The hit cop drama Blue Bloods is known for a lot of things after getting into Season 11 on CBS. Fans come back to the show for intriguing weekly cases, just the right amount of family drama, and Tom Selleck's mustache, among many other things, but one aspect of the series that really sets it apart from other police procedurals is the family at the center of all the stories. The Reagans are beloved among Blue Bloods viewers, and they love watching the clan mix it up during their weekly Sunday dinners. But, star Bridget Moynahan is opening up about why she's actually not the biggest fan of those Reagan family dinner scenes.
Family dinner at Pop's house each Sunday helps the Reagans decompress after a difficult week, and keep them all in touch and on top of the goings on in everyone's lives as the group grows and changes. Fans get some amazing reveals and conversations out of the tribe during these food-filled meetups, but Bridget Moynahan, who plays assistant district attorney Erin Reagan, has said that filming those dinners is a less than grand experience for her. When asked by Pop Culture about a previous interview she gave where she'd said that the food wasn't good, Moynahan clarified:
I don't know if the food is bad but when you're eating for four hours, you just never feel good. Like, I just had a family dinner today and I feel disgusting and I only ate green beans the whole time. It doesn't feel good.
Ewww. It's easy enough to watch people eat on screen and think the food looks tasty or that they seem to be enjoying it, but it's also very easy to forget how long it usually takes to film any scene at all for a TV show, much less one where people are supposed to chow down while having sometimes very intense conversations. It might not take too long to film such a scene when there are only a couple of people involved, but Blue Bloods' Reagan family dinners typically involve around eight people, and that's got to ramp up the time spent chewing on steak or whatever.
Bridget Moynahan noted that she tries to take it as easy on herself as possible during some of these dinners, by chomping on a bit of vegetables and nothing more if she can, but who wants to do even that for hours on end? Moynahan's co-star, Tom Selleck, once confirmed that the family dinners can take up to eight hours to film. I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted just thinking about looking at one stupid plate of food for that long.
And, it turns out that Bridget Moynahan has had at least one other semi-traumatizing experience with eating on camera, as she also recounted filming a pantyhose commercial back in the day which (for some reason) required her to eat cheesecake. You guys? It didn't go well. As Moynahan told it:
They made me eat cheesecake throughout the entire commercial. I just kept having to eat the cheesecake and eat it and eat it. And the male model was supposed to look at my legs and he wouldn't look at my legs. So I had to eat more cheesecake. I've never had cheesecake since.
Man, talk about a stomachache waiting to happen. As bad as it would be to have to eat your green beans cold, imagine eating warm, loose, moldering cheesecake. Wow...I regretted writing that sentence as soon as I typed it out, but, the sentiment stands so I'm leaving it in. Heaven help Bridget Moynahan and every other member of the Reagan family during those dinners. We love to watch you eat, but wouldn't want to have to do it ourselves.
You can continue to watch weekly Reagan dinners when Blue Bloods airs Fridays on CBS, at 10 p.m. EST. For more on what to watch, check out our guide to fall TV and see what's coming to the small screen in the new year!
