Donnie on Jimmy Fallon

Here is the video of Donnie on Jimmy Fallon:

Update: Video has been deleted. Does anyone have it saved?

Donnie to be on the Jimmy Fallon show next Wednesday

Donnie will be on Jimmy Fallon next Wednesday night.

Donnie on WFAN

Donnie talks all things Boston Red Sox and New Kids on the Block on WFAN's Boomer and Carton:

Update: Video has been deleted. Does anyone have it saved?

Articles on Mass. Eye and Ear benefit & Blue Bloods

Here are some articles on Mass. Eye and Ear Benefit & Blue Bloods 

Boston Herald article - "All eyes, and ears, on New Kid"

All eyes, and ears, on New Kid

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.

Donnie interview with Jim Halterman 

INTERVIEW: Donnie Wahlberg talks tonight’s BLUE BLOODS, cop killers and life in NYC

By Jim On October 15, 2010

Donnie Wahlberg as Detective Danny Reagan in BLUE BLOODS

One of the bright spots of the new fall season has been the CBS family crime drama Blue Bloods, which may be stationed on one of the more low-rated nights of the week but has managed to pull in strong ratings during its first few weeks out of the gate. Following the Reagan family, patriarch Frank (the ever-dashing Tom Selleck) is the Police Commissioner with son Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) an NYPD detective, daughter Erin (Bridget Monyahan) as an Assistant DA and son Jamie (Will Estes) newly graduated from the police academy. Len Cariou also plays Frank’s father, a retired cop from the NYPD force who still manages to get involved in the goings-on from time to time.

In tonight’s episode, “Officer Down,” Commissioner Reagan (Selleck) mobilizes the entire NYPD to find the killer of an off-duty police officer who was murdered during a diamond heist while Danny hunts down the killer by any means necessary.  Wahlberg took time from his busy shooting schedule to talk to journalists earlier this week and I was on the call to field questions.

Jim Halterman:  Now that the show is off and running, more or less pressure?

Donnie Wahlberg: If I think about it, it only adds pressure so I try not to think about because the reality is I control none of that. I only control what I do. For actors [and] 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 then you start going what happened? The reality of it is that we have a couple more million viewers than anyone thought we’d get and that’s good news but what we do off set and what the cast talks about it is really trying to control what we can control and that’s finding the right mix of what works for our audience, identifying what 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 very important.

Tom Selleck, Wahlberg, Bridget Monyahan and Len Cariou in BLUE BLOODS

JH: How has it been shooting the show in New York as opposed to a soundstage in Hollywood or a Vancouver area that might double for New York?

DW:  I’m sitting right now on a building that I live in that was built in 1885, I think, and looking out a window at the Williamsburg Bridge and a cool breeze is coming in and I just feel lucky everyday. In the ‘Officer Down’ episode, we’re shooting under the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO and all these guys are up there working on the bridge and in between every take they’d yell down ‘Donnie, we love you’ and it was so much fun and it was so great. I don’t know how anyone can hear in DUMBO. It’s the loudest place I’ve ever been on Earth but those guys cut through the noise and the traffic and the welding and there’s nothing like playing a New Yorker and being on the streets of New York and having people on the street in New York give you a pat on the back and it’s been happening everyday. A couple of guys doing construction on a brownstone and they say ‘Way to go, Wahlberg.’ For a Bostonian, we live in the shadow of New York is really the greatest felling.

Question: You guys seem like you’re having fun from everything on Twitter and the interaction between the cast members. Do you find that you have taken on those familial characteristics like on the show?

DW: Yeah, it’s ironic how things usually turn out right at least when people do a good job of casting. Bridget and I have a very, very great relationship and while she’s, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met, there’s a very, very trusting brotherly/sisterly kind or relationship. We’re both single parents and we talk about all kinds of stuff off camera and we help each other a lot off camera and it flows very naturally on screen when we work together. I look at Will and it’s like looking at myself 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 suicidal wife?’ and carrying that with me into every scene that I did and I see Will doing that. Like an older brother, I’m able to sort of identify it, see it and recognize it and sometimes help and sometimes encourage it depending on what the situation calls for. With Tom, he sort of it like everyone’s Dad. I’m the nutty kid on set but Tom knows that I come to play hard every day and that’s how Danny is; he’s nutty. Frank puts up with Danny putting heads in a toilet the way Tom puts up with Donnie tweeting in between takes and letting fans know to watch the show.

Brotherly/Sisterly affection both on-and-off screen with Monyahan and Wahlberg

Question: Can you talk a little bit about going forward in future episodes. Do we get to find out more about Danny’s time in Iraq?

DW: 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 ever subsequent script I would say ‘When are we going to get to it?’ and the reality of it is with age and experience I’ve become a little more patient. Of course I want to get to it but I’m not desperate to get to it. In a perfect world, Will has a couple of seasons to explore all this stuff…the more we can come up with new stuff like Friday’s episode ‘Officer Down’ the more we can save that for when 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 Will and see if he’s going to investigate the Blue Templar…I want to see how it all goes. I want to see where a lot of this goes and 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: This show has such respect for the police, particularly this episode, but, Donnie, what did you think of the police from Boston when you were growing up and in your rock years?

DW: When I was in Boston growing up I pretty much knew all the cops in my neighborhood because they had all arrested my brothers. 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 when there’s one behind me on the highway I generally feel like I robbed a bank even though I did nothing and I don’t know why that feeling comes over me. While I think I’ve always had a lot of respect for cops in general it’s grown over the years and that part that there are always some people who break the rules and do things that aren’t right. I think a lot of times certain guys make the mistake and the cops as a whole pay for it and I think 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 judgments calls and most times they want to do the right thing and every now and again it goes awry. Unfortunately, all the times they do make a proper judgment call are very rarely recognized as opposed to a bad judgment call. For me, I get to explore that kind of stuff and my character makes bad judgments call sometimes but I think a lot of the cops that watch the show respect it because they know that it can happen. I don’t think they want to go around sticking people’s heads in toilets but maybe they sometimes wish maybe they could in the right circumstance. When the character all but admits in the pilot that he has that little girl every person in the world – the parents of the victim, the cops, the friends of the victim – would all love to be able to take the law into their own hands and do something to save a child and unfortunately we can’t always do that. Fortunately in the pilot 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 girl’s life but having so many restrictions where you can’t do what it takes but it’s tough. Everybody has to have rights and that’s just how it is.

Jennifer Esposito is in several BLUE BLOODS episodes as Danny's partner

Question: Is Jennifer Esposito going to be back for more episodes as your partner?

DW:  She’s shooting her fourth episode now. Jennifer Esposito, who I’m having so much fun with and she’s so great, she is bringing a lot to the show and she’s really giving me room to play. The episode after ‘Officer Down’ there’s an episode where I get to bring a lot of levity to my character and to the situation and it’s not as intense of a crime that we’re investigating. I get to have a lot of fun with Jennifer. I’ve been telling Will Estes that you don’t’ know what you have with Nick Tuturro. You have gold! Every day you show up to work you have the potential for magic with an actor of his caliber and I feel that I have that with Jennifer Esposito.

Question: Can you talk about playing a cop that is looking for a cop killer?

DW: The struggle and challenge for me in playing Danny in this episode is sometimes the writer and the story has its own purpose and that’s to get from point A to point C in an entertaining and dramatic way with information to keep the audience informed. For me in playing Danny, I looked at every single person connected to the case as a cop killer. I think if an officer does go down in the real world that anybody associated with it is involved with the cop being killed and I think that raises the stakes for everything so when I showed up in an early scene when the electrician guy is being interrogated then, to me, he’s in cahoots and I thought that Danny’s take is that they’re all guilty and they’re all involved and therefore they’re all cop killers. I think the challenge then became how to bring that spirit into every scene even if the page didn’t suggest that.  If what is on the page is about, 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 might as well have pulled the trigger because this young officer is gone because of all their choices. I think for me, it’s trying to take that challenge and respecting what’s on the page but also respecting the character and where he comes from and what his choices may be in a situation like this and finding the balance without going too far. I’m sort of going rogue…Donnie the actor is going rogue on the script but certainly pushing the boundaries and Danny is doing everything to make sure justice is done in his eyes.

While we wait for Danny Reagan's past to unfold, here's a piece of Donnie Wahlbergs - NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK!

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

DW: I think the freedom that I have with him. A great day playing Danny is when I remember to be free and try something different. Every day I might be doing something that feels redundant or sometimes scenes are written a certain way where you have to go down a certain road and my favorite days are the days that even though I’m being guided down a certain road by the script and make discoveries and be completely free and off the cuff. Say on set today I did a quasi-Columbo moment. It was really fun and didn’t feel false and it felt in the realm of Danny and it’s what attracted me to this role. There were a few other opportunities to work on other shows and do other things but the fact is I love the cast. I love Tom and I loved the pilot script and I love the freedom that this character presents to me.

Question: What is it about this cop drama that sets it apart from others?

DW:  I think the audience is going to have their own opinion of what makes it stand out. For me, personally, what attracted to me is I think it’s what I just mentioned – the cast, the pilot script was amazing and my character is one 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, a fun beat. I can really explore different colors of this character and the family stuff is a big part of what is working for the audience and what’s working for the cast as well. When I read the pilot, I could see my sister sitting across the table from me in real life saying these lines to me. Some of the arguments that Bridget and I have gotten to play are like my sister and I in real life. I knew when I did that dinner scene I knew I was going to have a good time doing it and I knew it would be fun and I knew I would be live. When you’re doing television, it’s a grind working five days a week and I look for something that’s going to make me feel alive. The family scenes have a lot of truth in them and that makes me feel alive.

Donnie interview with Deadbolt 

Throughout his acting career on TV, Donnie Wahlberg has played both sides of the law. In the new CBS series, "Blue Bloods", Donnie Wahlberg steps back on the side of the law as Detective Danny Reagan, a top, hard-nosed cop in an NYPD family headed by Tom Selleck.

Ahead of the October 15 episode of Blue Bloods called "Officer Down", which sees Danny go on the hunt for a cop killer after an undercover officer is killed, TheDeadbolt caught up with Donnie Wahlberg to learn more about playing a Blue Blood on the hunt for a cop killer and how Wahlberg views the line between duty and vengeance in real life.

THE DEADBOLT: Can you talk about the challenge of playing a cop hunting for a cop killer? How is that unique for you?

DONNIE WAHLBERG: Well, the struggle and the challenge for me playing Danny in this episode, dealing with a cop killer, sometimes the script, the writer and the story, has its own purpose 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. I think there's an element of truth to that. I think if an officer does go down in the real world, anybody associated with it is involved in a cop being killed, and I think that raises the stakes for everything.

So when I showed up, for example, in an early scene in the episode, there is an electrician being interrogated. To me, he was in cahoots with those guys. So I thought Danny's take is that they're all guilty. They're all guilty and they're all involved, so that's why they're all cop killers.

I think the challenge then became how to bring that spirit into every scene, even if the page didn't suggest that. What was on the page was really about, 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 as well have pulled the trigger, because a young officer is gone because of all of their choices. If one of them stepped up, maybe it wouldn't have happened.

So, for me, it's trying to respect what's on the page but also respecting the character, where he comes from and what his choices may be in a situation like this and finding the balance. Not going too far that I'm sort of going rogue and Donnie's character is going rogue on the script and playing his own movie, but certainly pushing the boundaries enough that Danny is doing everything he can to see that justice is done in his eyes.

THE DEADBOLT: Beyond the show, how do you view the real line between duty and vengeance for a police officer when one of their own is killed? Is that the line between good cop and bad cop?

WAHLBERG: Well, that's really sort of an impossible question to answer. I mean, because I'm not really a cop in real life. I can tell you that if someone in my family was killed and what that would feel like. I can probably answer better if somebody violated somebody who is very close to me what I would feel like and what I may want to do. But I'm just Donnie, I'm playing Danny, and Danny's want for justice is bigger than he even understands. I don't think he knows really what's pushing him. I don't know if Donnie knows what's pushing Danny at this point.

There's a lot more to be discovered with these characters and 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. I mean, he was killed in the line of duty investigating the Blue Templar, which Danny may be a part of, so there's a lot of mystery to that. I don't know what exactly is driving Danny. I know that in this particular episode, based on how I played it the way I think Danny should, he will not stop. 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.

So, in real life, would I take vengeance on somebody? I don't know. I like to think I'm a little bit more of a forgiving person. If I were out there on the streets everyday 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 of the street.

Blue Bloods airs Fridays at 10:00-11:00PM ET/PT on CBS.

NKOTB on WBZ Boston

They guys talk about their appearance at the Mass and Eye and Ear benefit and supporting each other through the tough times!

Youtube video courtesy of yikes77

Joey and Barrett talk to WBZ Boston about Rhys
Video courtesy of kleinerspatz30

Donnie Talks About Blue Bloods

Donnie Talks Blue Bloods And This Week's Episode on Television Blend:

Fans of CBS’ new cop (and family) drama Blue Bloods won’t want to miss this Friday’s episode. It’s an intense one! Donnie Wahlberg spoke to us tonight about the series, working in New York, working with Tom Selleck and more, including this week’s very suspenseful episode.

Blue Bloods follows a family of cops in various stages of their careers, ranging form chief of police to rookie cop. Donnie Wahlberg plays Danny Raegan, the oldest son in the Raegen family and a fairly seasoned detective. On this week’s episode, he works with the other cops to track down a cop-killer.

Without going into too much detail about the episode (we don’t want to spoil it for you!), I can tell you that it becomes clear early on that Danny treats everyone involved in the officer’s death as a guilty party. Wahlberg talked a little bit about this in terms of how he handled that mindset.

“I wanted to bring a sense to Danny that every guy involved might as well have pulled the trigger. An officer is gone because of all their choices. Had one of them stepped up, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

You’ll definitely see Danny push the boundaries when it comes to tracking down the killer in this episode.

The episode features Jennifer Esposito (Samantha Who?), who’s partnered up with Danny on the case. Esposito and Wahlberg have a great chemistry and according to Wahlberg, she’ll be back! She’s currently shooting her fourth episode for the series.

Esposito isn’t the only one who has great chemistry with him. If you’ve been watching the show, you may have noticed how well Wahlberg and Bridget Moynahan do on screen together. She plays his sister Erin on the series. Of his off-screen relationship with Moynahan, Wahlberg had good things to say…

“Bridget and I have a very great relationship. She’s, in my opinion, 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 off camera and we help each other a lot off camera and it flows very naturally on screen when we work together.”

As for his relationship with Tom Selleck, from the sound of it, Danny and Frank’s relationship is fairly comparable to Donnie and Toms.

“Tom sort of is like everyone’s dad. Frank puts up with Danny sticking heads in the toilet the way Tom puts up with Donnie tweeting between takes and letting fans know to watch the show.”

Wahlberg went into even more detail on his relationship with Tom when he talked about his own leadership tendencies and finding a connection with Tom, whose age and level of experience plays a factor in how they work together.

“I like being a leader in real life. I’m very much a leader in a lot of the work that I do or that I’ve done in my career. At the same time very now and again, I have to deal with other leaders who have a little bit more authority than me and I think that is somewhere where I connect with Danny. It’s fun, interesting and sort of electric playing Danny and having to deal with his dad, Frank. And at the same time, it’s fun being Donnie and being on set every day with Tom.

Tom is a leader himself. He’s a very experienced, very smart guy. Very dedicated, much like myself. There are times when we both see the end game and we both want the same thing but we have very different ideas of how to do it. Knowing when to step up, that this might be the time that Tom could really use my input, or knowing when to step back and say, you know what? This is the time to trust Tom. It’s very truthful off screen as it in 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 out scenes with Tom and working out ideas. Knowing who I am and knowing how I like to work, and also knowing and respecting who he is. We do have a great mutual respect, but much like the characters, there’s an experience difference. There’s an age difference. There’s differences that ring true in every scene that we do on screen and off. It’s a treat to explore that and it makes it very real for me.”

Danny isn’t Wahlberg’s first cop role, however from the way he puts it, the police have been a part of his life since he was a kid.

“When I was in Boston growing up, I pretty much knew all the cops in my neighborhood because they’d all arrested my brothers. 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 became criminals or cops. I never really had a bad take on cops other than I hate when there’s one behind me on the highway.”

His childhood experience aside, numerous cop roles appear to have given Wahlberg a positive perspective on the police.

“I think throughout the years, I’ve gotten to work with so many of them, while I think I always had a certain level of respect for cops in general, its grown so much over the years. “

As for his feelings on working in New York, Wahlberg talked a little bit about the positive reactions he’s gotten from New Yorkers while shooting in the city.

"There’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 and it’s been happening every day."

"For a Bostonian… we live in the shadow of New York and to be acknowledged by New Yorkers is really the greatest feeling."

Finally, Wahlberg expressed a lot of enthusiasm about the cast, the writing and especially the family aspect of the show, which is really what sets Blue Bloods apart from a lot of other cop shows. In this Friday’s episode, Frank (Tom Selleck) mentions that the NYPD is like a family. Blue Bloods is a series that’s about an actual family working within the family that is the NYPD. In that sense, this is a family drama as much as it is a cop drama. On the subject of family, Wahlberg said he thinks the family scenes have a lot of truth in them. While only a few episodes have aired, I think it’s safe to say he’s right as the family aspect of the show stands out and is what’s driving the series forward between the case-of-the-week plot.

Whether or not you’ve seen the show, you should check it out this Friday. I think “Officer Down” may be the best episode yet.

Boston News Stations Interview the McIntyre's

Joey and Barrett did some interviews for Boston media. 

McIntyre Family Copes With Son's Hearing Loss - Video & article from WBZ: Update: Video has been deleted, but here is the article:

As a teenager, New Kids on the Block singer Joey McIntyre had to deal with the deafening screams of young girls in the audience. As an adult, he's dealing with the fact his son may never hear him speak.

"You just feel like there's a huge rock that was dropped on you and you can't breathe very deeply," said McIntyre.

McIntyre remembers the moment he and his wife, Barrett, were told their newborn son Rhys had severe hearing loss. It took some time for the news to sink in.

"For me it was very much a process going through the emotions," said Barrett McIntyre.

Things were going well for the singer. He had just wrapped up a successful reunion tour with the NKOTB and had recently released new music. But then his world changed. Things they took for granted with their first son Griffin, they couldn't with Rhys.

"We're just so in tuned to what a baby says and does," said McIntyre.  "Stuff that you normally would take for granted and wouldn't think about."

And that's why on Tuesday, McIntyre was at Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, to meet patients and other parents like him.

Seven-year-old Jack Fish of Leominster was there for eye surgery after being bitten by a dog.

His mother, Kara, was thrilled to meet McIntyre.

"That was awesome," she said.  "I've seen them a bunch of times growing up."

Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck is also chairman of the MEEI board of directors. 

He's used to dealing with a child with a disability. His 18-year-old son is blind.

He gave the McIntyre's advice on how to deal with it.

"It's much better probably than you fear it might be," said Grousbeck.  "It can be really fantastic but it's always a little bit of hard work." He added, "Hang in there."

Joey and Barrett had their son's hearing tested the day after he was born which is mandatory in most states. Doctors say early detection is the key.

"This is important because those are critical times for developmental speech and language," said Dr Donald Keamy, pediatric otolaryngologist at MEEI.  "Without your hearing you can't develop speech and language."

Rhys is ten-months-old and doing well with hearing aids.

His father doesn't worry he'll never hear him sing, in fact he jokes about it.

"Yeah, it's a shame with my voice for him not to hear me. I mean Frank Sinatra (not a problem)...but me…" (He laughs).

In the end he knows one thing for sure.

"He's going to be ok, no matter what."

The New Kids on the Block will reunite Wednesday in Boston. They'll perform at a benefit for the MEEI Cures for Kids Fund.

Joey McIntyre Teams Up With Local Hospital To Help Children - Video & article from TheBostonChannel.com: Update: Video has been deleted, but here is the article:

BOSTON -- New Kids on the Block singer Joey McIntyre and his wife, Barrett, got an early Christmas present last December when their youngest son Rhys Edward McIntyre was born.

The baby seemed happy and healthy, but then 10 days later a newborn hearing screening revealed a problem. Rhys was born with profound hearing loss.

"I think we both were obviously incredibly shocked," said Barrett McIntyre.

"You’re in shock," said the pop singer. "We just don't know how to react."

With no known cause, the couple ran through the gamut of emotions.

"How do we even wrap our heads around this?" said Barrett McIntyre. "And I think, you know, as days went by, your emotions and your feelings about the situation change drastically."

"These kinds of experiences -- they open your heart up, your mind up, your life up," Joey McIntyre said.

The experience has also given the family new purpose: To help other families like them.

They decided to team up with Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary to get the word out about newborn hearing screening and to help launch the new Cures for Kids Fund.

"It's just helping out and making sure that people in the field have what they need to keep going and keep doing their work," said Joey McIntyre.

"It's important to screen children when they are first born for hearing because something can actually be done about it," said Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Dr. Donald Keamy. "Hearing plays a large role in development in children."

The McIntyres are thankful for the technology that diagnosed Rhys' condition early. That technology originated at the Eye and Ear Infirmary, too, and has helped improved Rhys' condition.

"He's a normal 10-month-old kid," said Joey McIntyre. "He's climbing around and getting into everything, and he's happy."

The McIntyres hope telling their story will produce similar outcomes for other children born with disabilities.

"To be here in my hometown and to be able to help an institution like this is really special," Joey McIntyre added.

McIntyre, along with the other New Kids on the Block, will be performing Wednesday at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary's Sense-sation Gala. It benefits the Cures for Kids Fund.

Donnie's interview with CTV

Donnie did an interview recently promoting Blue Bloods at CTV.ca: 

Known around the world for both his music and his acting career, Donnie Wahlberg stays grounded by thinking of his fans.

During a Q&A with CTV.ca, Wahlberg talks about this new series “Blue Bloods,” a cop drama that follows a tight-knit family of police officers in New York City. Wahlberg stars alongside Tom Selleck and Bridget Moynahan.

The series airs Friday nights on CTV, with full episodes available online in the CTV Video Player at Watch.CTV.ca.

CTV.ca: Thanks for taking time to chat today! I’m calling you from up here in Toronto.

Yeah, it’s my home away from home. I’ve worked up there, but it’s been a while though. We almost shot this show in Toronto. We shot parts of the pilot there, and we almost shot the series there.

CTV.ca: But you ended up going to New York instead.

I think New York is too much of a character in this show to try to duplicate it somewhere else. For authenticity purposes it’s important. I tend to be the one who’s out in the streets the most, shooting around New York. Most of the other cast is in the studio somewhere. It helps. You get a different type of personality. I was shooting a scene last week, I was playing the reality of it, and an old woman walked by, and I said “Ma’am, Ma’am, you can’t be there.” And she said “You shut up I’ll walk wherever I want to walk, it’s a free country!” Those New York moments are not going to happen everywhere. I say this with no insult to Toronto, but if I said “Ma’am you can’t walk there” she would have probably said “Oh, sorry.” And the gig would be up and they’d know it wasn’t New York.

CTV.ca: Is there a certain pressure from New Yorkers then to get it right? Especially the police?

There’s pressure to get it right, but that’s also timbered by an appreciation that we’re here. We’re shooting and we’re presenting the city. By this time, most people understand that if you do a TV show or a movie, not everything can be fully authentic. You’re always going to have to fudge some things. We’re putting a lot New Yorkers to work.

CTV.ca: Especially now that the original “Law & Order” has packed it in.

There’s a big gap. A whole cluster of New York shows went away very quickly. It’s bad for New York, but it’s good for us, because now we’re the guys.

CTV.ca: So tell me a little about “Blue Bloods” and how this police procedural is different from all the other cop shows out there.

The family part of it makes it different. The procedural cop shows that are on the air now, you know… they are what they are. Nobody is going to compete with “CSI.” It is what it is. They have their formula down to a science, so much so that they have three of them on the air. People respond to the “Whodunit,” but our goal is to not compete with that. Our goal is to tell a different side of a police drama. There are real people involved. Most policemen come from a family of police officers. In the states or in Canada. A lot of traditions surround police officers, where my dad is a cop, and his dad is a cop. I think the show really explores that, and makes it somewhat relatable. When I read the pilot, and the dinner scene, I thought it could have really been a scene with me and my sister. It felt so much like my childhood or my life now, when I argue with my sister. It’s really fun.

CTV.ca: People have also been responding to this classic, “old-school” style of the series.

Hopefully we stay that way. It’s a new show, so we’ll have to find our way. There’s different demands and the audience will want to see more of some things and less of other things. It’s an ongoing process in TV. You go 10 episodes and hope you find your way to some consistency and finding a formula the audience likes.

CTV.ca: With your character Danny, how are you able to keep up the burning intensity over the course of an episode?

I think each episode is different. I don’t think I can carry that energy through the course of every episode, it would be a lot. I think with different cases, there are going to be cases that require more energy than others. In the pilot, it was a race against the clock. In reality, that’s how I work. I have fun, I goof around a lot, I work really hard, and I kind of stay intense most of the time when I work. I think this character, he’s driven, so I draw on my experience. It’s tough when you’re playing on a TV series, because you’re doing episode after episode. I’ve worked 8 days per episode for the last three episodes, so it will become a grind eventually. It’s important to find that energy and drive and not let it become mundane. With me, I always look for excitement in my job, and I try to bring a little bit of that to Danny.

CTV.ca: If the show continues on, do you see it being a conflict with any upcoming “New Kids on the Block” tours?

I see everything fitting together. When I got back with New Kids in the first place, it was with the understanding that I wasn’t going to stop being an actor. I would fit in movie and TV around the touring, and eventually I would start fitting New Kids in around my TV and movies. And that’s where it’s at right now. I don’t plan on having too many days off for the next year or two, let’s put it that way. I do want to tour again, so I have to fit it in where I can.

CTV.ca: My co-workers would like me to ask if there’s any progress on the rumoured New Kids/Backstreet Boys tour?

No updates. No secret wraps, New Kids are looking to tour soon, and we’ll see how it all shakes out, if we’re going to have any company or not.

CTV.ca: As an actor, do you feel like your music fans follow you to your on-screen performances, or do you feel like you carry around two separate kinds of fans?

I think there are separate people. It makes it easier for a 35-year-old guy to like me as an actor than a musician! But I know the New Kids fans have definitely followed along, and they’re definitely dialed in and paying attention to the show. They’re supporting “Blue Bloods” all the way. At the same time, I think I’ve done enough acting roles that there are people out there who know me as an actor, and they may not say “I’m going to watch this show strictly for Donnie Wahlberg,” but I hope they say “That guy’s solid, which means this show should be pretty decent.” And they might take a peek at it.

CTV.ca: Does that mean you kind of need to have two different personas then?

There’s a responsibility. I’m sure my personas change a little bit. When I walking around set, banding tables and singing songs, making the crew dance and stuff because it’s Friday night and we’re shooting until two in the morning, I think that the music persona is alive and well! It hasn’t gotten too far away from me. And there’s usually about 25 fans on set every day since we’ve started shooting, for about eight or nine weeks so far. They’re not going anywhere.

CTV.ca: Are those fans on set a distraction or an inspiration?

I think it all feeds itself. As an actor I’m going to act and do those roles that I want to do and appeal to me. But I keep my fans in mind, and hope that they’ll be supported, and I keep them updated through Twitter. There’s a little sense of responsibility. But at the end of the day I have to do roles that are exciting for me, because if I don’t then I’m going to be bored and disinterested and do it for the wrong reasons, and it will be less than great. I’ll always choose the roles based on the roles, not based on the fans. But I do always keep my fans in mind. I want to make them proud.

Boston.com: Joey McIntyre now an advocate for deaf

Here's an article from Boston.com. Thanks to Mary for the link.




A song of hope, dedicated to his son
Joey McIntyre now an advocate for deaf
By Mark Shanahan, Globe Staff | October 9, 2010

Joey McIntyre and his wife, Barrett, were in an office at UCLA Medical Center when a grim-faced technician walked in with the results of their son’s hearing test and told them that 10-day-old Rhys Edward McIntyre had severe hearing loss.

“She started talking about sign language and schools for the deaf,’’ said McIntyre, a member of the Boston-bred boy band New Kids on the Block who has been singing on stage since the third grade. “We were like, ‘Huh?’ We just wanted to get out of there and go home.’’

The irony of having a baby who might never hear him sing didn’t register right away with McIntyre. Instead, he and his wife were in shock, overwhelmed by what they didn’t know and their son’s prospects for a normal life.

Nine months later, that is changing. The couple understands that a diagnosis of deafness is not a disaster, and they’re learning about treatment options, which have improved greatly over the past 25 years. McIntyre and his wife have also made a commitment to help others facing the same uncertain future. The singer will be at a gala in New York for The Center for Hearing and Communication, and New Kids on the Block are performing Wednesday at a fund-raiser for Massachusetts Eye and Ear, which developed the test used to screen infants — including Rhys — for hearing loss. McIntyre says it is just the beginning of his efforts for the cause.

“It’s nice to be asked,’’ McIntyre, 38, said on the phone from Los Angeles. “I’m happy to be of service whatever way I can.’’

The invitation was extended by Wyc Grousbeck, the Celtics CEO who is chairman of the Mass. Eye and Ear board of directors. The father of a student at Perkins School for the Blind, Grousbeck has devoted years — and millions of dollars — to research related to blindness. He knows what McIntyre and his wife are grappling with, but he also knows there is reason for hope.

“My son is 17, plays in a rock band, studies physics, and has a girlfriend. He’s amazing,’’ said Grousbeck. “I’m sure Joey and I will be talking father to father.’’

Advocate is a new role for McIntyre but one he’s well suited to: He knows how to get people’s attention.

With eight older siblings, he was rarely without an audience as a child growing up in Jamaica Plain. Encouraged by his mother, Katherine, he made his musical theater debut at the age of 8, singing “Gary, Indiana’’ from “The Music Man’’ at the Footlight Club in JP.

“When Joseph finished his little song, the audience wouldn’t stop clapping,’’ said his sister Carol Gallagher, who has performed at the venerable Footlight for years.

Less than a decade later, McIntyre was in New Kids on the Block, the youngest of five pinups who performed to stadiums of screaming girls. Between 1988 and 1994, the teen sensations — forbearers of Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, and 98 Degrees — sold more than 35 million records and even more tchotchkes, from beach towels to marbles.

Life after NKOTB included stints on and off-Broadway, TV appearances on “Boston Public’’ and “Dancing with the Stars,’’ a couple of movies, six solo CDs, and, in 2003, a wedding. McIntyre met his wife — a Princeton graduate who moved to Los Angeles with a vague plan of becoming a producer — while she was working as a real estate agent.

“Joe was my first client. They told me he was in New Kids on the Block, so I thought he was going to be, like, ‘Yo, let’s find a crib,’ ’’ said Barrett, laughing. “He wasn’t. Joe is really smart and funny and sweet, but he wasn’t my type. I kept telling my mom he’s the nicest guy. I knew if I didn’t go for it, I’d regret it.’’

The couple’s first child, Griffin, was born healthy three years ago. Then came Rhys. The results of a hearing test done the day after he was born raised red flags, so more tests were ordered. Last December, two days before Christmas, the couple was summoned to UCLA Medical Center.

“It was awful. I’ll go right out and say it,’’ Barrett said. “I was caught up in ‘What happened?’ I’d made him. He was in my belly. I was looking for reasons.’’

The couple didn’t tell their families immediately, taking a few days to digest the news. They quickly discovered that Rhys’s condition isn’t that uncommon — about 1 in 1,000 babies are born with hearing loss — and advances in technology have made it possible for even severely impaired children to hear. Cochlear implants, for example, a surgically implanted electronic device, can help profoundly deaf people to perceive sound.

“I think Joseph and Barrett realized, in the scheme of things, it could be much worse,’’ said Gallagher, McIntyre’s sister. “We also joked that our family is so loud it might not be an issue at all.’’

Because his hearing loss was detected early, Rhys began working with an audio verbal therapist when he was 2 months old. Today he has hearing aids and is making progress. Cochlear implants are an option but may not be necessary.

“What I do is guide and teach parents so they’re doing what they need to do with their child 24/7,’’ said Rhys’s therapist, Sylvia Rotfleisch. “His parents are proactive and delightful. They’re down on the floor playing with their son and they adore him. He’s making lovely, age-appropriate progress, and that’s very exciting.’’

McIntyre said it’s not easy raising a child with hearing loss, but it isn’t a tragedy either. He and his wife have a dance party at home every night, and Rhys is right there, moving to the music with his older brother.

“He’s the cutest, chubbiest 9-month-old baby you’ll ever see, the greatest kid in the world,’’ McIntyre said. “It’s, like, the more you know, the easier this becomes.’’

That’s why he’s happy to be speaking and performing at Wednesday’s event for Mass. Eye and Ear, the 186-year-old hospital and world-renowned research center. The sold-out event at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel is a fund-raiser for Mass. Eye and Ear’s new Cures for Kids Fund.

“Frankly, we have our hands full at the moment,’’ McIntyre said. “But look at Wyc [Grousbeck]. When your children are born with this kind of challenge, everything else is out the window.’’