It’s been a minute since fans have seen Will Estes on their TV screens — and it wasn’t exactly easy slipping back into his Blue Bloods character Jamie Reagan’s shoes for his Boston Blue cameo.
“What was the most complicated part? Just getting to set for me,” Estes, 48, exclusively tells Us of his return to TV for the upcoming Friday, November 6, episode of Boston Blue.
“That was the hardest part for me. Getting to Boston, you know, getting to Toronto,” the actor confesses, “It was a heavy lift for me getting back to work. I was like, ‘I gotta eat a lot of dark chocolate. Make sure I can do this right.’”
Estes adds, “But that was just to put on Jamie Reagan. I just hadn’t done it for a second, so I was really worried about it until we shot the first scene.”
Estes portrayed the youngest Reagan sibling for 14 seasons on Blue Bloods. The series centered around the Reagan family, all of whom are police officers except for their sister, Erin Reagan (Bridget Moynahan), who was an Assistant District Attorney (ADA).
When the CBS series ended in 2024, Estes pressed pause on acting before his former TV brother Donnie Wahlberg, who played Danny Reagan on the OG show, enlisted him to reprise his role on the spinoff Boston Blue. (Boston Blue follows Danny after he moves to Boston to help his son achieve his dream of becoming a cop — following in their family’s footsteps in a new city.)
Estes jokes that “Donnie’s no help whatsoever” when it came to settling his nerves on set, revealing, “He is super helpful in a lot of other ways.”
He shares that “just showing up and doing it” is what got him back into the groove.
While Estes was the new kid on the block on the spinoff, he is just one of the guys among his former Blue Bloods costars.
“There’s no group chat, but yeah, absolutely, I’m good friends with a lot of the people that I worked with,” Estes shares. “I’m close with Marisa [Ramirez], who’s on Boston Blue. I’m close with James Nuciforo, who was part of Frank Reagan’s [played by Tom Selleck] security detail, and also the technical advisor on the show.”
He says he’s also “close” with his former TV wife, Vanessa Ray, who played Eddie Jenko.
“I’m close with Len [Cariou, who played grandpa Henry Reagan],” Estes continues. “I don’t talk to Len on a regular basis, but he’s one of my favorite people on the planet.”
Estes reveals, “I spoke to Tom not that long ago, so I’m close with Robert Clohessy and Steve Schirripa. … I haven’t talked to those guys just recently, but — we spend so much time together.”
When it comes to what Jamie has been up to since viewers last saw him, Estes teases, “[Eating] a lot of cereal, [watching] a lot of TV.”
“No, you know, after Blue Bloods, I took a little break personally, so I haven’t been thinking about what Jamie’s been doing,” he admits. “But he’s a lieutenant now, so he’s obviously been busy, a lot busier than me.”
During Friday’s episode, Jamie arrives in Boston from New York — where he and the rest of the Reagans still live — for a conference. While there, he butts heads with his big brother, who recently made sergeant, but they are forced to work together when a case unfolds in front of their eyes following a Boston Duck Tour.
“This episode starts with a lot of tension, but there’s huge, huge resolution in this episode as well,” Estes tells Us. “There’s always been a sort of persistent tension between the two characters. I thought maybe we would resolve it years ago on Blue Bloods, and it was sort of you know it wasn’t something that ever got turned around and and like truly faced. And in this episode we do.”
Danny’s move to Boston appears to be just what the two brothers need to confront their issues once and for all.
“It’s cool. It was fun. It was cathartic. The writing felt spot on, and we just sort of fell right into it,” Estes teases.
Boston Blue airs on CBS Fridays at 10 p.m. ET.
