Mika Amonsen is opening up about the backlash he has faced after taking over the role of Sean Reagan.
The actor was cast as the character in CBS’ Boston Blue, taking over the role that was originally played by Andrew Terraciano in Blue Bloods.
It has now been weeks that viewers have watched him in the spinoff, and he’s breaking his silence on the online negativity over his recasting.
“There’s been some negativity, for sure,” he told Us Weekly. “But when I look under those posts that have the negativity, there’s a lot of fans rallying for Sean and people saying that they really enjoyed this character that I’ve created — or my version of character.”
He adds, “They’re really enjoying the show and they love where it’s going in terms of Sean and that makes me happy.”
Mika shared that he did feel pressure on taking over the role, but also wanted to respect the performance that Andrew did with the character before him.
“I definitely felt a ton of pressure at first. I felt the pressure to respect an actor before me because I wanted to respect Andrew the best I could,” he said. “There were even certain visual choices that I made that I wanted to keep in terms of hair styling and certain ways of being [as Sean].”
“I really want to maintain Sean as close as I can in the ways that I do it out of respect for this character that everyone loves — but also the character Andrew built,” Mika added. “When I booked the show, it all happened really quickly. It was within about a week’s time and I was really thrown into it quickly. I did binge watch as much as I could and I found doing the later seasons was more helpful. I wanted to get a sense of who Sean was toward the end of the show. I really wanted to get a sense of his character at that point into adulthood and his relationship with Danny.”
He even watched back episodes of Blue Bloods and found parts of Andrew that were similar to himself.
“I wanted to respect Andrew’s portrayal of Sean as much as I could — but also adding something to my own version. The showrunners Brandon Sonnier and Brandon Margolis have been really good at giving me a lot of freedom to explore that new dynamic with Donnie,” he actor said. “Watching Andrew’s performance, I actually noticed a lot of similarities just between us as people, and our energy. It’s quite upbeat. I have a lot more of an upbeat energy myself. So that was a bit comforting. I definitely kept that within myself and didn’t feel like I was obligated to change that part of me — which was nice — in terms of making it my own.”
“We’re really just exploring what would have been. Of course, it is my own version of it but at the same time we haven’t seen this relationship with Sean and his dad before,” he concluded. “He’s coming into this whole new position because from what I understand, the exploration of Sean being a cop wasn’t something that was on the table.”
If you missed it, find out why Sean Reagan was recast for Boston Blue…
