Donnie Wahlberg offered up half of his “Boston Blue” paycheck to help make it affordable to shoot the series in Boston.
While appearing on “Andy Cohen Live,” the famous Bostonian explained that shooting “Boston Blue” in the titular city is “so expensive” that they are forced to do a lot of the show in Toronto. The show has been able to do some shooting in Boston but even when they do Wahlberg is a recognizable face.
“They were like, ‘But we can’t afford to shoot it in Boston. We’re gonna shoot it in Toronto,’ and I was like, ‘No. No,’ so I said, ‘Listen, I’ll give back 50% of my paycheck if we can go to Boston,’” Wahlberg said. “I did, and they said, ‘You can give back a hundred percent and so can the rest of the cast. We cannot film this show in Boston, but we’ll do a couple.’ It’s so expensive.”
He added: “We shoot in Toronto, but honestly Andy, we couldn’t film it in Boston full-time because it’s nonstop. It’s literally the duck boats are going by and the duck boat tour guides have on these headsets with speakers and it’s literally in the background of a scene. You hear, “Oh my god, there’s Donnie Wahlberg right over there on the corner. I grew up near Donnie. Everyone get your cameras out,” and then I gotta run over to the duck boat and pose for pictures with everyone and my cousins, my uncles, my aunts, my nieces, my nephews, my nephew’s nephew’s nephew’s nephew comes. Everybody’s there and we wouldn’t get any work done.”
Wahlberg wants to infuse as much Boston energy into his “Blue Bloods” spinoff series. He told Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” this week that he was hoping to get some other famous Bostonians onto the show.
“Let’s see, Mark Wahlberg, maybe? I don’t know,” Donnie Wahlberg said. “He don’t want to act with me.”
He also threw out “Ben and Matt” as options for cameos. These would be Wahlberg’s longtime friends Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. It’s anyone’s guess if Wahlberg is able to convince the fellow Boston icons to appear on the CBS police procedural.
“Boston Blue” airs new episodes on Friday nights. The series has already been renewed for a second season.
