Donnie Wahlberg knew he was going to be emotional on his last day on the Blue Bloods set, but 48 hours of tears wasn’t necessarily on his agenda.
Wahlberg, who has played Det. Danny Reagan on the CBS series since its premiere in 2010, was admittedly a puddle of tears on his final day on set of the series in June, and he told Variety that he “couldn’t turn off the tears for another probably two days” after the show wrapped.
The moment that really got him was when star Tom Selleck read a poem to the cast after they filmed their final Reagan family dinner scene — a scene that was featured in every episode of the show.
Wahlberg, 55, told the outlet he “didn’t make it through” Selleck’s reading of “Love Is Not All” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and added, “Literally, my life passed before my eyes.”
“I was listening to his voice mesmerize this room and thinking about what a magical journey, and what a gift that this boy, who didn’t know where his next meal was going to come from half the time, in this scrappy family, who grew up watching this man on TV, is sitting next to him, sharing this magical moment of his wisdom and grace,” he recalled.
Selleck, 79, told the outlet it’s a poem he’s “always loved” but he didn’t plan on reciting it in that moment. It wasn’t a surprise to Wahlberg, though, as he revealed that Selleck “had a knack for showing up to work and delivering a message” to the cast “at critical times.”
“He would quote different things to leave us with something to think about and focus us on what’s important. It was a magical thing,” Wahlberg said. “When they said, ‘That’s a wrap,’ we all waited.”
Wahlberg was not shy about the emotions he was feeling after his last day on set in June, as he wrote a lengthy and heartfelt Instagram post beside a video of the last time he arrived on set.
“Not sure I have the words to describe how I feel about today, or the last 14 years on this special Blue Bloods journey, but I do know how incredibly thankful I am for every moment of it,” he wrote, calling the show “one of the great blessings of my life.”
Wahlberg has a memento from set that will help keep the memory of the long-running series alive.
“I took my two Danny Reagan costumes — my blue suit and my dress blues,” he told , before revealing the real big-ticket item he kept from the show: the Reagan family dining table featured in every episode.
“I really had no intention of taking anything from the set until I learned that that table and chairs was just sitting in a warehouse somewhere.”
He’s planning to set it up at various Wahlburgers locations so “fans can sit at the table and take pictures” before he raffles it off “for charity for the DEA, the Detectives Endowment Association, for the Widows and Children’s Fund.”
