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So go ahead, try them on. Let us surprise you. This is Jane Pauley. Are you a Blue Bloods fan? How about new kids on the block?
This weekend, Donnie Wahlberg, all grown up, and talking with Sunday Morning's Mo Raca. What is it like growing up in a family where there are nine kids? Mm. I can't speak for all families with nine kids, but mine was. a combination of chaos.
And uh sprinkled with a little bit of love. But I'd say chaos was number one. Or chaos. Oh, yeah, for sure. Chaos was number one.
So, where did the chaos come from? I would say the chaos came from All directions. You know We were I would say Poor. Um You know, I think when we were kids we liked to say lower middle class, but looking back, you know, we were struggling. There were nine kids, a dog, a cat, my grandma in the basement, and my mom and dad for a while.
And there were kids coming and going, running away. being arrested. There were arguments, fights, alcohol. Um It was a lot. There were a lot of challenges.
me being the eighth of nine You know, I somehow fell into this role of sort of the peacemaker. And um I don't want to s I don't like to use the term because I don't want to insult my other siblings, but one of the adults, if I could say it that way. Your role was sort of smooth things over. My role was to get everyone together. and be happy.
by any means necessary. And I would call the older siblings together for holidays. When my parents divorced, I would. plan which house we were going to on Thanksgiving, at what time, and then when to go to dad's. I would decide what time we're going to mom's on Christmas Eve and Dad's on Christmas Day.
And, you know, I was one of the babies, but that just was the role I played. Kind of like being almost a third parent or Yeah, I would say uh I know. My childhood was spent trying to bring joy and love. to a large group of people amidst chaos and confusion. in pain.
And it's what I do for a living right now. It's what I've grown up to do. My life is literally now a reflection of my childhood, except it's Those childhood years trained me for this.
Now I fill arenas full of people to feel good. in these trying times and I bring my band and we have confetti and And Special effects and all these nostalgic things that make people sort of feel like. Those joyous times when they were kids, those few joyous times that they might have had. And it's the same thing on television. You know, I did it for 14 years as part of Blue Bloods.
You know, we. Brought people together on Friday nights to feel good. And everything that I do in my career. that is in that spirit. I didn't know this going into it, mind you.
I'm discovering it after the fact. Everything that I do. It's literally like 10-year-old Donnie just Trying to keep his family together with band-aids and smoke and mirrors. And I kind of do the same thing now. For a living.
Yeah. And how much of the pain in the house was about lack of money, or maybe was it about your parents being mismatched, or what? Lack of money wasn't the driving force of the problems. It exacerbated the problems. Right.
The struggle to pay the bills. You know, I remember one time a water company truck pulled up out front, and my sister was babysitting all the kids. And she said, Oh no, they're coming to turn off the water because dad hasn't paid the bill. And we all ran out the front door saying, Get out of here. You can't turn off our water.
They didn't. They left. They let us keep the water on. Yeah. I'm sure they weren't afraid of us.
I'm sure it was more out of sympathy. and compassion. Um but yeah, it just uh There were problems, as I said, with with alcohol and and dysfunction and You know, you name it. Like so many families, it just. Especially in that time in the 70s and 80s, it just it was just a lot of uh A lot of struggle.
And, you know, I think people, because of the struggles, they resorted to. different coping mechanisms.
Some of my siblings resorted to alcohol and drugs.
Some resorted to Whatever, if they needed something, they'd find a way to get it, shoplifting or whatever. And, you know, I. I didn't really want outside things. As as What I turned towards, I I wanted like happiness. I wanted love.
I wanted uh Everyone to just get along. Like I my greatest childhood memory was Christmas Eve. In our house, and we kids would all go to sleep, all nine of us, and we would wake up and sit on the stairway. Probably at 1 a.m. we would wake up.
And I usually would be the first one to wake up and We would just start saying, come on, mom, come on, dad, and they probably just finished. Putting the presents down under the tree, and there weren't a lot. And I know they work. their tails off to make Christmas special. You know, it was the one time of year everyone was okay.
In terms of, you know. skirmishes with the law and all that. I mean, you were pretty good by comparison. Yeah, I would I would say that There was um When I was a kid, Remember one of my older siblings picked me up in a car. It wasn't his.
Stolen car. It was pretty cool. Yeah. And he's like, come on, hop in. And he's driving around and.
I I might have been ten. I don't know. And uh You know, I mean, there's a whole ignition's hanging out, and there's a screwdriver. I'm like, okay, I don't know how he did it, but. I could see he did something.
And uh you know, at that time. I was obviously scared and But also I was like, oh, he's so cool. Right. One day I'm going to do this. You know.
Um But it wasn't my nature. It wasn't. I was scared. I probably didn't get into as much trouble as some of my siblings because I was nervous. I was.
you know uh As close to my parents as one could be in that house with nine kids. Like, I really leaned into my parents as much as I could. I didn't like getting in trouble. I certainly growing up in Dorchester, you know None of us are going to be perfect growing up in that neighborhood. Um But There was a sense that one day I would do some of these things.
that my siblings, older siblings, did. But there was this other thing. this dreamer in me. Compacting with a message. That sometimes when you grow up the way we did, In the town we did.
With the struggles we had, you know, that dream just. slowly dies out. And the other callings for trouble sort of or inevitability sort of win. You know, and the ev the inevitability Could be I'm gonna steal a car, I'm gonna Be it alcoholic, I'm gonna. do the same job my dad did.
Yeah. So, in a way, the older siblings kind of offered, in some cases, a counter-example so that you saw what happened to them and then. Yes. I'm not going to do that. Yes.
I definitely learned from some of my older siblings that, you know, that. Here's a Clear path of what not to do. And, you know, I I I did have this dreamer in me. Right. That I think was the one thing I really connected with my mom on.
A young age. I learned later in life that my mom wanted to be a singer, that my mom. Met my dad singing. in a bar. She was singing in the bar and he watched her and As to Peeka Walker home and You know, and her dad died when she was 14 and her life changed forever.
You know, she... All her dreams and aspirations went out the window. She had to help her mother raise their family. But I knew there was a dreamer in her and I think she saw a dreamer in me. You grew up In Boston, in Dorchester, during the era of forced busing, which is known as the Boston busing crisis.
For people who don't know what that is, what was that? In nineteen seventy-four, uh, Judge Arthur Garrity, um. decided to uh integrate schools in Boston. They were very segregated. Yes.
Yeah. In Boston, like many neighborhoods back then, you know, the neighborhoods were segregated. Yeah. You know, it wasn't. It's you know, you knew the North End was Italian and yeah, yeah.
You know, Jamaica Plain was Dominican and Puerto Rican, and Roxbury was black, and Dorchester was Irish, and everything, you know, Southeast was. Irish and you couldn't go there if you weren't from Southey. Every neighborhood had a thing. And busing was designed to you know And that to make us bring us together. Yeah.
And to make Boston what. It you know, claim to be, which is a melting pot. Of ideas and cultures. And were you bust? I was bust, yeah.
So, how did that end up shaping you? It was. For all of the chaos that it caused. in the city. outside of the buses.
Inside the buses we were okay. where all the kids were okay. It was like, look at all these crazy adults outside the buses. acting like the world is ending. and look at us inside just all getting along and having a good time.
And it wasn't always perfect. School is tough. But It was probably the most important thing that ever happened in my life. Are you really because Because I don't know what I would have not been exposed to. Had I not been on those buses.
So, what were you exposed to on those? Oh my gosh, the first day of school, I walk off the bus, and there's a mural of Marcus Garvey. You know, I walk in and. you know, there's this diverse group of teachers. teaching the school and there's kids from every walk of life walking down the hallways and I'm with them.
And we're learning about them and each other. And, you know, I mean, there's so many examples of what. of other people's lives were Part of my life every single day. And starting at what age around? First grade.
First grade. Yeah, first grade. And so you're meeting kids that you would not have ordinarily met. Probably not. And you're, what, if you're, if sharing tastes in what T V shows, what music you like.
culture, history. What is it like in my house? What do I watch on TV? What do I listen to musically? What do I dream about?
You know, in my neighborhood, If I would have said, Yeah, I want to be a singer one day. I can think of five kids and they would would punch me in the face. And two of them lived in my house. You know what I mean? But in school if I said that they'd be like, yeah, me too.
I want to do that. You know, I want to be like James Brown. You know, it's like Wow. But it just uh Those days and those schools were everything. Is it that where you got the performing budget?
Absolutely. Tell me how many people had that. Oh, my God. I would. go to school and just be exposed to Everything, all types of music.
And suddenly I'm going home and, you know, instead of only hearing Led Zeppelin and only hearing the rock and roll station in Boston, I would be coming home with Parliament Funkadelic and Rapper's Delight and the first hip-hop records and, you know, um. Gosh, I went to school just around the corner from where New Edition grew up. You know, and it was like Oh, those famous guys from Boston live right there. And kids that I go to school with know them. It's like these possibilities that never would have existed for me.
were just all around me. And I felt Safe. to dream.
So with all these parents protesting. This integration of kids. Yeah, yeah. Right? Because they didn't think their kids were going to be safe.
Here I was being integrated, and it's where I felt the safest. And that's where you felt safe. Yes. How did it start? Did you do musicals?
Did you do chorus? What was going on? Try it out for the school chorus in. I think it's second or third grade and I didn't make it. Jordan Knight and Jonathan Knight, my bandmates made it.
Uh I think Danny would have made it too. Um But yeah, yeah.
Well, the school chorus, but going on.
Well, maybe. The good news was when I was forming the new kids, I remembered my. Classmates who were so good in the chorus. But Um I remember God. Gosh, I was probably.
Maybe in the fourth grade, I started to write a rap song for the first time. And everything just just constantly was this this creative energy. That I had was just being fed.
So it's interesting because you were creative, but kind of entrepreneurial, even at that point. early age, starting your own band, things like that. A little bit. What's the difference between popping and locking? I don't think I ever got it straight.
Locking is a little bit more like, uh. Oh. You know what I mean? Uh Popping is more like, you know, it's just like more like. That's right, the one, the right.
I don't even know if I'm doing it right here. I'm 56. I don't pop that much. Yeah. Well, and if something goes pop, it's a bit of a damage.
I like to wave. I try to keep it smooth. Yeah, okay, all right.
Well, that I remember that everybody wanted to do that. And everybody could do some version of it, I think.
So how did New Kids originate?
Well, New Kids originated The there was a music producer who discovered new addition named Maury Starr. Mm. lived in Roxbury, where I was bussed to school. Right. Unbeknownst to me, I was bused to school.
I was probably a couple hundred yards from Orchard Park Projects where a new addition grew up. and in the opposite direction, a couple hundred yards, where Maurice Starr lived.
So here I am, like right there. Perfectly situated. Yeah, perfectly situated. But I really didn't know who Maury Starr was. Um And then after my freshman year of high school, I would breakdance in the park and I would rap and I would just, you know, Go to high school dances.
Every Friday night, Danny Wood and I would go to different high school dances and break dance and perform, and I would impersonate Michael Jackson and all this stuff. I started, I guess, to get a little reputation. Around town, which was my reputation. It wasn't, he's one of those crazy Wahlberg kids who was like, oh, that Donnie Wahlberg. He's cool, he raps, he does this cool, fun stuff and um Maurice was looking for, I guess, the equivalent of the Osmonds to the Jacksons.
You know, he grew up loving the Jacksons and the Osmonds. He had separated from New Edition and wanted to. form another band and He couldn't find anyone in the early 80s. was like a young performer who could do R B music and stuff like that and um He started to ask around and Someone told him about me. And so I met Mary Alford.
within a few days and She asked me to Go to meet Maurice Starr. And I dragged my brother Mark along and two other kids. Your younger brother, Mark. Yeah. Yeah.
And he wanted to start a band with Mark and me. And this is 1984. Summer of 84. And what did your parents think? I could tell you uh What What my dad said, and what my mom said.
My mom was. Super supportive. My mom used to say this, and I don't know if it's true, but she said, When you were a baby and I looked at you, I just knew.
Something was different about you. I don't know what, I don't know what. I was a baby. Maybe my eyes were crossed. I don't know what it was, but she said, I saw something.
And she said this before I became famous. This wasn't something she said later. And we did have a special bond. And music was a big part of our bond. She would play.
She loved this group Odyssey and the song Native New Yorker. And she would play it when she cleaned the house on Saturdays. And she'd kick all the kids out of the house, but she'd let me come back in. And she would sing and dance. And, you know, she would sing into the mop stick handle.
And she would like dance with me and do the hustle and stuff, like on her freshly mopped floor. And.
So when I told her I was going to start this band, she was like, great. Um and my dad I will tell you exactly what my dad said when I told him I was going to do this. And I didn't tell him for a while. Because my dad was kind of old school.
So I remember I walked into the living room of our house and my dad was sitting there with a schlitz. and a cigarette. He had a can of beer and a cigarette, and um I sat down next to him and I said, Adam, I'm gonna start this music band. And he said, ah. And now he remembered I played the drums in the garage with my little neighborhood band.
He's like, okay, sure. And I go, no, Dad, I... I'm serious, this could be really something special. and I'm 14. And he said, Okay, yeah, sure.
And I said, No, no, I met this music producer and I really... think this could be something. And I think I have a chance to do something really special. And he said.
Okay, well I'll tell you what. If you ever do make it big. And you come home. and you've changed. I'm gonna kick your ass.
And I can tell you that sounds borderline abusive and dream crushing but From my dad? That was a rousing endorsement. Real affirmation. Absolutely. A lot of people know the story that the first single at first kind of fell flat.
Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, there was a whole... plan, you know, the new kids. The great irony of the new kids is that we were this master plan of all these corporate executives who knew how to make this the most.
biggest successful manufactured Band in the history of music. And the truth is. It was all an accident. You know um Maury Starr found me and Mark. Mark quit 'cause he preferred to steal cars and goof around with his friends.
And I It was my salvation. The new kids. Meeting Maurice Starr saved my life. I got to make music every weekend. I got to go to singing lessons on weeknights instead of sitting around, you know, just doing nothing.
But, um, When our first song came out Flopped. Miserably, our first album flopped miserably, but Maurice was so driven. And had such belief In himself and us, that he got the record company to give us another shot. They sent the radio the record strictly to RB radio stations and Yeah, they just uh it wasn't working. And one pop station played it.
Around the same time, we got offered the opening spot on Tiffany's tour, her summer tour. And she's playing to 15,000 teenage girls every night. By the end of that tour, this... little RMB band. became, you know, one of the biggest pop bands in the world.
At that point, I mean, is it fair to say the group blew up pretty fast. Kind of. I think the new kids are We We're kind of known as an overnight success. But in reality... I think we became successful when I was 18, and I was the founding member of the band when I was 14.
You already alluded to this, but 1990. Was Not a great year. There were some bad headlines. That year, 1990, your hometown paper, the Boston Globe. published an editorial.
Saying that the new kids on the block, quote, while craftily marketed as clean-cut, church-going inner-city youths, are actually success-spoiled youths who badly need disciplining. This was in the midst of a bunch of Of, you know, today we might think, oh, it's kind of quaint, but back then it was kind of a big deal. You gotten into a fight with a kid who was going to Harvard on an airplane. There was a charge that you'd set a fire. There was never a formal charge.
There was never a fire. Right, there was never a fire.
So you were playing with a fire extinguisher.
So, what was going on there? You know, I think it was. Um I really struggled with Um the criticism of the band. What was the criticism of the bank? Oh my gosh, you name it.
I mean, whatever criticism could be made, it was, you know, uh We couldn't sing. puppets, we were fake, we were this, we were that, you know, I mean that Things that we would market as church-going kids. I don't know anyone ever mentioned church in any new kids' songs. Yeah. You know, it just there was never everything was a misconception, and most of it was.
For example, we were voted the worst tour. in Rolling Stone magazine. I remember this. And I loved Rolling Stone magazine. And I just thought, what Rolling Stone reader went to see the new kids on the block tour?
Right. So I should have been smart enough and mature enough. to know better, but I was still There was part of me who grew up in my household and had to defend myself and stick up for myself. I just was not good at walking away. From criticism.
You know, people would say things like, Whoa, are you You should laugh at people who... Yell obscenities at you when you walk into a baseball game. You should just laugh at them, you know. And you're sitting in the front row and they're in the 20th row. And I was like, Yeah, but I grew up in the 20th row.
If I could even get in the stadium at all, like. I have to say something back. Right. As much as I tried to be a good kid growing up, You know, I still Came from a world and a family where we had to stick up for ourselves. And I didn't know how to stick up for myself and my band and our fans.
Mm-hmm.
Now that was a very good idea. In, you know, I didn't No, I didn't understand how true it was that the pen was mightier than the sword. Sure. Right? So I would.
Push back.
sometimes verbally, sometimes physically. You know, if some guy was Calling me inappropriate things in the middle of the street. What am I supposed to do? Sure. Where I come from, if I don't do something.
And I just didn't I didn't I I hadn't matured enough in some ways to Walk away from it. Do you think you were sort of acting out? Yeah, sure. Of course. All right, but I've heard you talk about incidents like this period in the past and say that a lot of it was maybe that you were feeling unworthy of success.
Absolutely. What do you mean? It's very. There's no guidebook, right? I see child stars all the time, and I have great.
compassion for them and empathy. And I don't, I'm not. I want to put everything in perspective. My dad drove a truck most of his life. My mom did whatever job she could get most of her life.
I don't. think these problems that I was dealing with were problems On a Day-to-day, real-life level, but they were the problems I was dealing with, right? It's like, um, It sounds confusing, but I wanted to be surrounded by love. And now I'm famous, and at my concert, it's love and happiness. But all the things I liked-the magazines I liked to read, the newspapers I like to read, the TV shows I like to watch-they was all hated my band.
And I was like, What the heck? You know, where's the love? You know, I just I didn't have the ability to walk away. And so But I'm sorry, I'm not answering your question. I really felt protective of our fans.
I didn't understand. Every article that was written, everything that would come out would always ridicule our screaming young fans. These Screaming little girls. What do they know about anything? What taste do they have?
It was like if you had screaming young girl fans, you couldn't be an artist. You couldn't be taken seriously. And not that some of our songs should have been taken that seriously, but. I found it really offensive. You know, it's like all these writers and...
News people that I used to look up to and admire, and I'm watching them just insult our folks. Taking cheap shots. Cheap shots. Yeah. Like, What are you talking about?
Do you not have her daughter? Does her opinion not matter? I found it so offensive that the new kids, our fans, everything to do with all of us was just dismissed. And not dismissed, but. insulted and ridiculed.
It's like, why are you ridiculing all these people and their opinions, right? We'll have more from our Sunday morning extended interview. After this break. At Marisa's, we're all about great jeans. You know, the ones that fit you just right?
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See mintmobile.com. I did not know that you co-wrote, co-produced Good Vibrations. I produced it. I produced it. Yeah, the number one hit that your brother had with his band.
First of all, I mean, did that give you that must have given you a feeling of great self-worth that you weren't just a singer and dancer, you were also writing and producing and Well like that Marky Mark and my brother's career and his music was really when I started to get my head screwed on right of how. I can really prove myself. And I will say you know, there is in all the defense that I had for the new kids. there was also an insecurity. I wasn't always right.
You know, When we became so successful, there was this struggle because, on the one hand, We worked so hard to be successful. Right? And we became so successful that we would struggle. I struggled mightily with this. conflict inside me of like We don't deserve this level of fame.
The imposter syndrome. Yes. But if someone said we didn't deserve it, well, then how dare you say we don't deserve it, right? It was like, so is this thing? And no, I had nobody to teach me how to manage that and how to.
cope with that. But I did learn When I started to apply myself. And take all this energy and frustration that was going on and put it into something creative. I was able to accomplish many, many things. And one of them was to finally stop.
Telling everyone that you actually have talent and that you can actually write a song and go write a song. Go show it. Go show it. And at the same time, my brother was. you know Getting in trouble, and my mom was like, You got to help your brother and get him out of the streets, and you know, and um.
And he was also in tremendous shape. And I'd come home and be like, wow, you've been working out. I was like, I wanted to make a record. And part of me wanted to leave the new kids to make the record. wanted to to make a record because this was important to me.
Uh the artistic part of it was important to me at that time. And I didn't know that the other guys felt the same as me. They didn't quite understand what I was struggling with. And I just said, you know what, I'll put my energy into Mark and I want to create.
something for him.
So, taking that frustration and just channeling it creatively, I mean, I was going to say it must have been stabilizing, but more but more than that. It was exhilarating. It was exhilarating. I would come home from tour and have three days off and I would spend all three days in the recording studio making music. Yeah.
And Being The things that I tried to prove to the world that I was. And it was just me and my engineer in the studio just doing it. And nobody knew. Nobody knew what was going on. And I felt it inside me that, wow, you are being.
And the more I was creative, the more I was writing songs, the more I was doing that. the less I needed to prove it to anyone. because I was proving it to myself. And I was too young to understand that that's all that was happening the whole time anyway. Right.
when I stop trying to prove it to the world. That's when I started proving it to the world, you know, because I didn't care anymore. I just was into the creative experience. And I remember when I made good vibrations, you know, I. I just I went home, I played her for my mom and my brother Mark.
And my mother said that's going to be a number one song. What did Mark say? He was like, I can't wait to record it. It was me doing the demo. I was wrapping the demo.
The years 1994, the years right after 1994. We're pretty rough for you, yeah? Like after the band broke up Um I would say They were rough in some ways. Again, rough is a relative term, right? You know, when New Kids disbanded in 1994, I had some challenges.
But I I could pay my bills. You know, I could. Afford to take a trip. I didn't really know how to take a trip. Um You know, I was 18 and became famous and when things slowed down at the age of 25, 24, 25, I'd never booked an airplane ticket for myself.
Never paid a bill for myself.
Someone did it. But when the new kids agreed, let's break up. In 1994, I remember going home. I was like, I'm producing number one records, I'm a songwriter, I'm part of this band, I want to act, I want to do all these things. And I'd matured and become worldly in so many ways.
I'd been to so many countries and experienced so many cultures, and I. Looked in the mirror when the band broke up, and I was staring back at 18-year-old Donnie, who didn't know. anything. You know, in some ways I had matured so much, and in other ways, I was stagnant. And I was behind.
Well, I imagine coming off a huge success like New Kids. I mean I don't want to project. I'm trying to put myself in your shoes and thinking. You know, was there like a ticking clock? Like, I better make something happen before people go, oh, he was a new kid.
I. Sure. I Would see those shows on TV, like, where are they now? And whatever happened to, and da da da, and I would say, okay. All right.
you know and is like I'm not, they're not coming for me. I'm not going to let that happen. Just not going to be that person. And um I have great compassion for people who have been very successful and not found their way back. It is a challenge.
And it's hard. It's like a roller coaster, right? It's that movie Parenthood when the grandma talks about the roller coaster and how fun it is. You just got to enjoy the ride. But for me, at 24, I'm like, wow, I just rode the most incredible roller coaster, and I'm 24.
I got. Oh, like 70 years of life left. Like, is that it? Like, what do I do now? Right.
And I thought I had all the answers, but I didn't. And.
Um I was just Fortunately, I was a dad. And raising a son. And fortunately, the fact that I couldn't get a job and couldn't go on tour and couldn't do all the things I did allowed me to be in his life and be a presence where I might have been gone. And did that also give you perspective? Absolutely.
Absolutely. Because you were 23 when you became a popular. Yes, I would For every challenge, for every Difficulty for every success, I always would try to find perspective. I don't know where I got that from. It could have been Could have been my older brothers and the kids in my neighborhood who would slap me if I ever Try to become famous.
It could be my dad saying, you know, if you become successful and you change, I'm going to kick your ass. You know, it could be just the way I'm wired. I just. At my highest heights, I saw the good that other people were doing in my family. And I found that to be just as important as anything I was doing.
In The lowest lows, I knew that there were so many people struggling with. Mm-hmm.
greater struggle. Right. And it was it was uh I always sought perspective. And I wasn't always able to find it, and I sometimes would get caught up in the wrong things and the wrong concerns. Um I was driven And I knew Really, from the new kids, but also from the experience of producing my brother's music, I knew that, you know, if you want to make something happen, you got to just.
Just stay locked in and keep working. becoming an actor. Yeah. becoming an actor, doing Doing I wasn't ready to give up on doing the things that I loved. And acting was something that I always loved.
In high school, I was acting in school. I went to the only Boston public school that had a theater program. Top late. And I would, yep, I would. Play one of the leads.
There were only three guys in the class, so I always got one of the leads. Whether I deserved it or not, I don't know. There were only three guys, but I did my part. But yeah, I wanted to act and I wanted to. keep being creative and uh And how did those early auditions go in 95, 96?
They were tough. Uh they were tough. I was You know, again, I had perspective. On the one hand, I was getting in the room to audition. But it was really only because I was in the new kids.
It was, no one really knew I could act. Of me as an actor, sometimes I would go to the audition and say, this guy is supposed to be 400 pounds, and I weigh 150, soaking wet. And I would see the casting associate, and she just wanted a picture with me and was a new kids fan who just grew up, and this was her job. I was like, oh, okay, well, I'm not getting that part. And it just.
Kept happening. I just kept going out for auditions and not getting the part and going out for auditions. And most times, deservedly so, I didn't get the part. And um I got a part in the movie, um That Mickey Rourke personally gave me the role in a movie with him in Tupac Shakor. Um Which was a great experience.
I didn't do as good as I wanted to, but it made me realize I want to do this. I want to do this. It gave me a taste. Um I was auditioning, driving from Boston every week to audition. For for whatever T V shows, movies, and um I finally got a call to audition for a movie called Ransom.
Mel Gibson. With Mel Gibson and Ron Howard directing. And I was driving to New York, and I said, this is. I'm never gonna get this part. I can't get a part in...
The smallest movie in the world. How am I going to get a part in Ransom? And I went down. I'm met with Jane Jenkins, the casting director, and auditioned and She said. I want you to meet Ron.
And I said, okay, well I'm supposed to meet 50 other directors too, and I never got the call back. She brought me in for Ron Howard and um Ron just Yeah. giving me this look. And it was kinda this curious look and I don't know this to be true, but I think I was right for the part. I got the part.
But I think Ron was rooting for me. I think Ron grew up in television. Ron was a child star. Ron. Emphasized.
Opie. Yeah, yeah. And then he was Richie Cunningham. And, you know, I I think in some ways he was rooting for me. To earn the part.
Yeah, yeah. To give me the part, because I went up against some serious actors to get this part. And.
Yeah, I got it. I got it and um I just couldn't believe it, you know, and uh I remember before I got the part, I went in for one last meeting. And I'd auditioned like four or five times with different actors and They try me with different people and they read me with Liab Schreiber, who ultimately played my brother in the movie. And I remember I was leaving the meeting in Ron's office and I looked at the wall and they had all the headshots of the cast.
So there was Mel and Del Roy Lindo and Gary Sinise and Renee Russo and my picture was there. And I said. Wow, does that mean I got the part? I don't know. And I went back to my hotel and.
I just I realized something in that moment. And I don't know if everyone feels this, but I know I feel it. And I were felt it for many years. And I I think my brother Mark feels it as well. Is it somehow there is this thing that drives us.
feeling of inevitability that someone's going to take it all away one day. Mm-hmm.
being not worthy. complex, right? I think um I saw the picture on the wall. I was like, oh, I felt this. Joy.
I think I means I got the part. And I just spent the whole way back to the hotel like telling myself why it's not gonna happen. Even after you saw your picture there. Yeah, and it's this weird thing where, like, I drove to the audition, I rehearsed the thing, I walked in the room knowing you have to cast me, I'm the guy for this part. You know, it's like, I'm the guy.
And as soon as I see a sliver of hope, it's like, oh, someone's going to take it away. You were unrecognizable in the sixth sense. I was hungry. For good reason. You've lost how many pounds?
41 pounds if I remember correctly. right point in your career, yeah? Yeah. First of all, how I got the job. Night Shyamalan had a sixth sense.
There was nothing about me was right for that part. It was written for a 15-year-old kid. who was You know, an older version of Haley Joel Osmond, what Haley Joel Osmond's character would become if he didn't get help. And this was a former patient of Bruce Willis's character who. Bruce didn't take seriously that he saw dead people and so because he failed this kid and this tragedy happened, he's now gonna make sure he doesn't make the same mistake with Haley Joel Osmond's character.
But I read the script. And it's the first time I read a script and thought, wow, this is incredible. I had done a few acting roles, I had gotten different parts, but I never read a script and said, oh my God. Gosh, this is amazing. And I thought it was a low budget film With like a million-dollar budget.
And I said, Well, no one's hiring me to do any movies, but I could do this one. It's only a million-dollar budget. They'll hire Dottie Wolvert for this, and I'll play the doctor. And I re-looked at the cover and it said Disney. I was like, oh yeah, I'm not playing this movie.
Um, but I loved it so much that I flew to New York just to meet the director, just to tell him how much I loved it. And through conversations about the script and him seeing how much I actually really did love it and paid attention to it. the idea came for me to play the opening scene of the movie. And I said it's written for a 15-year-old. He said, well, you could play like 19.
And, you know. It's conceivable if I cast Bruce Willis as the doctor. I was like, that would be great. He said, then you could have been his patient when you were young. And I said, Great.
And um I still didn't think I would get the part. Um but I told him I would I would sweep floors on the set. Of this movie, just to be near it. That's how much I loved it. And I really didn't think there was a part for me in it.
And um When I got the part Um I had told Knight that I would, you know, change, I would alter myself, I would struggle. As much as I could and suffer as much as I could to be close to what this character might have suffered through. And that's what I did. It's the first time I wasn't just trying to get the job. to get the job.
It was the f I loved the script. I got the script. I got every nuance of the script. And I got the character. And night gave me the part and I was 180 pounds, you know.
in great shape. And um I knew I had to transform myself. And I I just did it. I just started suffering and started starving myself and going through the process of. Being as close to this character as I could, and I didn't realize.
How much I had changed, and I didn't realize how much the role would change my career. I had no idea. It really did. It did. It changed everything.
And it was a phenomenon at the box office. Was that just icing on the cake? Uh Pro also some of the cake too.
Well Yeah, this is a funny story. I don't know if I've ever told this story, but My older brother called me and said, I went to see The Sixth Sense, and the whole theater gasped when you came on screen. And I'm so proud of you. Like I love older brother, so he's a good man. Which brother is this?
Jim, yeah. And so the it's a actually a funny story. I um I went to the I said, I want to go experience this. I want to see what this is like in the movie.
So I went to the movie theater. It was like the third night the movie was out. And I kind of said, I'll sneak in and sit in the back row. And I sat. The back row was full of teenagers.
And they were loud and crazy and uh teenager-ish. And uh I sat in front of them And You know, they didn't know who I was, they didn't know what was going on, and they're watching the scene. And when my characters were revealed in his underwear, they started laughing. And they just mocked the whole scene. And they were like, aha, the louder my character got, the more they'd laugh.
And it wasn't till the end when the scene ended abruptly, they went, whoa! And I just thought to myself, I said, man. My brother said everyone was gasping and... this whole thing these kids are all laughing at my part and I was like You know, it literally gave me instant. Humility.
It humbled me so fast. I was like, all right, good. It was like, I knew it was like, I had to experience it that way because. for the next three years, like People walked up to me, everyone. Movie stars, actors, producers, people on the street, you name it.
People stopped me, everyone said, I didn't know that was you in that movie, you were incredible. And in my mind, I was like, are they telling the truth or are they like those teenagers in the theater who laughed at me? Like, so it really kept me humble. For sure. But when when Jim when your brother Jim told you that, called you, what did that mean to you?
It meant a lot. It meant a lot. My siblings were always proud. I don't know if I answered the question earlier. My siblings were always supportive.
And always proud. I didn't give them enough credit as a teenager that they would be so supportive of me, but they were. They were Nobody was ever negative. And Given the chaotic lives we've had, I think they all did a really good job of keeping perspective themselves, and I applaud them. The worst thing I ever had to deal with was like people saying, Oh, you're Johnny Drama in Entourage.
You know, like they probably had to deal with, you know, oh, you're Donnie's brother, you're Donnie's sister, you're Mark's brother, you're Mark. It's like the barrage of them hearing that their whole lives. I'm sure it's a Struggle for them. Great sense of pride and a great sense of annoyance at times. But just for the record, I wasn't Johnny Drama was not based on me.
Okay, all right, okay. I was never part of Mark's entourage. He was part of mine, but I wasn't part of his. Good clarification. Just want to clarify.
Sorry.
Sorry, Mark. Why did Blue Bloods run so long? I mean, if it's popular, but why do you think Blue Bloods ran so long? Why it was so popular? Oh gosh, Blue Blood Success.
Can be attributed to a lot of things. I think. Again, like with so many successes, There is a lot that goes into it and sometimes part of it is luck. you know um You know, when it debuted on Friday nights at 10 o'clock. Everyone thought Okay, well, it's not going to last because nothing lasts at Friday nights at 10 o'clock.
It's going to be off the air and. A few weeks.
Well, it just so happened that the economy was crashing and there was people There was a thing going on. Like a cultural phenomenon of people deciding to stay in on the weekends and watch TV and have dinner at home again. You know, and suddenly I think there were more people available to watch it. And of course The family, you know, the the dinner scene. I think it just really resonated with people.
Um and when you were filming those dinner scenes. Did you ever think about your own family and How it was and wasn't like that. time I read when I read the script the pilot episode. Danny was arguing with his sister. at the table.
And I just pictured me and my teenage sister Tracy arguing. Not that we argued a lot, but You know, I knew that they loved each other a lot and they fought hard. And that was me and Tracy. And it felt so true to my childhood and my teenage years, not to my adult life, but I knew. That it resonated with me.
And there was this big brooding dad at the end of the table with a mustache. and a temper and uh you know one furrow of his brow could just send a chill down your back and uh That was my dad. And now it was going to be Tom. And when I read it, I just said, I love the character right out of the gate, but when I got to that dinner scene, I said, wow, this is my life. If I stayed amongst my siblings as a grown-up, this is exactly what we would have been like.
Yeah, it it hit home with me. And I wanted to be a part of it. And do police everywhere really come up to you? And um introduce themselves to thank you. Police.
all forms of law enforcement, firemen, Families. You name it. Yes. everywhere. It has touched so many people.
I can still get emotional about the show because I loved it so much. It's just uh You know, we think when When I say we, I mean me. I thought so many things throughout my whole life. I'm going to be in a band and it's going to be successful and this is what's going to happen. It's never what I thought was gonna happen.
You know, I'll be famous and I'll get a cool car and I'll drive down the street and people go, Oh, Dane. You know, I got successful. I got an okay car, and people said, Hey, you're a loser, your band stinks. You know, uh, But I got this legion of fans. who have grown up.
and are still part of my life, right? Blue Bloods, I thought, yeah, I'm gonna play this guy, and it's gonna be great, and you know, I'm gonna. get to kind of be this This Sort of hothead and get to do all these things as an actor. And we all have these plans in our life: what we're gonna, I'm gonna set out, I'm gonna accomplish this, and this is what's gonna happen, and it's never. Yeah.
I get out of my career things I never could have dreamed of. And the fans that I have that have been with me since they were kids, since I was a kid. Yeah. Who could have dreamed of such a thing? You know, the fans and the supporters of Blue Bloods.
Who could have dreamed that it would mean so much to so many families? That I meet people now and they say, My dad and I watched it, and the last thing he did before he passed away was watch an episode. Yeah, this is what I hear from people. It's Yeah, when I was a kid, I was broke and I was poor and I I wished I had a dollar and I could buy a video game console and do all these things. And None of that stuff matters now.
None of it is what has made my life rich. It's these people and these experiences that. It's just magical. Um You know, like, uh My fans will show up outside a set. People will say, Oh, your fans are outside.
Should we tell them to leave? I said, No. That's who watches our show. That's who who pays our bills. And also, they're the nicest people you're ever going to meet.
Go out and talk to them. You'll love them. And they do. And you have a reputation, it's kind of an old-fashioned thing, of really. taking care of the fans, responding to them, signing the autograph.
taking the picture. Why is it so important to you? Because my dad told me if I became successful and I changed, he'd kick my ass. And 14-year-old Donnie wouldn't do that. He would not walk past someone.
He wouldn't do it. This isn't just not. how I'm wired, it's not how my mother raised me. And It is the greatest accomplishment in my career, the relationship I have with my fans. There's no doubt.
Yes. Perhaps the greatest gift of my life. You know, they came from the band. They are still fans of the band, but they uh They're the constant through everything. You know, they're always there.
They were there. If I was on Where Were They Now?, which I would have dreaded, they would have watched it and made it the highest-rated episode ever. You know, they would have been like, that's our Donnie. You know, I told Jenny when I met Jenny I said, we do have to talk about one thing. And she was like, yeah, what?
And I was like, Yeah, my fans are really are a big part of my life. And she was like, yeah, of course. I said, no, no, no. They're part of my life and like I gotta know you're okay with that. And she was like, What do you mean?
I was like, if we pull up to a hotel and there are 100 fans outside, I gotta go take pictures. Like, I gotta stop and talk to them and say thank you and acknowledge them. I can't walk by. and not give them my time. She said, great, I'll stop and take pictures with you.
I said, that's my wife. There are two of us in this marriage plus a lot of fans. There are and you know the beauty of it is is she's come to understand it. You know, she's come to understand it and she knows. Uh Yeah, they're very, very important to me and to my wife and to my band and and Yeah, I remember people telling me as a kid, like Don't give your fans so much time.
Keep them wanting it. Keep it a mystery. Da da da da da da. It was like. Why?
Why? I know for a lot of people, like, coming or being successful in the social media age is tough. I don't know. I find it great. I was going to say in a way you were kind of ahead of the curve in your attitude.
For any strategic reasons, it just came instinctually to you. Yeah. When my band reunited in 2008, And when we walked out on stage for the first time, It was in the Air Canada Center in Toronto. It was the loudest thing I've ever heard. And I was in a band that had the loudest fans ever when we were kids.
This was louder. And it was different. It wasn't teenage girls screaming. It was adults. screaming.
reconnecting with a part of them that was gone. you know that uh they had to put aside. And they were able to feel Young and innocent and free and problem-free and stress-free again for that two hours. And why does it hit me so hard? It's because it's like.
All I'm doing. is building this concert in this tour For me and my bands.
So I can feel like I was on the stoop. on Christmas Eve again. Everything in my adulthood, everything in my career that is successful is. a direct reflection of What I did too. survive my childhood.
Right. You know, it's it just it's it's I'm literally, I look back. And I see the path. It's the most clear line. That I can see.
And I don't say it with any self-importance. I hope. It doesn't come across that way. Uh look at myself as being special or anything like that. It's just I'm really overwhelmed by at all.
That's amazing though, if people like what you do, and so many people do. It kind of started in that house in a way, right? I mean And it's all tied yeah, the pain and the light. We're kind of Sort of bound up. It did.
And every step along the way, it's like, I. The only right choice I made was just to keep leaning into The light, the light, yeah, yeah. Yeah, leaning into the choices that. would hopefully Lead me down the right path to find what it is that. I was meant to do, and that I love to do.
Like, I love doing everything I do. And again, it's like people say to me, Oh, gosh, you went from your tour straight to your show back to the tour. When do you sleep? What do you do? And then you do this, this, this, and that.
It's like, you want me to complain? Everything I ever wanted, I'm doing it in ways that I. could only have imagined and dreamed of. How can I complain? Yeah.
What is there to complain about? Um I'm just, I can't even believe it. I pinch myself and it. It doesn't make me complacent. It makes me want to work all that much harder.
I want to work harder. I want to be worthy of it. I want to be worthy of... The gift that so many people give me of their time. in their love, it's like how I ha how can I not work my ass off to repay that.
We have to. Yeah, the fans of Blue Bloods were pretty passionate, pretty devoted. They were. How are they going to respond to Boston Blue? I I don't know how they're gonna respond.
Um I can tell you how I'm responding and how I responded. Um You know, when blue bloods when we were told that it was ending, I didn't believe it. I denied it. I resisted it. I fought it.
And I encouraged Fans to fight it, the cast to fight it, and to do whatever we could to keep it going. And You know We couldn't keep it going. And um You know, I remember getting my team together and saying, let's compel the network. To give Blue Bloods another chance after it was off the air. And We got all this data and all these statistics, and we said, We're gonna call them and we're gonna get this show back on the air.
And they said, Yeah, it's not happening, it's not viable. You know, they're. The fans of Blue Bloods are very loyal. and many of them were devastated. I can assure all of them, nobody was more devastated than they can.
Was the show just too expensive? Yeah. Okay, I I think You know, it's And I say this with love and respect for the fans of the show. It's easy to say that the show should still be on the air. Of course, we all.
thought it should still be on the air. It's also very expensive. Suffered through two years of the expenses of COVID and the losses financially of that, and then a strike. And then another strike. The industry has changed.
it's changed and You know While Well, of course, we wanted the viewers to be happy and to have more blue bloods. And we know that they were. frustrated and and sad that it ended. But I can assure most fans out there that nobody cried more than us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um. It was a big loss for all of us. And it's not just the job. It's not just... Playing the part.
It's the crew. You know, we grew up, watched children of the crew members grow up before our eyes and go off to college and get married. And I mean, this was a massive endeavor. I didn't just work with Tom and Bridget and Will and Marissa. I worked with.
TJ and Kim. And the props department and the wardrobe department and Kevin Mark and all these people and the craft service folks. I mean, just hundreds of people. Who I no longer work with who, you know, um I Hoped. I'd watch them all retire as part of the show.
Yeah, but what was the secret ingredient from Blue Bloods that you. made sure is in Boston. After waiting around, hoping somebody was going to call and say, let's put blue bloods on this network or this streaming service or this, nothing happened. Um I finally got a call about Boston Blue. and the opportunity to Carry on with Danny Reagan.
And You know, I didn't jump at the opportunity. I took a beat because it was like, okay, I don't know. I love blue bloods. Like, I don't know if I can do this. Um And I read the script, and it was fantastic.
I saw opportunities. to to bring blue bloods to it. But to let it be its own thing, to let this world be its own world, to let. Boston be the home for this show to let these new characters flourish, but also to bring Danny and the Reagan family. and some of their values to it as well.
And suddenly it started to become this great opportunity. And suddenly, I started to see it in a way that, again, I didn't. Think of it. in the original in this context originally, I started to say, wait a minute. you know, the voice of You can't do a Blue Bloods spin-off all by yourself.
And it's not really a spin-off. You can't continue the Blue Bloods universe all by yourself, Donnie. You know, it's not what people expect. It's not what people wanted. And I said, but wait a minute.
I love Blue Bloods. I fought tooth and nail to keep it on the air, and here's an opportunity. To keep this character alive, which means I can keep the other characters alive, which means I can keep the world alive. And suddenly when I started to look at it through that lens, I was like, how do I not do this?
So suddenly it was like, okay, well there's A scene here at the end of the episode. What day of the week is that? Is it a Sunday? What would he be doing for dinner on this Sunday? And how do we do that?
And how do I tell that story now in keeping in the traditions of Blue Bloods? And suddenly I found these opportunities revealing themselves of how to. not keep it alive um In a way that someone else wanted to, but in a way that I could help. navigate and have A say-so in. And once I started to see it that way and and and do the work, In work, not just say, okay, I'm going to show up and play Danny.
It's like, no, no, you're going to show up in. deliver this show the absolute best that you can. To all those people who loved your show for years and new people who are gonna come watch this show, you're gonna deliver the absolute best thing that you can deliver for them. And Then it's up to them. But you're going to make it, you're going to do it.
You're going to work with this incredible team of writers and producers, and you're going to bring what you bring to the table, and you're going to make it as great as you can make it. It will be the opportunity to keep blue bloods alive. in a whole different form than you ever imagined. And If people love it, they love it. And if they don't...
Then I did my part to try to keep the universe alive and to keep a continuation of blue bloods going in some way. That's all I can control. And I think we've done a great job. I love the show. Um I love the cast that we have.
Great gas. I think we found something really special. And again, if it's not If all those millions of Blue Bloods fans don't show up and love it, then. I know we put our best foot forward, and that's all we can ever do. Right, is just do the best you can do.
And if it doesn't work, Then So be it. I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening. And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday Morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts.
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