Boston Blue‘s Sonequa Martin-Green has the perfect role for Donnie Wahlberg‘s wife, Jenny McCarthy.
“I’m always texting with Jenny and Donnie’s always texting with [my husband] Kenric [Green]. So we have this really interesting four part friendship going on, which is growing and it’s really sweet,” Martin-Green exclusively told Us Weekly. “But we talk about Jenny coming on the show all the time.”
Martin-Green, who plays Lena on the hit police procedural, pointed out that McCarthy would have to be cast as someone that “we could see often.”
“Somebody that we have to go see. Maybe she works in the lab? And we incorporate somebody who can actually be a face for the lab for us,” she added. “So we have to go there all the time.”
While the actress “wouldn’t want” McCarthy to be a doctor, since that would limit her screen time, Us suggested a hospital setting that could inspire a spinoff. Martin-Green immediately jumped at the possibility, suggesting a setup for another show in the Blue Bloods franchise: Boston General.
Blue Bloods, which aired from 2010 to 2024, followed the lives of the Reagan family, many of whom work for the NYPD under the leadership of NYC police commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck). Frank’s father, Henry Reagan (Len Cariou), was also central to the show, alongside Frank’s children: daughter Erin Reagan (Bridget Moynahan) and sons Danny (Wahlberg) and Jamie Reagan (Will Estes).
After Blue Bloods came to an end, CBS announced a spinoff titled Boston Blue following Wahlberg’s character after he accepted a position with the Boston P.D. He is then paired with detective Lena (Martin-Green), the eldest daughter of a prominent law enforcement family.
“What a journey I take as Lena Silver. There’s some threads of it at the beginning of the season [and] you’ll start to see us delving into some really serious things,” Martin-Green teased of what is still to come.
Martin-Green warned that there “were difficult stories to tell.”
“I applaud Brandon Sonnier — our coshowrunner — because the Silver family is based on his own family. There are a lot of dynamics in Lena’s life that are based on his life,” she continued. “So this is real and this is authentic. This is his experience. So I am just so excited for people to see it because it’s rough. It’s rough stuff that Lena is about to go through for the rest of the season.”
Martin-Green also reflected on Boston Blue‘s success, telling Us, “We’re standing on the shoulders of Blue Bloods and there’s so many amazing characters and relationships. I don’t take that lightly.”
Looking ahead, Martin-Green is excited about where the show goes from here.
“I just can’t stress enough how grateful I am to be telling a character-driven story in a procedural format. I couldn’t have imagined and I really appreciate it. We cover a lot and a lot goes down by the end of the season,” she told Us. “There are a lot of things that are open-ended. There are so many questions and so many things have been introduced. Things are so big in the second half of the season that I feel like we’re going to see the undoing of all of those things — or the coming together of all of those things — for episodes and episodes to come.
Martin-Green is also starring in Rick Gomez‘s directorial debut She Dances, which follows a struggling father who attempts to reconnect with his daughter while serving as her chaperone at a dance competition. Steve Zahn, Ethan Hawke, Mackenzie Ziegler, Rosemarie DeWitt and Audrey Zahn make up the rest of the cast of the movie, which is out now.
Boston Blue airs on CBS Fridays at 10 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Paramount+.
