didn’t feel false, it felt in the realm of Danny and it’s what attracted me to this role. There were a few other opportunities to do other shows, and do other things, but this part, beside the fact that I love the cast, and Tom, and I loved the pilot script, I love the freedom this character presented to me as an actor.

Question: What do you think it is about this cop drama that makes it stand apart from others?

Donnie:
I think the audience is going to have their own opinion, but for me, what attracted me, was the cast, the script, and my character.

In my eyes, it’s the kind of character I don’t play often. I can play an emotional beat with a suspect, I can play an angry beat, I can play a fun beat. I get to explore the different colors of this character. And the family stuff I think is a big part of what is working for the audience, but it’s also a big part of what’s working for the cast as well.
When I read the pilot, I didn’t see my sister sitting across the table saying these lines to me. Bridget and I, my sister in the show, we had many similar arguments,and when something resonates like that so truthfully, it creates an attraction.
When we did that dinner scene, I knew I was going to have a good time doing it. I knew it would be tense, it would be fun, and it would be alive. When you do TV and it’s a grind and when you work 5 days a week, I look for something that’s going to make me feel alive. My character has a lot of freedom and it makes me feel alive. In the dinner scene, they have a lot of truth in them and that makes me feel alive.

To feel alive a few days a week during episodic television, it’s a gift, it’s an electricity, and I get to feel it more than most.

Question: Did you do any research to prepare for the role? Spend some time with the NYPD?

Donnie:

Well, I did, and I spent time with them before on other projects. I played a hostage negotiator on a show called ‘Killpoint’ I played a guy in Pittsburg, but I worked with Jack Cambria, the head of the head of the hostage negotiating team for the NYPD, and I worked with other cops before.

I think the thing with this character was the preparation is obvious. You have to be prepared, you have to know what you’re doing and have to pull it off. It’s very important to handle people the way I do.

In the pilot, had I not worked on it as hard as I did, it would’ve been different with the suspects. I played Danny a little aggressive, but the reality is going in with the mindset that they are the bad guy. Controlling them, the environment, their energy is very important, and I think that when they are working against the clock and working with potential suspects, and everyone needed to be controlled until Danny got the information he needed.

The other part of the character is that he is a very experienced guy that marches to the beat of his own drum, but is the son of a very powerful man. I think that’s the part that I really wanted to explore and wanted to discover with each episode. I think a lot of times, I was allowed to interpret scenes the way we want.
I can’t really read a scene that says, ‘Danny goes to the fridge and eats a slice of pizza,’ and I turn around and then Danny is hallucinating on drugs, it’s not like we’re a bunch of insane people running an asylum. With each scene that Danny has with Frank, it’s like to be the son of a powerful man by following in his footsteps, but trying to be yourself.
I’m sure there’s a lot of resentment for Danny toward his dad, a lot of gratitude, I’m sure there’s time where he takes advantage of his relationship with his dad, and I’m sure where he resents having that relationship with his dad. It’s a burden, or a insistence, it gives him privileges that he doesn’t have or hasn’t earned. There’s so much in that relationship that it’s really the part that I didn’t want to research, but wanted to develop.

There’s no one answer, I’m not playing a guy who simply resents or worships his dad, and I’m playing a guy who runs the full gambit of everything between of both scenarios.

Question: What aspects of Danny do you find to be like yourself?


Donnie:

I think the way Danny is like me, is that he’s mischievous. In the final scene with the cigar, there was a lot of Donnie in that scene, I think there was a lot of Danny was ripping dad in the final scene and teasing dad a bit, but that was very much a Donnie characteristic.
I like being a leader in real life, and you know, I’m a leader in all the work I’ve done in my career, but at the same time, I have to deal with other leaders that have more authority than me, and that’s where I connect with Danny. It’s fun, interesting, and somewhat electric having been Danny and having to deal with his dad Frank, and it’s fun being Donnie and being on set every day with Tom.

Tom’s a leader himself; he’s an experienced, smart, dedicated person himself, much like myself. We both see the head and game and want the same thing, but different ideas on how to do it. And knowing when to step up that this might be the time that Tom can really use my input, or knowing when to step back this is the time I got to trust Tom.
It’s very truthful off screen as it is on screen for Danny and Frank, I mean, I got to say its fun and makes the job great for me. It’s fun coming to work every day, and working out scenes and ideas with Tom you know, knowing who I am and knowing how I like to work. We have a great mutual respect. There’s an experience difference, there’s an age difference, and that’s what brings truth to every scene we do both on screen and off, and it’s a real treat to explore that and makes it very real for me

source: http://www.examiner.com/blue-bloods-in-national/q-a-donnie-wahlberg-talks-blue-bloods

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Q&A Interview with Donnie Wahlberg of BLUE BLOODS

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 Maj Canton - October 21, 2010



TV Tango recently participated in a conference call with Donnie Wahlberg, who plays Danny Reagan on BLUE BLOODS. Donnie took the time to talk about his character, filming in New York, and his off-screen relationship with the cast. Plus, he dished about his partner (played by Jennifer Esposito) and his feelings about cops.








Question: Do you find that the cast has taken on the familial characteristics of your characters? Is Tom Selleck the dad on set? Do you and Will Estes have a brotherly relationship?


Donnie Wahlberg: Well, I think, yes. It’s ironic how things usually turn out right -- at least when people do a good job of casting.

Bridget (Moynahan) and I have a very, very great relationship. While she’s in my opinion one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met, it is a very, very trusting brotherly-sisterly kind of relationship. We’re both single parents. We talk about all types of stuff off camera, and we help each other a lot as well off camera and it flows very naturally onscreen when we work together.
  Sometimes I look at Will and it’s like looking at my self ten years ago on BOOMTOWN. I see him wanting to explore certain elements of his character’s story the way I did on BOOMTOWN. I remember walking around for the first 11 episodes saying when am I going to get to talk about my wife when am I going to get to talk about my suicidal wife and carrying that with me into every scene that I did. And I see Will doing that and, like an older brother, I'm able to sort of identify it, see it, recognize it, and sometimes help and sometimes encourage it, depending on what the situation calls for.

And of course with Tom, he sort of is like everyone’s dad. I’m sort of the nutty kid on set, but Tom knows that I’m professional and that I come to play hard everyday, much like Frank knows that that’s what Danny is. Danny is a little nutty but Frank puts up with Danny sticking heads in the toilet the way Tom puts up with Danny tweeting in between takes and letting fans know to watch the show and stuff.




Question: Do we get to find out more about Danny’s background and his time in Iraq at all?


Donnie Wahlberg: Well, I think in time.

Like I said in using Will as a reference. When I was Will’s age I wanted every single part of my character’s story to come out in the very first episode after the pilot and in every subsequent script I would say, “Man when are we going to get to it?" The reality is, I guess, with age and with experience comes a little bit more patience. Of course I want to get to it, but I’m not desperate to get to it. In a perfect world we’ll have a couple of seasons to explore this stuff. The more we come up with good stuff, like last Friday’s episode "Officer Down", and not have to go there quite yet, the more we can save that for the when it’s the right time and it's really needed.

Obviously I want to go into a lot of the stuff that’s going on with a lot of these characters. Not just Danny. I want to know what’s going on with Will, and I want to see whether or not he’s going to investigate the Blue Templar. Obviously, that will have implications for my character, perhaps, but I want to see how it all goes. I want to see where a lot of this stuff goes. Fortunately, things are going great and hopefully we’ll have a chance to get to explore a lot of that stuff. It’s definitely what we all want -- the writers and the cast.


Question: What were your feelings of the police when you were a kid in Boston before you were famous and then in your wilder rock years?


Donnie Wahlberg: When I was in Boston growing up, I pretty much knew all the cops in my neighborhood because they had all arrested my brothers. I would see them around. They knew me. I knew them. We knew a lot of cops anyway. When you grow up in a city like Boston where I grew up, a lot of kids become criminals or cops.

I never really had a bad take on cops -- other than I hate when there is one behind me on the highway. I generally feel like I robbed a bank even though I did nothing. I don’t know why that feeling comes over me. I’ll never get used to that feeling of a cop being behind me on the highway.

Throughout the years I got to work with so many of them. While I think I’ve always had a certain level of respect for cops in general, it’s grown so much over the years. As in every part of life, there’s always some people who break the rules. They do things that aren’t right, and I think a lot of times certain guys make mistakes and the cops as a whole pay for it. I think 9 out of 10 guys -- maybe 99 out of 100 guys and women -- are out there trying to do the very best they can in very scary, very dangerous circumstances. Sometimes they make judgment calls and most times they want to do the right thing. Every now and again it goes awry and unfortunately all the times they do make a proper judgment call are very rarely recognized compared to the times they make a bad judgment call.

And for me, I get to explore that kind of stuff, that kind of feeling with my character.  He makes bad judgment calls sometimes. I think a lot of the cops who watch the show respect it because they know that it can happen. I don’t think they want to go around sticking people’s head in toilets, but I know they sometimes maybe wish they could in the right circumstance.

When that character in the pilot all but admits that he has that little girl, it’s at that moment that every person in the world -- the parent’s of a victim, the cops, anybody, friends of a victim -- would all want to be able to take the law into their own hands and do something to save a child. Unfortunately, we can’t always do that. In our pilot episode, it worked out for Danny and for the little girl, but it’s a tough spot to be in. imagine the burden of having to save a young girl’s life but having so many restrictions that you can’t do what it takes. You know its tough and everybody has to have rights, and that’s just the way it is. So we all have to deal with it.


Question: Is your partner from the episode "Officer Down" going to be back on some more episodes?


Donnie Wahlberg: She’s shooting her fourth episode now. Jennifer Esposito, who I’m having so much fun with, is really great. She’s bringing a lot to the show and certainly giving me room to play.

After "Officer Down," there’s an episode where I get to bring a lot of levity to my character and the situation. It’s not as intense of a crime that were investigating. And I get to have a lot of fun with Jennifer. I’ve been telling Will Estes, "You don’t know what you have with Nick Tuturro. You have gold everyday. You show up to work. You have the potential for magic with an actor of his caliber." And I feel like I have that with Jennifer Esposito.
 


Question: Does it take pressure off or add pressure knowing that you want to keep people tuning in to watch?


Donnie Wahlberg: If I think about it, it only adds pressure -- so I just try not to think about it. The reality is that I control none of that. I just control what I do, but for anybody dealing with numbers and polls and things like that, the more you look, the more pressure you put on yourself.

If you get 20 million viewers on day one and if you look at the numbers on day two and they’re down to 19 million, you suddenly start going "What happened?" The reality is, I think, we’re a couple million viewers more than anyone thought we would get -- and that’s good news.

It’s really what we do on set. What the cast talks about is really trying to control what we can control -- that’s finding the right mix of what works for our audience, identifying who they are, and servicing what they want and also servicing our characters as best we can.

It’s tricky, but the pressure never goes away. There are so many things at stake with every episode, and we treat every episode as very important. I don’t take days off and my cast mates are the same way. They know I come to play every day. To me, it’s like a concert everyday or like a movie everyday or a challenge everyday, and I want to be as good as I can be everyday.


Question: How does it feel to actually be in New York instead of on a sound stage pretending to be there?


Donnie Wahlberg: I’m sitting right now in a building that I live in that was built in 1885. I’m looking out the window at the Williamsburg Bridge and the cool breeze coming in and I’m just feeling lucky everyday.

We were shooting under the Manhattan bridge, and all these guys are up there working on the bridge and in between every take they would yell down "Donnie Wahlberg, we love you man!" It was so much fun. It was so great.

There is nothing like playing a New Yorker and being on the streets of New York and having New Yorkers give you a pat on the back. It’s been happening everyday. Just today waking down the street there were some guys doing some construction on a brownstone and they say "Hey, way to go Wahlberg." So for Bostonians -- we live in the shadow of New York -- so to be acknowledged by New Yorkers is really the greatest feeling.


Question: How do you view the real line between duty and vengeance for a police officer when one of their own has been killed?


Donnie Wahlberg: That’s sort of an impossible question to answer because I’m not really a cop in real life. I could tell you if someone in my family was killed and what that would feel like. I could probably answer it better if somebody violated somebody who was very close to me -- what I’d feel like and what I may want to do, you know?

I’m just Donnie and I’m playing Danny. And Danny’s want for justice I think is bigger than he even understands. I don’t think he knows really what’s pushing him. I don’t think Donnie knows what’s pushing Danny at this point.

There’s a lot to be discovered with these characters, there’s a lot of curiosity as to what happened to Danny’s brother in the show and what happened to the other son, Joe. You know he was killed in the line of duty investigating the Blue Templar, which Danny may be a part of. You know, there is a lot of mystery to that and I don’t know what exactly is driving Danny.

I know in this particular episode ("Officer Down") I play it the way I think Danny should. He will not stop and he will not sleep until he gets the guy who did it. As far as he’s concerned, if you’re involved, you did it. So they all need to be stopped.

In real life would I take vengeance on somebody? Hell no! I like to think I’m more of a forgiving person. If I were out there on the streets everyday risking my life, if somebody carelessly mowed down somebody doing the same, I’m sure I’d be driven to do all I can to get that person off the street.


Question: What’s your favorite part about playing Danny?


Donnie Wahlberg: I think the freedom that I have with him.

I think a great day playing Danny is when I remember to be free and try something different. My favorite days are the days that even though I’m being guided by the script down a certain road, I still am able to make discoveries and try things that are completely free and off the cuff.

Today on set I did like a quasi-Columbo moment [laughs], and it was really fun and it didn’t feel false. It felt like within the realm of Danny. It’s what attracted me to this role. There were a few other opportunities for me to work with other shows and do other things, but this part -- besides the fact that I loved the cast, I loved Tom, and I loved the pilot script -- I really loved the freedom that this character presented to me.



Question: What sets this cop drama apart from others?


Donnie Wahlberg: I think the audience is going to have their own opinion on what makes it stand out, but personally I think what attracted me to it were the three things I just mentioned -- I think the cast was amazing, the script was amazing, and my character in my eyes is the kind of character I don’t get to play very often.

Very few actors get to play [this type of character]. I can show up and I can play an emotional me if I want with a suspect. I can play an angry me. I can play a fun me. I get to explore the different colors of this character.

The family stuff is a big part of what works for the audience, and I think it’s a big part of what works for the cast as well. When I read the pilot, I could see my sister sitting across the table in real life and saying these lines to me. My sister and I in real life had many similar arguments as Bridget (Moynahan) and I have got to play in the show. When something is like that, so truthful, there’s definitely an attraction. When I did that dinner scene, I knew I was going to have a good time doing it. I knew it would be tense, I knew it would be fun, and I knew it would be alive.

I think when you’re doing television, it’s a grind. You’re working five days a week. Me personally, I look for something that’s going to make me feel alive and my character has a lot of freedom, which makes me feel alive. And the family scenes have a lot of truth in them and that makes me feel alive. I think to feel alive a few days a week during episodic television -- it’s a gift to feel that sort of electricity and I get to feel it more than most.


Question: Did you research your role and spend time with members of the NYPD?


Donnie Wahlberg: I did spend time with them. And I have spent time with them before on another project when I actually played a hostage negotiator on a show called KILL POINT as a guy in Pittsburgh. I worked with Jack Cambria who is the head of the hostage negotiation team for the NYPD. I have worked with other cops before.

I think the thing with this character preparation is obvious. You have to be prepared as a cop. You have to know what you are doing. You have to be able to pull it off, at least I do. I think it is very important to handle people the way I do. In the pilot, for example, I think I played Danny a little aggressive, but the reality is going in to each and every one of those there any one of them could have been the bad guy. So controlling them, controlling the environment, controlling for the character, their energy is very important. I didn’t try to play Danny as a bully but as somebody working against the clock with potential suspects and every one of them needed to be controlled. Danny needed to make sure what needed to be get was gotten.

Danny is a very strong character who marches to the beat of his own drum, but he is the son of a very powerful guy. I think that’s the part that I really want to explore a lot and discover with each episode. Given a little freedom in that, I’m allowed on this show to interpret scenes the way we want. Certainly I can’t read a scene that says Danny goes inside and eats a pizza and I decide to  come out and decide Danny is hallucinating on drugs. [laughter] It’s not like we are a bunch of insane people running the asylum here.

For example, the scenes Danny has with Frank. What’s it like to be the son of a powerful man, sorta following in his footsteps but trying to be your own man? I’m sure a lot of resentment towards Danny with his dad, I’m sure there’s a lot of gratitude when he takes full advantage of his relationship with his dad and I’m sure he resents it and thinks it’s a burden. There’s so much in that relationship it’s really the part that I didn’t want to research. I wanted to discover it with each episode. I wanted to try different things, because the reality is there is no one answer. I’m not playing a guy who simply resents his dad or simply worships his dad. I’m playing a guy who runs the full gambit of everything in between both of those scenarios. Each scene offers me a chance to play a different color or different shade of that.


Question: Where do you see your character going?


Donnie Wahlberg: Well, I think my TV experience has put me in a position where I am really taking this show as it comes, If you asked me this question ten years ago on BOOMTOWN, I would tell you where I think he’s going to go. But I think with this show, I don’t know. 

I’m not pressing to find the answers myself. I want to discover it when I get there. I think I have a good grasp on this character. I think I know who he is and I’m connected to him. I don’t think there's anything that they are going to come up with that I feel can’t be played honestly.

I hope they surprise me. I plan on being surprised, but at the same time I don’t feel like I need to be thinking on week 4 what’s going to happen on week 20. I think it will be a surprise to him. I think if Danny is battling some scars from Iraq and they erupt in his life, it will probably be a surprise when it happens -- to him and to everybody around him. So I might as well let it be a surprise to me too, and we’ll see what happens when I open up that script one day.


Question: What aspects of Danny do you find are most like yourself?


Donnie Wahlberg: Well, I think in some ways it's interesting. I was doing a scene today and it seemed a little bit insensitive of a moment to play. I had to really struggle. I became aware that it was a little insensitive. I started to play the scene a little softer. I kind of caught myself, I said “What are you doing, this is not your point of view. This is Danny’s point of view. This is Danny’s take on things, so relax. You know? If it ruffles some feathers, so be it, that’s who he is. That’s who Danny is. You’re not playing you, you’re playing him.”

But I think the way Danny is like me -- I think he is mischievous. In last week’s episode for example, the final scene with the cigar. I think there was a lot of Donnie in that scene. I think that Danny was ripping that in the final scene. You know and sort of teasing that a little bit, but I think at the same time that is very much a Donnie characteristic. I like being a leader in real life, and I’m very much a leader in the work that I do or in a lot of my career. At the same time, every now and again, I have to deal with other leaders who have more authority than me, and I think that is somewhere I definitely connect with Danny.

It's fun, interesting and sort of electric, having played Danny and having to deal with his dad, Frank. At the same time its fun being Donnie and being everyday on the set with Tom. Tom is a leader himself. He is a very experienced, very smart guy. Very dedicated much like myself. There are times when we both see the hidden game, and we both want the same thing but we have very different ideas on how to do it. Knowing when to step up, knowing that this is the time Tom could really use my input or knowing when to step back and knowing this is the time I gotta trust Tom. It is very truthful off screen as it is on screen for Danny and Frank.

I gotta say it's fun and it really makes the job great for me. It's fun coming to work everyday and working on scenes with Tom and working out ideas and knowing how I am and how I like to work and also knowing and respecting who he is. We have a great mutual respect.  Much like the characters, there is an experience difference. There is a sense that rings true in every scene we do on screen and off. It makes it very real for me.


Question: Had you been a big fan of MAGNUM P.I. before this?


Donnie Wahlberg: I was a huge fan of THREE MEN AND A BABY, and my mother was a huge fan of MAGNUM.  She is in heaven right now and every Friday night she is watching this show. I can call her at 4 in the morning and she will say, “Oh my God, I loved it when you made Tom laugh!” She’s in heaven.

I really came to respect Tom later.  THREE MEN AND A BABY was one of my favorite movies. As Tom went on, I’ve seen him do different interviews and different things throughout the years, and I’ve gained a lot of respect for him. To see how far he’s come and the level of success he’s had, it's something that one can only aspire to.  It's one thing to have the success but then to have the humility after the success -- it's really what impresses me and it’s the life I try to live. To see that you can actually do that and that there are good people like that who exist, it is very encouraging. 

 SOURCE: http://www.tvtango.com/news/detail/id/266/qa-interview-with-donnie-wahlberg-of-blue-bloods

INTERVIEW: Donnie Wahlberg chats “Blue Bloods


Donnie Wahlberg has been driving fans crazy since landing a lead role in the CBS police procedural drama, Blue Bloods. Hey, if we have to lose our New Kids for the time being, at least we get to tune in and see our favorite bad boy on tv every Friday.
We spoke with Donnie recently about his role as Danny Reagan, a top NYPD detective and son of Police Commissioner Frank Regan played by legendary actor Tom Selleck. My only complaint thus far is that Donnie is not sporting his own version of Tom’s legendary mustache.
Come on Donnie, the legend must live on!
The show also stars Bridgett Monyahan as his sister Erin, a divorced mother of a teenage girl and assistant district attorney. Personally, I would have preferred to see Ms. Monyahan in the role of Donnie’s wife….just sayin’. Will Estes plays the role of Jamie, the baby of the family and recent graduate of the police academy and Harvard Law School. Jamie was also recently accepted into the police force and is struggling to fit it with the big boys.
Question: How is your relationship with your co-stars on set?
Donnie: Brigitte and I have a great relationship and she definitely is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. It is a very trusting brotherly/sisterly kind of relationship. We’re both single parents and we talk about all types of stuff, you know, off camera, and we help each other a lot off camera, and it flows very well naturally on screen.
Sometimes I look at Will and I see myself 10 years ago on Boomtown, you know, I see him wanting to explore certain elements of his characters story the way I did on Boomtown. I remember walking around town for the first 11 episodes saying, “When am I going to get to talk about my suicidal wife?” And carrying that into every scene that I did. And I see Will doing that and like an older brother, I’m able to sort of identify it, see it, recognize it, and sometimes help and sometimes encourage it, depending on what the situation calls for.
And you know Tom is like everyone’s dad, I’m like the nutty kid on set, but he knows how professional I come to play hard everyday, like Frank knows what Danny is, Danny is a little nutty. So, you know, Frank puts up with Danny’s sticking heads in the toilet, the way Tom puts up with Donny tweeting between takes letting fans know to watch the show.
Question: Going forward, do we get to learn about Danny’s background and his time in Iraq at all?
Donnie: Of course I want to get to it, but I’m not desperate to get to it. In a perfect world, we’ll have a couple of seasons to explore all of this stuff, and as you know that work in TV, you run out of material after a while on TV, so the more we can come up with good stuff, like Friday’s episode.
The more we can save for when it’s the right time when it’s needed. Obviously, I want to go into a lot of the stuff with a lot of these characters. Not just Danny, I want to know about Will, and see whether he’s going to investigate the Blue Templar. I’m very curious, obviously that’ll have implications for my character, perhaps.
But I want to see how it all goes, I want to see where a lot of this stuff goes. Fortunately, things are going great, and hopefully, we’ll have the chance to explore a lot of this stuff. It’s definitely what we all want, the writers and the cast.
Question: When you were a kid before you became famous, what did you think about the police when you were around Boston, and when you were in your wilder days?
Donnie: When I was in Boston growing up, I pretty much knew all the cops in the neighborhood, because they had arrested all my brothers, so I’d see them, they knew me, I knew them, and we knew a lot of the cops anyways.
When you grow up in a city like Boston, a lot of kids become criminals or cops. I never really had a bad take on cops, except I hate when there’s one behind me on the highway. I generally feel like I just robbed a bank, even though I’ve done nothing. I don’t know why that feeling comes over me, I’ll never get used to having a cop behind me on the highway.
I think that throughout the years, I’ve got to work with so many of them, I’ve developed respect for cops in general, it’s grown so much over the years. As in so many parts of life, there’s always some guys, some people who just break the rules, and do things that aren’t right. I think certain people make mistakes, and the cops as a whole pay for it. 9 out of 10, maybe 99 of 100 people are trying to do the best they can, and very dangerous circumstances, they make judgment calls.
I know they don’t want to go around sticking people’s heads in the toilet, but you know they wish they could if it’s the right circumstance. When that character in the pilot all but admits that he had that little girl, it’s at that moment that every person in the world, the parents of the victim, the cops, friends of a victim, would all want to be able to take the law into their own hands and do something to save a child. Unfortunately, they can’t do it.
In our pilot episode, it worked out for Danny and the little girl, but it’s a tough spot to be in. Imagine the burden of having to save a little girls life, but having so many restrictions you can’t do what it takes. It’s tough, and everyone has to have rights, and we all have to deal with it.
Question: Now that the show is up and running, and people tune in does this take pressure off of you, or does it add pressure?
Donnie: When I think about it, it only adds pressure, so I try not to think about it. I control none of that, I just control what I do. For actors or for anybody dealing with numbers and polls, the more you look, the more pressure you put on yourself.
If you get 20,000,000 viewers on day one, and you look at the numbers on day 2, and they’re at 19,000,000 you’re like what happened? The reality is where we’re a couple million more viewers than what they thought we’d get, and you know that’s good. What we do on set, and what the actors talk about on set, is really trying to control what we can control, and you know it’s a bright mix of what works for our audience, it’s identifying who they are and servicing what they want and also servicing the characters as best as they can.
It’s tricky, but the pressure never goes away. So many things at stake, and we treat every episode very importantly. I don’t take days off and I think my cast mates are the same way. I come to play every day and to me, it’s like a concert every day or a movie every day, a challenge every day, I want to be as good as I can be every day.
Question: I love that the show is filming in New York, what’s it like actually being there instead of a soundstage in Hollywood or Canada pretending to be in New York?
Donnie: Well, I’m sitting in a building that I live in that was built in 1885. think, I’m looking out the window at the Williamsburg Bridge, and there’s a cool breeze coming in, and I feel lucky every day. In the “Officer Down” episode in the climactic scene, where they take out the bad guy, which I shouldn’t give away, but I’m sure you’ve seen it, maybe you won’t give it away to your readers, but we’re shooting under the Manhattan bridge in DUMBO, and all these guys are up there working on the bridge, and in between takes all these guys would yell down, “Donnie we love you man!” and it was so much fun, so great.
I don’t know how anyone could hear in DUMBO, it’s the loudest place on earth, but those guys’ voices cut right through all the trains, noise, the traffic, and the welding. It’s nothing like playing a New Yorker and being on the streets of New York and having New Yorkers give you a pat on the back. Today I was walking down the street and this couple of guys doing some construction on a brownstone were like, ‘Hey, way to go Wahlberg.”
As a Bostonian, we live in the shadow of New York, and to be acknowledged by New Yorker, it’s the greatest feeling.
Question: Can you talk about the challenge of playing a cop looking for a cop killer? How is that a unique challenge for you?
Donnie: The struggle and challenge for me of playing Danny was sometimes the writer in the story has it’s own purpose, and that is to get from Point A to Point Z in an entertaining and dramatic way with information to keep the audience informed.
But for me, playing Danny, I looked at every single person connected to the case as a cop killer, and I think there’s an element of truth in that. I think that if an officer does go down, in the real world, anyone associated with it, is dealing with a cop being killed, and that raises the stakes for everything. So when I showed up in an early scene in the episode where an electrician is being interrogated, he was in cahoots with those guys, and I thought Danny’s take is that they’re all guilty, and they’re all involved, therefore they’re all cop killers.
The challenge then became how to bring that spirit into the scene, even if the scene didn’t suggest that. Just to see ‘Look, this guy will connect us to this guy, who will connect us to the actual guy who pulled the trigger.’ I wanted to bring a sense to Danny that every guy involved may have well pulled the trigger, because a young officer is gone because of all of their choices.
Had one of them stepped up, maybe it wouldn’t of happened. For me, the challenge is respecting what’s on the page, but also respecting the character where he comes from and where his choices maybe in a situation like this, and finding a balance of not going too far, of I’m going rogue on script and playing his own movie, but pushing the boundaries that Danny is doing everything he can do to make sure that justice is served.
Question: How do you view the real line between duty and vengeance? Especially when one of their own is killed. Isn’t that the line between good cop and bad cop?
Donnie: Well, that’s really an impossible question to answer. I’m not really a cop in real life, I could tell you if someone in my family was killed and what that might feel like, or if someone was violated that was close to me, I might tell you what that might feel like, or what I may want to do.
But, I’m Donnie playing Danny, his want for justice is bigger than he understands, I don’t think he knows what’s pushing him, I don’t think Donnie knows what’s pushing Danny. There’s still a lot to be discovered with these characters, and there’s a lot of curiosity as to what happens to Danny’s brother in the show and what happened to the other son Joe, he was killed in the line of duty investigating the Blue Templar, and it may be something he’s a part of.
There’s a lot of mystery to that and I don’t know what exactly is driving Danny, I know that in this episode, I played it the way that I think Danny should and he won’t stop or sleep until he gets the guy who did it, and as far as who’s involved he did it. So, they all need to be stopped.
In real life, would I take vengeance on somebody? Hell no, I’d like to think I’m a little bit more of a forgiving person. If I were out there on the street risking my life and somebody carelessly mowed down somebody who was doing the same, I’m sure I’d be driven to do all I can to get that person off the street.
Question: What’s your favorite part about playing Danny?
Donnie: I think the freedom that I have with him. I think playing Danny was good because I get to be free and something different. If I feel I’m doing something redundant, but sometimes scripts are written to guide an actor down a certain road and my favorite days are when I’m being guided by the script down a certain road.
I’m able to make discoveries and try something free and off the cuff. Today on set, I did a Quazi-Columbo moment, it was really fun and it didn’t feel false, it felt in the realm of Danny and it’s what attracted me to this role. There were a few other opportunities to do other shows, and do other things, but this part, beside the fact that I love the cast, and Tom, and I loved the pilot script, I love the freedom this character presented to me as an actor.
Question: What do you think it is about this cop drama that makes it stand apart from others?
Donnie: I think the audience is going to have their own opinion, but for me, what attracted me, was the cast, the script, and my character.
In my eyes, it’s the kind of character I don’t play often. I can play an emotional beat with a suspect, I can play an angry beat, I can play a fun beat. I get to explore the different colors of this character. And the family stuff I think is a big part of what is working for the audience, but it’s also a big part of what’s working for the cast as well.
When I read the pilot, I didn’t see my sister sitting across the table saying these lines to me. Bridget and I, my sister in the show, we had many similar arguments,and when something resonates like that so truthfully, it creates an attraction.
When we did that dinner scene, I knew I was going to have a good time doing it. I knew it would be tense, it would be fun, and it would be alive. When you do TV and it’s a grind and when you work 5 days a week, I look for something that’s going to make me feel alive. My character has a lot of freedom and it makes me feel alive. In the dinner scene, they have a lot of truth in them and that makes me feel alive.
To feel alive a few days a week during episodic television, it’s a gift, it’s an electricity, and I get to feel it more than most
Question: Did you do any research to prepare for the role? Spend some time with the NYPD?
Donnie: Well, I did, and I spent time with them before on other projects. I played a hostage negotiator on a show called ‘Killpoint’ I played a guy in Pittsburg, but I worked with Jack Cambria, the head of the head of the hostage negotiating team for the NYPD, and I worked with other cops before.
I think the thing with this character was the preparation is obvious. You have to be prepared, you have to know what you’re doing and have to pull it off. It’s very important to handle people the way I do.
In the pilot, had I not worked on it as hard as I did, it would’ve been different with the suspects. I played Danny a little aggressive, but the reality is going in with the mindset that they are the bad guy. Controlling them, the environment, their energy is very important, and I think that when they are working against the clock and working with potential suspects, and everyone needed to be controlled until Danny got the information he needed.
The other part of the character is that he is a very experienced guy that marches to the beat of his own drum, but is the son of a very powerful man. I think that’s the part that I really wanted to explore and wanted to discover with each episode. I think a lot of times, I was allowed to interpret scenes the way we want.
I can’t really read a scene that says, ‘Danny goes to the fridge and eats a slice of pizza,’ and I turn around and then Danny is hallucinating on drugs, it’s not like we’re a bunch of insane people running an asylum. With each scene that Danny has with Frank, it’s like to be the son of a powerful man by following in his footsteps, but trying to be yourself.
I’m sure there’s a lot of resentment for Danny toward his dad, a lot of gratitude, I’m sure there’s time where he takes advantage of his relationship with his dad, and I’m sure where he resents having that relationship with his dad. It’s a burden, or a insistence, it gives him privileges that he doesn’t have or hasn’t earned. There’s so much in that relationship that it’s really the part that I didn’t want to research, but wanted to develop.
There’s no one answer, I’m not playing a guy who simply resents or worships his dad, and I’m playing a guy who runs the full gambit of everything between of both scenarios.
Question: What aspects of Danny do you find to be like yourself?
Donnie: I think the way Danny is like me, is that he’s mischievous. In the final scene with the cigar, there was a lot of Donnie in that scene, I think there was a lot of Danny was ripping dad in the final scene and teasing dad a bit, but that was very much a Donnie characteristic.
I like being a leader in real life, and you know, I’m a leader in all the work I’ve done in my career, but at the same time, I have to deal with other leaders that have more authority than me, and that’s where I connect with Danny. It’s fun, interesting, and somewhat electric having been Danny and having to deal with his dad Frank, and it’s fun being Donnie and being on set every day with Tom.
Tom’s a leader himself; he’s an experienced, smart, dedicated person himself, much like myself. We both see the head and game and want the same thing, but different ideas on how to do it. And knowing when to step up that this might be the time that Tom can really use my input, or knowing when to step back this is the time I got to trust Tom.
It’s very truthful off screen as it is on screen for Danny and Frank, I mean, I got to say its fun and makes the job great for me. It’s fun coming to work every day, and working out scenes and ideas with Tom you know, knowing who I am and knowing how I like to work. We have a great mutual respect. There’s an experience difference, there’s an age difference, and that’s what brings truth to every scene we do both on screen and off, and it’s a real treat to explore that and makes it very real for me.
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Thank you to Donnie Wahlberg for taking the time out to chat with us. CBS is hosting an exclusive chat with Donnie this Thursday, October 21 at 3pm et/ noon pt.

SOurce. http://www.accidentalsexiness.com/2010/10/20/interview-donnie-wahlberg-chats-blue-bloods/

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Live Chat with Donnie Wahlberg his thursday


Live Chat with Donnie Wahlberg

Donnie Wahlberg from Blue Bloods will join fans for an exclusive live chat this Thursday at 3pm et/ noon pt.
Donnie will be discussing Friday's action packed Blue Bloods episode, his character and answering your questions. 

Joey McIntyre at Centennial Gala-Hear for the Future

The Center for Hearing and Communication celebrated 100 years of leadership and innovation last weekend on Park Avenue. Guests were treated to dinner and special performances, including one by Joey McIntyre. The proceeds all went to the center, which benefits children and adults who suffer from hearing loss.

http://guestofaguest.com

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Brooklyn Blue Bloods

The set of "Blue Bloods" on Rugby Rd in Brooklyn, NY. October 19, 2010
The new Tom Selleck cop drama “Blue Bloods” was filming in Brooklyn, NY today. Cast and crew were using an old Victorian home on Rugby Road in the borough’s Ditmas Park section. Our ”RaisedByTV” cameras  caught co-star Donnie Wahlberg saying hello to fans in the neighborhood.
Donnie Wahlberg greeting fans on the Brooklyn set of "Blue Bloods." October 19, 2010.
In one photo you see an N.Y.P.D. squad car that doesn’t look like part of the show. The proof is written on the side of the car. New York City has no 12th Precinct.
An N.Y.P.D. squad car used for films and TV on the Brooklyn set of "Blue Bloods," October 19, 2010. New York City has no 12th Precinct.
The CBS show airs Friday nights at 10:00pm/9:00pm Central Time.
Donnie Wahlberg waving goodbye to fans in Brooklyn, NY, October 19, 2010.
©Photos by Mike Wright

source: http://raisedbytv.com/2010/10/19/brooklyn-blue-bloods/

Blue Bloods episode 4: Officer Down

All eyes, and ears, on New Kid


The New Kids on the Block perform at...
Photo by Eric Antoniou
The New Kids on the Block perform at the Sense-ations gala.
By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa
Sunday, October 17, 2010
While one Boston rock ’n’ roll institution battles with its flamboyant frontman, the New Kids on the Block say the vintage boy band is closer than ever.
“When we get together in a room it’s always the same,’’ Donnie Wahlberg told the Track before the band performed at a sold-out benefit for Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary the other night. “It’s a nice treat to be here because I haven’t laughed like this in weeks.’’
Donnie took the stage at the “Sense-ations!’’ soiree with Jonathan and Jordan Knight and Danny Wood at the behest of bandmate Joey McIntyre, whose 10-month-old son, Rhys, was born with severe hearing loss.
“Just seeing Joey’s maturity and how he’s handled himself (with his son), it’s been profound to share in this,’’ said Wahlberg, who came to Boston from New York where he shoots the CBS cop drama “Blue Bloods.”
“We’ve shared a lot of great nights together, but we haven’t have had to come together for one of our kids,” Donnie continued. “There’s something to be said, after all these years, that we love each other more than ever before.’’
Jonathan Knight, who is a real estate developer by day, chimed in “Minus (Jordan), I’m closer to these three guys than my own brothers.’’
The New Kids wouldn’t say if they would head out on tour again, but they did seem rather excited about their sold-out Caribbean cruise with 250 female fans — and, maybe, a few husbands!
“It’s special,” said Wahlberg, who then took to talking in the third person. “I mean, it’s not like Donnie’s going to grab 15 women and bring them to his room and the rest of the guys will bring girls to their rooms. Maybe when we were 20. But it is a beautiful experience.’’
Before NKOTB did their thing, McIntyre, wife Barrett and sons Griffin, 3, and Rhys took to the stage to talk about Baby Mac’s hearing loss, which was discovered when he was 10 days old.
“Because of the technology and options, Rhys will attend the same school as his brother and will be able to communicate with people he meets,’’ Barrett said.
Her husband reminded the group that the hearing test was developed at Mass. Eye & Ear.
“We have to shine some light on this amazing institution,’’ said Joey Mac, who helped raise $1 million for the cause.
Later, an emotional Joey had to compose himself before belting out his hit single “Stay the Same,’’ backed by a choir.
“I might have to get Jordan to sing this for me,’’ he said.
File Under: The Right Stuff.
Don’t forget to watch ’Track Gals’—the Inside Track’s new TV show—at noon on Sundays on TV38 and at 12:30am Sunday mornings (Saturday night) on WBZ Channel 4. Or watch the latest episode now at

http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1289398