Marisa Ramirez plays Detective Maria Baez in Blue Bloods. The series finale premieres tonight at 10 PM ET/PT on CBS, and streaming on Paramount+.
“End of Tour” – It’s all hands on deck for the Reagan family, as they race to stop deadly mayhem in the city when the gangs of New York unite together to demand amnesty for the release of their imprisoned members and those awaiting trial.
I spoke with the actress about her bond with Donnie Wahlberg, her final day of filming, what she took with her from set, how she’s gained strength from playing Maria, her thoughts on the show’s ending, and more. Keep reading for everything she shared with me!
I got to talk with Donnie earlier in the season and he had so much praise for you, so I wanted to ask what has it been like to bring that partnership with him to life on-screen? It’s one of my personal favorite parts of the show, and I just think Baez and Danny were so perfectly paired.
Marisa Ramirez: I’m getting teary-eyed already, it’s the first question. He’s just a beautiful human being, we were very open and genuine with each other from the day that we met, and it just blossomed into this amazing friendship. I was just so lucky to have that bond with Donnie. I mean, honestly, I don’t know what a lot of other actors on television shows have with their partners and stuff, but I feel like our relationship and our partnership was really something different and unique, we had so much fun together and we were so blessed that we were able to bring that to a lot of the stories. We could just kind of bring our relationship and the fun that we had together into the scripts, throw little things in there and we were given the freedom to do that, which was just the coolest thing. We really made it our own and made our relationship into something that we found together that might not have been on the page.
I was just so lucky. I’m so lucky to have worked with him, it’s so different now not seeing him almost every day and not FaceTiming with him almost every day. Our relationship of spending like 16 hours a day together, you really, really bond with people. You really get to know them. I know what he would want to eat for lunch and we have so many memories that I will cherish forever. I also learned so much from him. I think there are a lot of actors out there that aren’t open to that and I wanted it from him. I wanted to learn. I wanted all of his input on everything and everything that we did together, I felt like I would turn to him and be like, “Was that good? Do you think that worked?” Not that I didn’t have confidence, I did, but I really wanted to learn from him and I did.
What advice would you give to Maria as a final farewell? Like, if you had the chance to just sit down with her and give some sort of advice, what would you say to her?
Oh, gosh. I mean, take your partner, take a vacation, go to an island, just enjoy the hell out of each other, and grab Vanessa and Will or Jamko too. That is such a tough question. I have no idea. Honestly, I have no idea.
I think take a vacation is pretty good, honestly. They all need a vacation.
Yes, and you know what would be amazing is to see the characters through the vacation with the audience. The audience gets to see the characters in a different element. We never got to see that and sometimes that can be so fun just to see and experience.
One of my favorite things about this show is the incredible fan support for it. I know when it was announced that this was going to be the final season, everyone was really trying to find a way to save it because no one wanted to let it go. You filmed in New York, so you probably had fans come up to you all the time, do you have a favorite fan memory tied to the show?
People in New York would come up to me and ask me for directions. I didn’t really get recognized that much. It was more like I have a friendly, familiar face, so people would come up to me and say, “Hey, do you know where the L Train is? Do you know where I can find a Starbucks?” It was funny. It was sweet and you know what, over the years, what was pretty amazing is I knew exactly where to tell people to go and I felt very confident about that. But there wasn’t one in particular fan interaction that I have come across, there’s just been so many warm people. A man came up to me yesterday, I was with my daughter shopping in the grocery store and he just said to me, “God bless your family,” and I was like, that is just so sweet. It was just so sweet and I don’t know, it did something to me, especially with the time that our world is in right now, where we all are, and what we’re anticipating or dreading for the future. It was just really sweet and warm.
