Despite food and meals being such a regular and necessary part of everyday life, not a lot of TV shows make the choice to regularly have characters sitting down for a daily or nightly meal, outside of special occasions, such as weddings or holidays. But I dare say Blue Bloods fans would unite for a rampage if the long-running CBS drama’s creative team ever decided to reverse course and excise scenes held around the Reagan family dinner table. Those dinners are as much a Friday night institution as high school football, and many fans have wondered over the years if Tom Selleck, Donnie Wahlberg and other stars are actually eating the food.
Considering Blue Bloods has been on the air since 2010, it’s understandable that actors’ habits can change over time, and that such behaviors aren’t completely universal. Especially if one cast member or another happens to be feeling more peckish than usual while filming. But in the same respect, filming those scenes for so many years can make it easier to fall back on adapted habits, even with changes made to the prop silverware and beyond. So let’s take a look at what Selleck and others have said about whether or not they’re genuinely munching down in the Reagan household.
Tom Selleck
It's hard to think of a bigger bonafide TV star than Tom Selleck, whose past small screen hits include Magnum P.I. and Friends. So he's fully versed in the ins and outs of filming schedules and how big group scenes can require a bigger effort to bring together. That process gets all the more complicated when food enters the mix, because then continuity issues are at play, at least for those who do choose to take a few calories in. When it comes to sitting at the head of the Blue Bloods table as Frank Reagan, Selleck told CBS 58 that the scenes are a welcome part of the process, but maybe not all the elements involved. In his words:
We embrace family dinner, the only problem is it takes 6 to 8 hours and you have to just keep eating the same old food.
Not to mention all the B.S. Frank has to swallow from his Pop. That's a meal in and of itself, amirite?
It was Tom Selleck's co-star Donnie Wahlberg who revealed the tricks of the trade that the Emmy-winning thespian has utilized over time. Here's how Wahlberg put it in an interview with HuffPost:
Everyone has a technique for looking active at the dinner table. I'm learning. The next show I do, or the next movie I do, if I have to eat, I'm going to use Tom's trick. Tom picks up a roll or bread and butters it. So during all of his lines, he's just like this [pretends to be buttering bread] so he looks like he's having dinner.
It's definitely something for viewers to look out for, whether one is watching early seasons or those airing in more recent years. Not that Selleck always goes straight to bread-buttering, but there's probably a drinking game out there somewhere that ties into Frank's dinner patterns.
Bridget Moynahan
The apple doesn't always fall far from the tree when it comes to real-world DNA, but Tom Selleck's fictional offspring Bridget Moynahan doesn't seem to have picked up on what Frank was laying out there with his bun preparation. And the way she put it to People, audiences should be able to visually track what era the show is in, based on what makes it into Erin's mouth. In Moynahan's words:
I think the first couple of seasons I didn’t eat anything, and then I moved into mashed potatoes, which was really bad. So for a few years there, I was eating too many mashed potatoes for four hours. Now, I’ve moved to the cucumbers.
Cucumbers are a known favorite for certain actors during scenes where characters are eating. The snap and crunch is pretty perfect for on-camera chewing, and it's a light enough snack that one doesn't need to worry about packing on the pounds just from filming.
In the same interview, Bridget Moynahan spoke to why Blue Bloods' dinner scenes have remained such a vital part of the CBS drama from one season to the next, saying:
With the older generation, it kind of brings back the memories of when they used to do that. And with the younger generation, [they’re] kind of yearning for that. So it’s hitting everyone I think.
Granted, we're here for the arguing and snapbacks far more than any meal-planning tips. That notion likely speaks to multiple generations, too, since family spats are as universal as family meals themselves. Well, maybe not for everyone.
One doesn't really need a large number of randomized Blue Bloods episodes to stumble across glaring evidence that Donnie Wahlberg is indeed the kind of TV actor who will go hard on eating whatever's in front of him. Not so much because he's constantly starving, but because he knows that's how his character Danny Reagan would handle convos at the dinner table. Here's how Wahlberg explained it to TV Insider:
Danny probably eats the most because Donnie’s the hungriest. Seriously though, Danny is kind of a bull in a china shop. The best way to play that at dinner is to talk a lot with his mouth full.
I mean, there's probably something to be said about the actors legitimately feeding themselves whenever hunger genuinely seeps in, even if the food used for filming is rarely pipin' hot or fresh. Which again is what makes cucumbers and other fruits and veggies a good choice, while saucy meatball subs are not.
Considering how many times the camera cuts away just as actors are bringing forks, spoons and glasses to their mouths — as well as how many times scenes cut to actors in mid-chew — there's always a challenge when it comes to guessing which of the main cast members are really in dinner mode. Making things even harder? Blue Bloods propmaster Jim Lillis told The Virginian Pilot that there's a bit of authentic consuming going on regularly. In his words:
All the actors eat to varying degrees. Some are good at faking it. They are very good at making it look like they're really enjoying a hearty dinner.
Millions and millions of Blue Bloods fans would agree. Maybe not enough cream pies on hand for dessert, and thus not enough cream pie fights, but such is the nature of network dramas.
Perhaps the most surprising piece of insight that Jim Lillis offered up is the fact that the Reagan family dinners aren't actually filmed in the early evening, and that the scenes are usually the first ones shot on their respective days, which start around 9 a.m. So in case everyone suddenly starts having waffles, omelets and bacon for dinners in the previously renewed Season 14 and beyond, the filming schedule probably has something to do with it.
At this point, Season 14 is still a ways off, and won't be hitting CBS' primetime schedule until some point in 2024. In the meantime, head to our 2023 TV premiere rundown to see what new and returning shows are popping up soon.
