With Boston Blue heading into Season 2, Donnie Wahlberg is gearing up to head back to Canada to film the CBS offshoot’s sophomore season.
The 2x Emmy nominee recently explained that the show films in “both” Toronto and Boston for the Beantown-set police procedural, which is a spin-off of his NYPD series Blue Bloods (2010-’24).
“When I got offered the job, I’m like, ‘This is a dream come true.’ I thought, I’ll do a spinoff in LA or Vegas or Texas, somewhere hot,” he recalled on Radio Andy. “And they were like, ‘How about Boston?’ I was like, ‘Ahhhh.’ They hooked me. And I was like, ‘Alright, let’s do it in Boston.’”
Wahlberg continued, “And they were like, ‘But we can’t afford to shoot it in Boston, we’re gonna shoot it in Toronto.’ I was like, ‘No, no.’ So, I said, ‘Listen, I’ll give back 50% of my paycheck if we can go to Boston.’ I did. And they said, ‘You can give back 100% and so can the rest of the cast, we cannot film this show in Boston.’ It’s so expensive. For the most part, we shoot in Toronto.”
The New Kids on the Block member also noted that “it’s nonstop” in Boston, which is also his hometown. making production difficult.
“Literally, the duck boats are going by, and the tour guides have on these headsets with speakers,” he explained. “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. Everybody get your cameras out!’
“And then I gotta run over to the duck boat and pose for pictures with everyone. My cousins, my uncles, my aunts, my nieces, my nephews … everybody’s there, and we wouldn’t get any work done,” added Wahlberg.
Boston Blue received an early renewal for Season 2 in December, continuing to follow Wahlberg’s Danny Reagan after he left the NYPD for the Boston Police Department.