Donnie Wahlberg Reveals How Blue Bloods Cast Filmed Marathon Eating Sessions During Family Dinner Scenes: ‘Everyone Had a Trick’

Donnie Wahlberg explained the Blue Bloods cast’s techniques to a believable (but not actually stomach-filling) dinner scene.

On Tuesday, Oct. 14, the Boston Blue actor talked about the spinoff series and its predecessor during a special screening for the show’s first episode alongside costar Sonequa Martin-Green.

Over the course of Blue Bloods’ 14 seasons, the family of police officers’ dinners became pivotal and regular scenes as a weekly check-in for the officers.

During the police drama, the Reagan family — including Wahlberg, Tom Selleck, Bridget Moynahan and others — gather around a large dining table to discuss the issues playing out in each episode.

“Everybody’s eating on Blue Bloods. Everyone had a trick, I won’t give them all away,” the New Kids on the Block bandmate said during the screening’s Q&A before spilling the details. 

“Bridget made, like, she just used her. She would just move her potatoes around,” he laughed. “You know, everyone knows Tom would butter his roll for six hours.”

The Blue Bloods cast has spoken about the trials and tribulations of filming the dinner scenes, like Selleck who complained about the “eight-hour” shoots back in 2013.

“It’s nice to spend time with the entire cast once an episode, but filming an eating scene is miserable. Well, the eating part is,” the Magnum, P.I. star said. “You have to eat the same foods over and over again to get all the shots. We’ll probably spend eight hours shooting this scene.”

The dinner scenes were so iconic that an Illinois location of Wahlburgers — the fast-casual restaurant chain Donnie founded with brothers Mark and chef Paul Wahlberg — temporarily houses the prop for group dinners. Customers can reserve a spot at the centerpiece of the CBS show, Donnie announced in a Feb. 25 Instagram video. The reservation form is still open though no dates are available as of Thursday, Oct. 16.

The faux-eating happens in Boston Blue, too.

Martin-Green was put on the spot as Wahlberg recalled, “One day she ate too much brisket.”
“I did one day,” The Walking Dead alum replied with a laugh. “Then another day Marcus (Scribner) ate too much brisket. We take our turn being like, ‘Okay, I had too much.’”

She offered up her own trick to a convincing dinner scene — “You can always sip the fake wine,” — but Wahlberg said there was a catch to this tip.

“On Boston Blue we had Welch’s grape juice. And that sugar can get you kooky after six hours of sugar. And then if it was a dessert dinner with whipped cream,” Wahlberg, who previously revealed that the scotch on Blue Bloods was iced tea, laughed. “ I was already bouncing off the walls. But when they added that stuff, forget about it. It was hard to slow me down.”

Blue Bloods premiered in 2010 and ran on CBS until its 2024 finale. Its spinoff was announced in February and given a straight-to-series order by the network.

Boston Blue premieres Friday, Oct. 17, at 10 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+ and will be available the following day to watch on-demand via Paramount+.