What Actually Happened During Those Famed BLUE BLOODS Sunday Dinners

Published: October 21, 2025

By Gavin Boyle

Donnie Wahlberg just revealed the BLUE BLOODS cast’s tricks to survive the shoots for the iconic dinner scenes where they would be at the table eating for eight hours.

“Everybody’s eating on BLUE BLOODS. Everyone had a trick, I won’t give them all away,” Wahlberg said. “Bridget made, like, she just used her [fork]. She would just move her potatoes around. Everyone knows Tom would butter his roll for six hours.”

Much like their characters on the show, the cast of BLUE BLOODS enjoyed shooting the iconic scene every week because it got the entire cast together despite their busy schedules. But, even back in 2013, Tom Selleck was sick of having to eat for so long.

“It’s nice to spend time with the entire cast once an episode, but filming an eating scene is miserable,” Selleck told PEOPLE. “Well, the eating part is. 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.”

As the BLUE BLOODS spinoff BOSTON BLUE starts to release, Wahlberg will rely on his decade of experience with these scenes, as they will remain a staple of the franchise.

“We are obviously standing on the shoulders of the Reagan family, the culture that was already established. And I love it because we’re going to get close with another family, the Silvers, which is also a prominent law enforcement family, and that’s where Lena Silvers is from,” Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays Lena Silvers, said when describing the new family at the center of BOSTON BLUE. “And it’s very similar to the Reagans. I mean, they couldn’t be more different, but they are also so similar… It’s crime. It’s doing the right thing. It’s sacrifice.”

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The cast working on BOSTON BLUE has already had their fair share of blunders when it comes to eating as Martin-Green and Marcus Scribner both overindulged while working on the first season of the show.

“One day, [Martin-Green] ate too much brisket,” Wahlberg said.

“I did one day,” Martin-Green admitted, adding, “Then another day, Marcus ate too much brisket. We [all] take our turn being like, ‘Okay, I had too much.’”

Despite how the actors feel about the experience of filming these scenes, fans are certainly grateful that they are a part of the franchise as they offer a peek into the lives of the characters and allows them to feel like a real family. New episodes of BOSTON BLUE are now airing every Friday on CBS.

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