Vanessa Ray stars as Eddie Janko-Reagan in Blue Bloods. The series finale premieres tonight at 10 PM ET/PT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
CBS
“End of Tour” – It’s all hands on deck for the Reagan family, as they race to stop deadly mayhem in the city when the gangs of New York unite together to demand amnesty for the release of their imprisoned members and those awaiting trial.
I caught up with the actress over Zoom to discuss what fans can expect from Jamko, how life imitated art with Eddie’s current storyline, her final days of filming, and more. Keep reading for our last Blue Bloods conversation!
CBS
To start off, are you happy with the way the series ends?
Vanessa Ray: I would say, yes. I think that it really checks all the boxes of all the things that people love about the show. You get an epic family dinner, you get an epic storyline. My story is, you know, Kevin Wade came to us maybe episode eight of this season and said what was going to happen, and it was a real gut punch to me and the other person that is involved. At first, we were like, “Uh, I don’t know how we feel about this,” and then we read the script and it was so beautiful and so breathtaking. Knowing that everybody on board was like, “We are going to handle this with as much care as possible,” that was such… it was just such a special thing to get to do it in that way, we’re all just going to handle this so graciously, thoughtfully, and everything. So, I don’t know, I’m not happy that it’s ended, but on the other hand, I feel like we left no crumbs. We left nothing else, you know?
That’s the important part. Is there anything you can tease, maybe regarding Eddie and Jamie? You already know I’m such a big shipper of those two, I want their happy ending.
Well, I think if you were paying attention, which I think everybody always is, there have been some shifts in where they feel like their family can go. For such a long time, Eddie was just like, ‘I don’t think I can bring a child into this world, knowing the dangerous job that we both have,’ and even just the Reagan family, in the broader sense, so much heartache, so much devastating death and things have happened to their family. So for years, I don’t know that Eddie was like, ‘I’d really thought this through,’ but then when she married into the family, she was like, ‘I don’t think I could bring another Reagan into this family.’ And so, things started to really shift in this last season. We got to explore a lot of things and I don’t know if that’s art imitating life, I became a mother this year. I don’t know if it was any of that.
Michael Parmelee/CBS
Congratulations, all the pictures are just killing me. He’s so cute.
Thank you. I mean, he’s just… the cutest baby in the world and I’m so lucky that everybody on the show was so excited for him and so excited to meet him, offering to babysit and bringing clothes and toys. I mean, all the things and being able to bring him to set with me all the time. So, like I said, I don’t know if it’s art imitating life or if it was just truly the right time for Eddie’s storyline to move where she was just like, ‘No, actually, I think a lot of my hang-ups were a bit more about my own family,’ less about the Reagan family, more about her own family. And so, being able to kind of shed some of that stuff and get rid of some of that stuff has opened up a space for them to perhaps expand.
I said it last time with you and Will, I’ve been waiting for it. We’re all waiting. I love what you said about life imitating art, because I feel like that’s such a big theme, not only for actors, but I also see it when I watch shows myself. That’s why I love TV the way that I do and I imagine that was a really nice thing for you to portray. Can you tell me a little bit about approaching that kind of shift and seeing her grow in that way? It’s not that she has to have a baby, she does not have to become a mother but I think it’s really beautiful that she could come to that conclusion because she married someone she loves and she is in a family now that is so loving.
Yeah, exactly. She didn’t have to, there was no [pressure]. Of course, us as fans, were like, there’s pressure but within the story, there was never pressure, which is also such a very cool thing, because that’s very rare in a family, right? As we know, families are like, “I want a grandchild, you’ve been together this long,” all those things. They never put that on her and I think that it makes sense the natural progression of her giving her life to maybe right some wrongs in her family, like her father was definitely a criminal and so, her going into law enforcement was to sort of right that wrong and then it was like, that can only take her so far. Then, allowing herself to find love, love someone, and be loved by them, that was a huge healing part of it. The next part of it is then, she’s in this family where they can have conflict and they can also embrace one another. There’s never love lost, they might have conflict, but there’s never love lost and that security, and then the multiple times where she’s been faced with helping a child or something like that.
Michael Parmelee/CBS
It always gets me.
It always gets me, oh my gosh. The season opener of 14, that little girl was so beautiful and so incredible. She was such a great actress and to get to do that storyline, I think that that cracked open Eddie’s entire life where she was like, ‘Okay, I literally can see this child in our home, I can see what they need and it’s very simple.’ She doesn’t have to preach to this child, she just needs to love her, she needs to tuck her into bed, she needs to keep her safe, and who better to keep her safe than the Reagan family?
What a beautiful connection to make on the job as well, especially a job that can be so challenging and dark.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, because for sure, the job that real law enforcement officers do is they’re putting their hands on tragedy all the time. They are running toward danger. They’re not the people that get to stand on the sidelines and so, who better to keep you safe? Who better to stand up and fight for you than that family? So I think that really cracked open a lot in her and made her recognize that things don’t have to be perfect but things will be perfect for you and the writers have just done such a good job of that. I mean, and then again, like I said, art and imitating life, in my life, I’ve talked to Kevin Wade, Siobhan Byrne-O’Connor, and everybody so much about like, ‘Oh, do I want to have kids? No, I don’t want to have kids. I don’t know, my career is so up and down. There’s never stability. There’s never this, there’s never that,’ and all of those things.
Michael Parmelee/CBS
Then, kind of seeing how everybody on my show has maneuvered and managed it, and realizing that even if the show were to end, I still have the support of all of these people. They’re pillars in my life now, they’re not going anywhere. That was sort of a big part of it, realizing that Bridget’s not going anywhere, Marisa’s not going anywhere, Donnie’s not going anywhere, Will’s not going anywhere. These people are going to be in my life and supportive of me, whether it’s my career, it’s my child, or my family, whatever it is. So I think that merging those two ideas, still getting to play Eddie at that time where I had sort of accepted that, I was reading those scripts and being like, ‘Oh, I just love that she’s seeing it. She’s getting it! She’s getting it,’ you know?
I imagine that the final day or filming that last scene was just beyond emotional. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience, anything you would like to share?
Well, something happened before, a few days prior, we did the family dinner. It was our final family dinner and that was… I mean, we finished the scene, Shep said, “Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a wrap on family dinner. That’s our final family dinner,” and we all didn’t move. That never happens. Everyone’s like, “Okay, great,” and we’re going to the next scene, whatever. Nobody can move. Everyone was like, ‘I don’t want to get up. I don’t know what to do.’ Peter Hermann said something, then Tom gave a beautiful poem, and Donnie said something. Then, he looked at me and he’s like, “Vanessa, you got to go,” and I was like, “I don’t want to talk,” and then, I poured my heart out. We all just kind of went around the table, just thanked everybody and all the things. So, after that family dinner, me, Donnie, and Marisa went back to Marisa’s dressing room and just sat and cried for an hour, talking to each other and saying all the things. It was like we were at the last day of summer camp, sitting and being like, ‘And you’re this to me,’ and ‘You’re profound at this,’ just a love fest, right? So, I thought the next couple of days, we did the big thing, I got it out of my system.
Michael Parmelee/CBS
But the last day, I felt like I was a dead man walking, going onto the set, and in the studio that we were at, we’re not always there very often, so it wasn’t a massive touchstone or something, I got to do my last scene with Donnie and Marisa, the very final one. On the one hand, I was like, ‘This is the saddest thing in the world,’ and on the other hand, I was like, ‘Thank God I’m being held by the two of them,’ because when Will and I did our final scene together, which was the episode that came out last week, both of us looked at each other and he goes, “I think that’s the last time just you and I are in a scene together.” I went, “No, it’s not,” and he goes, “I think it is, Ness.” He started crying and I was like, “That’s the last time for you and me? That’s the last you and me scene?” We were hugging, you know, all the things. So, it was good that it was with Donnie and Marisa because they still had the rest of the day to do. We do the scene and then it was the same thing where like, Shep goes, “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get everybody out here.” I looked at him and I go, “No. No, no, no, no,” he goes, “We’re doing it,” and I go, “Please don’t say it. Don’t say it.” He goes, “I’m going to say it,” we all held hands, and he goes, “Ladies and gentlemen, that is a wrap on Eddie Janko,” and I was like, “Oh, no.”
I want you to know I’ve never cried on camera in an interview and I’m actually crying right now. Please tell Will he made me cry.
I know, for Will to be like, “Hey, that’s it,” I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to.’ So when he said that’s a wrap, then I was like, I mean, I couldn’t believe the emotions that poured out of me at that moment. I was just so scared and I don’t know, I keep saying I’m scared because I was like, how do you bottle [this] up, I’m so scared I’ll forget every single face that was there, but even right now, as I’m talking about it, I see every face. There are people in that room who truly saved my life, they saved my life in a thousand ways. Then, you know, everyone was like, “Speech!” I don’t know what I’m gonna say and so, I couldn’t look at anybody, I was like, “I can’t, I don’t know. How about I just sing?” Everyone laughed and so, I sang from Toy Story, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” I was like, “You got a friend in me,” and I’m crying but was like, “I love you guys so much and you just better come my way.” So I sang, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” and then that was it, we got ready for the party that night. I still cannot believe that it is over and that it happened. I just can’t, it’s been very strange. I talked to Bridget an hour ago and she was like, “We haven’t been working since June,” and I was like, “It’s been since June?! No, it feels like it happened five minutes ago.” And she’s like, “No, it’s been since June. So let’s get [going,],” she was giving me a classic Bridget pep talk, she always knows the exact right thing to say. She always knows exactly when to call me and exactly all the things but she was like, “It’s been a minute,” and I’m like, I can’t believe… it feels like it’s still in my body in a way, you know? Weird.
