Mika Amonsen, who plays Sean on Boston Blue, revealed that a recent episode touching on his character’s feelings about his late mother resonated deeply with him personally, as he had just lost his grandmother.
“I just lost my grandmother, we were very close, at the beginning of shooting. It was something that was very easy for me to tap into,” Amonsen told TV Insider. “And I think for most people, when you lose a family member, those holidays, they just feel different, especially when there was a special holiday that somebody particularly enjoyed. Hers was Christmas, for example.”
On the show, St. Patrick’s Day will forever carry a painful connection for Sean. In Season 8, Episode 1 of Blue Bloods, his mother was tragically targeted and killed by a gang during a parade celebrating the holiday, leaving an emotional mark that continues to shape his character’s story.
The show, however, did not leave Sean or Donnie Wahlberg’s character, Danny Reagan, out to dry as the Silver family worked to bring them in and give them a familiar way to celebrate the holiday.
“It brings up those family dinners that we’ve seen on the show so many times. Those St. Patrick’s Day dinners,” Amonsen said. “By the end of it, you see Lena and Jonah go out of their way to recreate that for them. So for Sean, that’s what that means. You see that longing and sadness throughout the episode, touching on those points of what made the holiday so special to him and his family and his mom, and then losing hope towards the end and having Jonah lift his spirits. You really get to see that all tie in together.”
“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. “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”
BOSTON BLUE has also leaned into the theme of family which made BLUE BLOODS such a hit.
“You need faith, family and tradition,” Wahlberg explained. “Just because we move to a new city, it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist there as well, although they might be different traditions and faiths and a different family. Having played Danny Reagan for 14 years, I met so many law enforcement families from around the country of all different backgrounds and faiths, and there are so many who related to the Reagans. Hopefully they will now relate to the Silver family.”