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.