advertisement

'Blue Bloods' honors family, police work

“Blue Bloods” reminds us what families should be about.

The CBS drama, finishing its freshman season as a hit Friday, May 13, features four generations of the close-knit Reagans. No matter what heinous crime is tearing apart New York — which this crime-fighting family will solve — on Sundays the clan gathers for an old-fashioned family meal.

“Dinner is one of the few times families can get together,” says Tom Selleck, who stars as Commissioner Frank Reagan.

“The family dinner usually results in an argument,” Selleck says. “Somebody storms off. Don't leave in the middle of a fight.”

Though the family dinners are set in Staten Island, New York's forgotten borough, these scenes are shot at a studio in an industrial corner of Brooklyn. The commissioner, very much in control at work and at home, presides at the head of the table.

There he talks with his dad, Henry (Len Cariou), the retired police commissioner; sons Danny and Jamie (Donnie Wahlberg, Will Estes); daughter Erin (Bridget Moynahan), an assistant district attorney; daughter-in-law Linda (Amy Carlson); and three grandchildren.

The dynamics between parent and child feel very real, as do the characters in general. These are cops, not saints.

“I always felt that we are playing heroes, especially since 9/11,” Selleck says.

Selleck is keenly aware of how large the attacks loom in the NYPD and asked for a photo of the World Trade Center for the commissioner's office.

He gives a lot of thought to his character, from his exterior — the commissioner's conservative look of a three-piece suit with a pin that former NYPD Commissioner William J. Bratton gave him — to his interior. In one episode, as Reagan prepares to honor a son killed in the line of duty, you can sense how much he misses his wife, who died five years earlier.

“Every day he orders people into harm's way,” Selleck says of his character. “In some way, he ordered his son into harm's way, and he didn't get out of it.”

That death hangs over the Reagans but doesn't define them. There is a tremendous strength there, evidenced in their jobs and in their personal lives.

As a hard-charging ADA, Erin tries to convict the bad guys her brothers nabbed.

“A lot of my work is figuring out my language, especially if it's a difficult case,” Moynahan says. “And the pieces that surround it are different every time.

“I love the show and love the family aspect,” she says. “It sets us apart from other cop shows. You get involved in the characters' lives and are touched in some ways that are not fulfilled on other shows.”

Those scenes, such as one in the living room where the grandfather teaches his rookie grandson Jamie how to twirl a nightstick, separate “Blue Bloods” from other procedurals. Still, this is a cop show, and the crimes have a definite New York feel to them. In an early episode, retired Commissioner Reagan meets one of his old sources, a mobster known as Happy Jack (guest star Dominic Chianese), in a market in the Bronx. This gives the show an authenticity that can't be found on a studio lot.

“I'm the guy who insisted we shoot in New York,” Selleck says.

The city is brought into the show, even at the Sunday dinners, when Henry serves cheesecake from Junior's. And it can be felt in the swagger of the cops.

Wahlberg instinctively gets this. He lives in an area in the city yet to be gentrified. Even when New Kids on the Block was the hottest band in the world, he was hanging out with pals in Co-Op City in the Bronx.

“I remember walking down Seventh Avenue in the mid-'80s,” Wahlberg says in his dressing room. “People were getting pickpocketed in the middle of the street. It was like watching ‘The French Connection.'”

He's done ride-alongs with cops and has played one before. Like Estes, who plays his younger brother, Wahlberg says he learns a lot from Selleck.

“Tom will talk about how he thinks Frank would have raised the kids,” Wahlberg says. “He will just say the truth about his character. I try to take elements of what he's saying and use it to inform my own choices.”

“The best way to work as an actor is from what you do know,” Estes says as Wahlberg's French bulldog trots over for petting. “Tom, in particular, comes so focused and ready and conveys so much fortitude and empathy at the same time. As strong as he is, there is a vulnerability.”

The commissioner isn't a superflashy role. “I like the challenges of showing the pressures of command,” Selleck says. “The difficulty of playing a leader is you can't show the pressure.”

One of the biggest compliments he receives is when cops greet him on the street with “ ‘Hey Tommy, “Blue Bloods” is a good show,'” Selleck says. Or with a salute.

The Reagans gather for Sunday dinner in “Blue Bloods,” a CBS drama focusing on a family of cops.

<b>“Blue Bloods”</b>

Airs at 9 p.m. Fridays on CBS