Blue Bloods has a lot of great scenes, but the ones that have become most synonymous with the longtime CBS series are the family dinners. Because it’s tough to get the entire Blue Bloods cast onto set at the same time, these scenes hold special meaning for the cast, too. With this in mind, it’s not a huge surprise there’s such a fascination around the dinner scenes among the fanbase, but I was surprised to learn a new detail about them recently involving none other than lead Donnie Wahlberg.
The star, who plays Detective Danny Reagan on the veteran drama (and who may be double-dipping with crime shows on CBS very soon), is apparently the only person during the dinner scenes to really tuck into his food. According to an interview the actor did with TV Insider, most of the time he’s the only person eating on the hot set. There’s a funny reason why, too.
Danny probably eats the most because Donnie’s the hungriest. Seriously though, Danny is kind of a bull in a china shop. The best way to play that at dinner is to talk a lot with his mouth full.
Given we know these scenes can take 6-8 hours to film, I’m super impressed with Mr. Wahlberg’s commitment to eating onscreen. As Donnie Wahlberg noted, it’s honestly the easiest way to play Danny, though I'm not sure his tummy would always agree. Having said this, the long hours can lead to shenanigans during filming and Vanessa Ray also noted there’s a certain end of the table that can’t keep its act straight when the whole cast gets together.
I don’t want to name names, but historically there is a certain end of the table that gets the church giggles around Hour 2 of filming the dinner scenes… I may or may not be on that end of the table. (I’m absolutely on that end of the table.)
This isn’t the first time I’ve learned a hot fact about the Blue Bloods dinner scenes. Originally the series actually used real dinnerware for the scenes, but as it turns out metal is kind of noisy and was getting picked up a ton by studio mics. So, somewhere along the way, the CBS drama ditched the real silverware. And now it’s much quieter on set (though the scenes do seemingly still take a long time to get just right.)
Blue Bloods is currently airing its thirteenth season on the TV schedule, with new episodes hitting CBS on Friday nights at 8 p.m. ET or able to be streamed with a Paramount Plus subscription. Other show vet Tom Selleck recently opened up about why the show’s been so successful for so long, and while we have no idea how long CBS will opt to keep renewals on the table, it sounds like the cast is still really enjoying filming together in Season 13.
