April 1, 2024 • 47 mins
Actor and singer Donnie Wahlberg joins Emily & Haley to discuss getting a curtain call while performing in a prison, having his teeth smashed in with a hockey stick, and his dream to explore the country in a tour bus. We chat about Donnie's 'The Masked Singer' cameo, his role as Lieutenant Liption in HBO's 'Band of Brothers,' and his willingness to transform into a merman for an acting role should the opportunity present itself. So buckle up on the Wahl-bus, grow a 'Castaway' beard, and see what a tumbleweed looks like up close in Chapter 8 of 'How To Make It With Emily & Haley'.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Emily and I'm Hayley. After meeting online, we became international
best friends who bonded over how hardit is to find success in the entertainment
industry. Join us and ourur celebrityco authors as they help us write the
book on how to make it and, more importantly, uncover what making it
(00:22):
even means. You know, sayingwe met online sounds a lot sexier than
it actually is. Emily, youdon't think it's clear we met on a
networking site? No, I thinkit sounds very much like I swiped right
on you, my friend. Wouldyou like to meet a British person online
site? We're going to have todo this again now, aren't we.
Yes. Hi, my name isDonnie Wahlberg, and I wanted to be
(00:52):
a member of a very successful boyband when I grew up, and an
actor and you know, on ashow, on a show kind of like
Streets of San Francisco or Hill StreetBlues, or if all that failed,
a baseball player in the major leagues, and if all that failed, maybe
(01:15):
a bus driver. Wow, abus driver? Yeah? This drive a
bus? Okay, Okay, Well, I wasn't going to college. College,
was never going to be in theequation, so I could probably drive
a bus, and I like todrive. I always felt bush driving be
quite interesting, get around meets people. Not in a major city that would
(01:37):
be that would be scary, Ithink, Well, I didn't say which
type of bus. School bus,could have been, a public transit bus,
could have been a Greyhound bus coastto coast action. I don't know.
Well, when you retire. Myparents live in Florida, and there
are retired people who drive little golfcart buses to transport people to and from
(01:57):
the beach. That always sounded niceto me. Yeah, I think maybe
a win a Bago or a tourbus that I actually drive. I'd like
to retour the country one time onmy own in a tour bus and see
all the things, like stop andtake in all the things that I never
get to stop and take in becausewe're always just yeah, moving in and
out, quickly turning around. Andusually when we get to a place it's
(02:23):
a lot of fans. It's,you know, we give them the time
instead of yeah, I don't takethe time to like go sight seeing.
I just go meet hundreds of fansand take pictures at the hotel lobby or
whatever, like I'm there for themanyway. I'll go back and see the
sights. Yeah, when I'm retired, they'll always be there. Yeah,
yeah, the sites will be there, the fans. You know, I
(02:44):
got to give back, got togive back. Oh that's very nice.
Gotta do it. Tony is sorare as well. It's so rare.
Yeah, you could have been drivinga bus right now, but you're not
talking to us, a babe,you know, I would have been okay
driving a bus. I think Ithink. I think acting and being in
The New Kids is kept me young. It's one thing in the band we
(03:06):
do. And we're not a bandthat really goes out and does a lot
of work. Like we work out, we stay healthy, we eat well,
but guys aren't getting you know,I got jowls and stuff. I
have some makeup on from Blue Blood, so I probably look a little smoother
than usual. But well, nothing'shappening here. But we always have conversations
like we'll say, like, whatdo you think we would look like if
(03:28):
we didn't become successful, Because thereis a certain thing, like we're still
performing. We have to stay inshape, we have to eat good,
and we're like, oh man,I'm going to be on stage every night.
There's clips like you could see starswhen I was a little kid,
the stars ages and like people whoare like forty years old look like an
eighty year old, Like people usedto age so much more. And it
(03:52):
could be all the preservatives in thefood. It could be a bunch of
stuff. But we always have thisrunning thing like what do you think we
would look like if we never gotfamous? Because see, people talk about
my teeth a lot, and they'renice, but they are. But what
people don't know is I did havework done on my teeth because when I
was in the sixth grade, myolder brother Bob, smashed me in the
(04:14):
mouth with a hockey stick, andso until tenth grade, I had half
teeth. They were all half teeth. Oh my god. So I literally
like, my mouth is crooked becauseI talked in the hole where the half
teeth were. I would whistle,See that's crooked. So I developed all
these things, like with the holein my mind, with the hole of
(04:35):
my teeth. So when I couldfinally get my teeth repaired, we couldn't
afford a dentist, but there wasa community dentist who would fix them.
Basically for free. You just hadto accept that it was free work and
it wasn't really going to be anygood. There was no reality shows where
like you can get a makeover likeon a Nicky Lake or something, right,
(04:55):
we didn't have that right. Therewas no you get a car and
you get a car on open,none of that. So I went to
the free dentist and over the courseof a year he root canaled all my
front teeth and put all my cementcement in my gums and steel posts so
every time a light would be onyou could see the gray posts. So
pictures from all through my early newkids' days, all through my life there
(05:20):
was always like this gray teeth andthis really bad veneer job on my broken
teeth, which made me sometimes wishI just kept my broken teeth. I
think it was during COVID I couldn'tgo anywhere. I was like, this
would be a good time to getthis steel and concrete out of my face
and give myself a smile that looksgood. So he had to. I
had to get surgery and do allthat. But if I hadn't gotten it,
(05:43):
those teeth were real. They werealso crooked, and the replacement teeth
were crooked. Wow. But Idon't even know if I would have been
motivated to fix those up a littlebit if I couldn't afford it. Right,
So it's like, so I thinkabout, like, where would I
be, what would my teeth belike? Whatever I ever even got my
teeth fixed? I was starting aboy band. I knew I needed some
teeth, so I went to thefree dentist and got the whatever I could
(06:06):
possibly get. So we have athing that was a really long story to
get back to the point of wedo talk a lot about what would we
be like, where would we bein our lives if we hadn't formed this
band to become successful. I don'tknow. I think you've got I don't
know, man, I don't know. Man. Also, I didn't think
the thing I would have in commonwith you, Donny Wahlberg, is the
(06:29):
whole teeth story, because I prettymuch got the same story as you with
a hockey stick by your brother.Not with a hockey stick, but my
bike when I was about eleven,and I broke them all and then I
had a budge job after budge job, and then during COVID, I was
like, right, that's it gettingfixed. Yeah, well, in and
I'm not in a boy band.I don't know if you know you're not
(06:50):
in a boy band, so Ithink you would have done it anyway,
Donny. Well, not to breakup the teeth party, but Donnie,
we would like to bring up torandom facts about our guests. And I'm
really excited about mine because I'm areally big fan of the Masked Singer.
Okay, and you were on theMasked Singer sort of, well you were.
(07:14):
You were on stage in a costyou want a mass singer. I
liked. I liked it, youknow, I like to hold on to
my my Uh. I'm a littleI'm a little stuck up about it.
I wasn't competing on the mask Singer. I was a surprise guest, yes,
which in my book, I wouldkill to be a surprise guest on
The mask Singer. So I'm wonderingwhat that experience was like for you.
(07:36):
It was. It was tough.It was tough. So I really had
to Jenny, And I don't listento like criticisms. If I go in
my Instagram and there are ten thousandcomments and there's two bad ones, there's
they're good ones to me. Idon't even care. It doesn't bother me.
So we just we just Everything isokay. People's opinions are their opinions.
(07:56):
It's it's fine, and I respectthem all as long as they're not
hurt anyone. It's fine. Saywhat you want. In terms of how
it relates to me. I don'tcare. But a lot of people think,
how could she not know? Howcould she not know? Oh the
things I had to do to foolher. Every night she calls me from
the panel when they're taping, rightbefore they're about to roll, and she'll
(08:18):
FaceTime me and oh, no,well, I know Robin and Nicole really
well, and now I know Kenas well. But I knew Robin and
Nicole before I knew Jenny. Iknow them for years. So she'd be
like, oh, say hi,and so Robin will say hi, and
then Nicole go, oh, dote, so we all talk. So I
brought Blue Blood's clothes to LA withme. I flew overnight while Jenny was
(08:39):
asleep, I brought my blood.I was in the dressing room in my
suit at Mass singing. Yeah,so in her mind she might have thought
that's my husband singing. But Ijust talked to her as Danny Reagan.
Yeah, right, And I'd beentelling her for a week, like I
gotta work this day, and Igotta work that day, and da dah.
So I'm sure she said that soundslike my husband, but in ordinarily
(09:03):
she would say it can't be.Well, she would say she always references
me on the show, and Ithink they told her after a while,
you can't guess Donnie Wahlberg every time, because she'd be like, I think
you know that's my husband, orthat's someone in my husband's band. My
name always comes up on the show, and I think they said tone it
down on guessing it's Donnie to theother panelists and your husband. So that
(09:24):
combined with me literally just talking tothem as Danny Reagan, just they didn't
know I loved it. Where theyall might have thought that could be Donnie,
they just talked to me thinking I'min New York. I thoroughly enjoyed
it. But I also one thingthat happened. Yeah, yeah. The
costume was really heavy, very difficultto perform in. I only rehearsed in
(09:46):
it the day of, so therewas no try on the suit. The
first thing I did was rehearsing itand then back produce other things. So
the first step I took in theperformance, well, I can't really show
you here, but literally, ifanyone watches the performance, the first step
I took with my right leg theclaws, the talons whatever they were,
(10:07):
the chicken claws, I took astep and my whole right calf just went,
it just popped, and I waslike, oh, but I have
to sing and I had to keepgoing, and I'm like, oh man,
I'm like trying to do all thischoreography with the dancers and stuff.
It hurt so bad, and ifI didn't have on the mask, people
definitely would have saw that I washurting because I'm not good enough to be
(10:30):
like. It was brutal and itwas tough. Like Jenny's told me,
some of the people who perform arehaving panic attacks and their costumes and stuff
like that. And I didn't havea panic attack, but I definitely was
freaked out. It's hard to breathe, it's hard to carry it around,
it's hard to perform in it.And I only had to do it once
(10:52):
and I didn't have to like doit a bunch of times. You know
what, I mean like, Iwasn't practicing all day and doing all this.
I just came in, did aquick rehearsal at a day and studio
in my street clothes, put onthe costume, and it was like,
let's go. It was brutal.Well, I can cross being on the
mass singer off my list of thingsto do. Now, Yeah, that
doesn't sound like something you'll coat with. Well, we're starting to have non
(11:13):
costume guests, so you can dothat. Oh what if I just wore
like a COVID mask and that wasmy Maybe I don't know, I don't
know. It always just seemed funto me, all right. AnyWho.
My fact is I've loved to youguys for a really long time. We
(11:33):
didn't have a lot of money growingup, so I couldn't afford the proper
new Kids on the Block merchandise.But we used to go to the local
market and they sold some wall calendars, but they were a year out of
date, so I had nineteen ninetyone when it was really nineteen ninety two
on my wall. But it wasfine because you were all there. So
it excites me massively that new Kidson the Block are going on tour again.
(11:56):
Excites me as well. Tell usabout it. What's happening? Well,
I love your calendar story. Yetanother thing we have in common.
Really, Well, I have abook. It's a daily sort of book,
but it was for a specific year. But I love the book so
much. I keep it by mybedside, And even though it's the wrong
year, I still look at theday, so it might say h Wednesday
(12:20):
October ninth, but it's actually twoyears later and it's now Friday October ninth.
But I don't care. I stillI love the book so much,
so I every day I look atthe page I'm supposed to read, and
I read it and I love it. And it's completely off cycle, but
I don't care. One day it'llmatch up again. Oh yeah, that's
true. Yeah, I'm about I'mabout eighty. It'll match up, and
I'll think of you. Yeah,I'll think of You's calendar must have matched
(12:43):
up at some point. It musthave matched up again. Yeah, man,
it must have done. Yeah.Well, back to the tour,
the tour. Yeah, we're goingon tour again. It's the Magic Summer
Tour twenty twenty four. So eventhough you've been a long time fan,
you maybe we never did a MagicSummer Tour alver in the UK. This
(13:05):
was a US thing, yea,And so we're great, we're doing a
we're reimagining the Magic Summer Tour withoutthe magic. The magic will be the
fact that we're all still here doingthis thirty four years later, and and
we're still hanging in there and havinga good time and still indulging and living
like kids. There's a I think, as you know, going back to
what we were saying earlier, Ireally do think this keeps us young.
(13:28):
I think not just us when Isay us, most times when I say
us in terms of new kids,I mean us and our fans collectively.
I think it it keeps all ofus young. The fans a lot of
times they'll say things like, yeah, you guys are like just the cherry
on top. I'm road tripping withmy girls to go to six concerts.
We're gonna go have fun, andyou guys are just kind of the thing
that brought us together. But we'regood. You don't have to worry about
(13:52):
taking pictures with us, like we'reWe're gonna just be friends and do the
things that we can't do anymore atthat we did in high school, but
our parents drove us. Now wecould drive ourselves. Now we could do
all this cool stuff, and theytake their kids along, and how the
husbands are coming along. It's justturned into this I don't know what the
right word is, but this renaissancemaybe is the word. It's just this
(14:13):
magical, magic summer. It's thismagical thing where we come out, we
go on tour, and everybody justkind of let's go and lets themselves have
a good time. And I thinkwith the pressures that so many of us
have, and so many people havewith work and unemployment and the challenges that
so many face nowadays, it's justit's I take pride in the fact that
(14:35):
we can be an escape, thatwe can be comfort food, if you
will, for so many people whoneed it, and so many fans who
had to let go of what theylove a lot. Yeah, when we
grow up and we get more responsibilities, we kind of have to put sometimes
the things that we're passionate about onthe back burner. And I think somehow
(14:56):
the new kids have come back andallowed people to say, wait a minute,
my happiness is important too, whenin fact, in reality, each
one of our individual happiness and selflove is the most important thing. Yeah
right, It's like the oxygen maskon an airplane. But if you can't
love yourself and feel good and behappy with your life, how are you
going to really provide that for anyoneelse or help someone else find that for
(15:18):
themselves? Right? You know we'reperformers where artists. We're entertainers. I'm
an actor. You know, wedo other things. Jonathan has a phenomenal
bunch of unscripted shows where he doesmakeovers, renovations and stuff. But if
our legacy is that we provided aspace for people to be happy and feel
young again, that's a legacy I'mproud to be a part of. I
(15:48):
wanted to talk to you about Bandof Brothers because I think you are outstanding
in that. Donnie, thank you. And just a creaky table. Sorry,
this table is really creaky. Sorrycan you hear the creaky table?
Oh? Is it okay? Sorry? I'm trying to stay stick. You've
got a little creaky table. Soexcited. Yeah, I'd really like to
(16:11):
speak to you about your role ofLipton and the responsibility of playing a real
life person on screen and working withhim as well. I know you called
a lot and such like, whatwas that? Like? I did call
a lot. I spoke to himpretty much every day. The whole experience
was phenomenal. I lived in Londonfree year, which was amazing. One
(16:37):
of the few times I actually gotto really indulge in a place and really
get to spend a lot of timethere. I got a bicycle and just
rode everywhere nice and like, yeah, it's one thing to go by Buckingham
Palace in a taxi, but it'sa whole other thing on a bicycle,
right when you can just absolutely youtake it in the air and you can
stop and you can walk around,it's like, you know, it's just
(16:59):
it's such a cool place. Butit was just a great experience. It
was difficult. It was very challenging. I tell people it was like being
in the army, but not beingin a war. Nobody was getting hurt,
nobody was in jeopardy. But itwas from boot camp on. It
was very much like being in themilitary, long long days and we stayed
in character. It wasn't like someoneknocks on your trailer door and says,
(17:22):
all right, Donnie, two minutes, we'll drive you to set in a
fancy car. It was like liptIn round up the first platoon and march
him down to the armory and theyget, you know, wepping up,
and then march four miles down tothe forest wow, and get ready to
shoot, and we're like all right. I knew all the cast by there,
the men they were playing. Hisnames. I never called. We
(17:45):
never called each other outside of ournames. Some still don't. Some guys
still refer to each other as thecharacters. No way. Yeah, but
Lipton was a great man. Ilove talking to him every night. He
would always give me great advice.And even if the was one line and
what didn't seem that important, Iwould ask him things and he always helped
me. There was in the eighthepisode there was one little scene with Colin
(18:07):
Hanks was playing this guy, LieutenantJones, and I had one exchange with
him, and it was written thatmy character had a cold. Lipton had
a cold and kind of told him, just brushed him off. And I
called Lipton, I said, hey, do you remember Lieutenant Jones? He
said, oh yeah, he saidyeah. When I got my battlefield commission
and became an officer, I wasnow an officer, and suddenly I'm with
(18:29):
the other officers, and he camein from the States as a new officer
in the company, and so himand I were basically the two new officers
together, and I really liked him. We got along really, really well.
We became really good friends. AndI only had one exchange with Colin
in one scene where I'm playing Lipton, and I thought, okay, so
(18:51):
you wouldn't have been rude to himif he showed up asking hey, guys,
where's Captain so and so right?And he said no, I was
really fond of him, and Isaid okay. So rather than play the
line as scripted the next day,I played it helpful. I played it
with the just a moment of respectbetween these two men. It's the only
moment that I had to acknowledge LieutenantJones as lipped in. But I did
(19:15):
it because he told me that hereally liked this guy. So I made
sure to acknowledge that and put thatin there. It's subtle, no one
even noticed, but it was importantto him, and it meant the world
to him that I gave him thatspace to share and I listened to what
he had to say. I thinkthat stuff really matters as well. I
think it will have mattered. Ithink it's things like that that kind of
(19:36):
elevates work. Yeah, just alittle added things that you don't really think
about absolutely. You know, wewere at boot camp and Steven Spielberg and
Tom Hanks came over and Tom Hankswas in the middle of filming Castaway and
his beard was, you know,down to the floor and his hair was
gray and he was emaciated. Andhim and Steven Spielberg they came to like
the chow hall when we were eatinglunch, and they gave speeches and they
(20:00):
said, do it for the menyou're playing. Don't be an ego.
Don't do it to make yourself famous, don't do it to become a star.
When you're crawling through a trench andthere's fire going on in your head
and that temptation is to look upand get on camera, don't do it
the right way. Stay in thattrench and do what they would do and
(20:21):
try to stay alive in that moment, right. And so I really took
that to heart, and all theguys did. We all took it to
heart, and that speech was soprofound, And then getting to know the
men helped reinforce that because we knewthe people that were playing. So when
Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberger are saying, honor these men, honor them.
Every decision you make in front ofthat camera, you honor them and don't
(20:41):
do selfish, stupid actor things likefocus on being a soldier and doing what
is the right way to represent them. And we took that to heart,
and then getting to know the men, it was like, Okay, this
is the man they're talking about merepresenting, so I have to represent him
the right way. And that wasone of the ways that I did it,
was by communicating with lippt In andjust staying dialed in at all times
(21:04):
and just really trying to represent themthe right way. And the other guys
we all had each other's backs.We all did it too. If somebody
was trying to do too much,someone would be like, hey, you
know, settle down, settle down, Wahlberg. And now there's all these
stars. There's all these stars whocame out of the show, right.
Yeah, Michael Fassbender, you knowhe might have said if he was lucky
(21:26):
ten lines in the entire series.Yeah, he showed up every day every
day, committed and working hard likeeverybody did. That Tom Hardy came on
for like I think two episodes,and you know, and it was at
the end and everybody had all theseclicks, and him and I actually hit
it off really really well. AndI think he was a rapper at the
time, but I really liked him, and he was young, and you
(21:48):
know, you don't know what's goingto happen, like someone's going to become
a massive movie stars. Like we'rejust in this show and I'm living in
England for a year and I'm atwork twenty hours a day with guys from
all these different countries in Europe andAmerica, and so many of the guys
we just hit it off so well, and a lot of guys didn't have
a lot to do. I wasfortunate and I played one of the more
(22:11):
impactful roles. But every role wasimpactful. Every character that showed up came
in, and so many guys,like the two I reference, Michael and
Tom, they they put so muchinto so little. And that is,
like you said, Haley, thatis why it was so special because everybody
gave so much to it. Yeah, you can really feel it just through
it. Hey, do you knowwhat Tom Hardy's famous for over here in
(22:33):
the UK. He's really famous,the UK's most famous. And I think
if you ask any parent this,Oh no, there's a children's TV channel
called cbb's and he reads bedtime storiesbecause he's really fit. All the mums
like it and all the children likeit because he tells a really good story.
(22:55):
Yeah, and I think you shouldgoogle Tom Hardy's bedtime story. I'm
doing it. I'm doing I thinkI need to have a kid. Now,
why you sleep? You need?Do you need someone to read you
a bedtime story? Noted that,don You just saved me so much money.
(23:15):
Don't rush. Tom Hardy's reading thebedtime stories. Whether you have children
or not. You can tune inany time. I will do that,
and if you can't find it,I'll have Jordans. I'll have Jordan do
a bedtime story on your podcast.Thank you, yes, please? Wow.
Making a lot of promises here,Hailey, do you want to tell
(23:40):
your story about your son? Leadinginto our next question? Oh yeah,
okay, that was a really goodseques. Thank you. I'm a pro.
That was a great segue. Sometimesseges just have to be blunt,
all right, Hilly, next question, Yeah exactly. Hey, let's move
on. To something else. Yes, this week, I was having a
(24:02):
really important production meeting with quite ahigh level client, and it was in
my office room. There's a treadmillin the background, and my four year
old comes in starts running on thetreadmill while I'm having this really important conversation.
I'm trying to ignore the facts thatthis child is here. And then
his trousers fall down. He's gothis bum out during this whole thing,
(24:22):
and then it gets so fast thathe just flies off it and bands into
the wall with these trousers down byhis ankles. And in that moment,
Donnie, I was just thinking,what the hell is my life? What
am I doing? Why am Idoing this to myself? Why am I
pursuing this career? Have you hadever had a story like that, Donnie,
(24:45):
like a what the hell am Idoing? It doesn't have to involve
your pants fallowing out? No,there doesn't need to be any like bums
or anything. I'm sure, I'msure, Thank gosh, Oh what the
fuck moment? If you will,well, early in the New Kids' Days,
there were dozens of Okay, whatam I doing? What? What
(25:08):
are we doing? We we performedin a prison? Whoa yeah, a
couple times. Three prisons. Threeprisons we performed in yeah, wow,
and it was definitely like what arewe doing? And my older brother,
my older brother was in one ofthe prisons at the time show. Yeah,
(25:30):
he was my older brother. Iwon't say his name, but he's
my older brother and he has abook about it. Yeah, he was
in there. But it was cool, you know, he was he was
trying to get his life together.That's cool behind bars and said would you
come and play with your band inour prison? And I was like,
okay, okay, that's wickid Thefirst time we played in a prison,
you know, we were frightened anduh but I smuggled in a box of
(25:56):
cigarettes. This is not answering yourquestion. All I smuggled in a cart.
So we threw all this. Wethrew all the cigarettes out to the
inmates and they loved it. Theywere all chanting for us afterwards. And
so we got invited back to playthe following year for the annual Christmas concert
and we played again in the sameprison. Yeah, we got a curtain
call at prison. That's amazing.It was Johnny Cash. Yay. But
(26:19):
I would say for auditioning in actingthere was many times when I auditioned that
I was like, Okay, whatam I doing? What am I doing?
Where I would didn't know what Iwas doing, or I wasn't just
prepared, or I would be preparedand the part was already cast with someone
else, Like I remember. Iremember one audition I went to the casting
(26:41):
director I was going to read forthis part. I was totally wrong for
it physically everything. It was likea six foot five, three hundred and
fifty pound guy and here I amfive foot eleven, if I'm lucky,
pretty fit, one hundred and eightypounds. And I walk in and I'm
like, what am I doing here? And the casting the secretary or whoever
(27:02):
is they're working at the front deskis clearly a new Kids fan who's now
doing this, And I realized,like, I am only here to meet
her, not to audition for thispart. Nobody wants me to play this
part. There's nothing I could doon earth to get this part. And
I literally left and I was like, yeah, I'm pretty sure. Because
(27:22):
I'm still trying to get the part. I'm like, yeah, I can
gain weight. I'll do it,you know, I'll wear big heels.
I got this and convincing myself,you know, And that's what we do
when you're acting, is until youget to a point where you get really
honest with yourself and you say,no, I could never play this part.
I'm not going to audition for that. I don't want to talk about
that part. When you're first tryingto get hired and you can't get hired,
(27:45):
to save your life, you're talkingyourself into every part. I can
do this. I am a murmaman. I don't even need costume. I
have real flippers. Right, youtell yourself you can do anything. And
I auditioned for the part, andthe casting doctor was looking at me,
like this guy, what is heeven doing here? And I walked out
(28:07):
and I saw the young lady atthe front desk again, and I realized
she just said yeah and Donnie andthey'd love to see him, and they
didn't want to see me. Shejust wanted to meet me, and she
met me. And if it werenot that long ago, we would have
selfies. But it was in themid nineties, so if they didn't really
exist yet, So I may havetaken a photo with her in a different
way, but I don't know.She may have had a camera there.
(28:27):
I don't recall, but I realized, like, oh my god, I
just drove five hours from Boston toNew York. Oh, trying to further
my career because no one's hiring meanymore. The new kids are broken up.
I can't seem to get any job, and I'm literally like a month
away from being on Where are theynow? I was like, this is
(28:48):
terrible, this is terrible. Drivinga bus. Drive Jay, driving a
bus. I was going to getthat bus, get on that greyhound.
I would have been that was it. I was like, literally I was
a month away from buying a tourbus and driving around and hiding on my
bus and growing a beard like TomHanks and castaways pop up in different towns.
(29:08):
There's that site I never saw allright back on the bus. Oh
look, that's what a tumbleweed lookslike up close. Who knew? Oh
my gosh, stand up comedy mightalso be Yeah, in your retirement phase
(29:29):
two. So now that you havefound success in acting as well as with
music, what would your definition beof what making it means? Ah,
it's a great chance for Donnie toget all mystical again instead of just saying
(29:56):
simple things. We always get crazyanswers, so you're not alone if you
get missedic making it okay because Ijust something that I was just saying about
acting and auditioning and being honest withmyself and realizing, okay, no no,
no no no, I can't playthis part right, I would say
making it there's two different ways ofmaking it right. So making it when
(30:18):
I was a kid, when Iwas fifteen years old and I was the
only member in the New Kids onthe Block, there was no New Kids
on the Block. It was megoing to the studio to record and trying
to recruit kids around Boston to jointhe band. With me, making it
would have been like being able tobuy a scooter or a moped, right,
Like making it up money to havesome cool sneakers and a cool kit,
(30:41):
you know, a leather jacket andsome jeans and a moped or a
scooter that I could drive around andlike drive down to the beach and be
like, hey girl, what's up, Like you want to ride? Like
that would have been making it right. The guy at the pizza shop down
the street saying, hey, Donnie, come in and have a slice on
me, Like that's what I thoughtmaking it was being played on local radio,
(31:02):
making it. Then I thought,as we started to become successful,
would be like, you know,winning awards and doing this stuff. It's
none of that. It's none ofthose things. It really it's being able
to appreciate the journey and the process, right, and to get through those
moments Haley where it's like why amI doing this? Right? To get
(31:22):
through those wire you know, thosemoments are what Those are the journey,
Those are the those are what youremember. Right. You didn't talk to
me about the great times that happenedin the rest of that meeting. You
talk to me about the lowest momentof the meeting. Right, Sofia child
fell on the treadmill. Right,It's like, huh yeah, but it
was bum out. That was thelowest moment, right of your journey.
(31:47):
And yet it's the one you remember. It's the one you'll talk about,
it's the one you're sharing. Right. It's the journey is so magical if
we can just let it be earnedfrom the lows, appreciate the highs,
and just keep moving forward on thepath, and it will deviate, It
will take detours. You will thinkyou're going one way and realize, Wow,
(32:10):
I was going totally backwards for thelast two months, and somehow going
backwards will now advance you in waysthat you didn't foresee. Right, it's
success is great being able to Iwent to the basketball game in Boston yesterday
to see the Celtics. I satin the front row and with Jordan Night,
and they put us on the jumbotron and like everyone class, everyone
(32:30):
cheered for us. Right, itwas really awesome. It's like, well,
there was a time when everyone wouldhave boot us. It's really sweet.
There is there is, It's it'spart of growing it's part of being
a boy band, and part ofgrowing up and maturing. And honestly,
once I stopped caring if they bowedme is when they stopped booing me.
Honestly, that's just the life lesson. It's like when you stop worrying about
(32:53):
the negative, the negative kind ofceases to exist. Challenges will still occur,
but it have becomes less of aproblem for you. But it sounds
cliche, and it's easy for meto say, like I couldn't have afforded
to fix my teeth thirty years ago, right, and now I can.
It's a luxury when I was sayingwhen we joke as the guys, we
joke about what would I look likeif I wasn't famous, I have no
(33:15):
more hair, and I wouldn't havecared. I wouldn't have taken the steps
to put all this amoxe doll orwhatever the hell you put on your hair,
like I would have done all thesesteps to stay young looking, right,
I would have just aged. Yeah, because I couldn't have afforded to
do anything else. Right, Sothat's all great. I don't want to
make it sound like if you're notsuccessful and able to pay your bills and
(33:37):
take care of your family and dothings, it's hard to for people to
absorb these cliches or take them atface value. Right. It's like,
it's easy for me to say,the journey is what it's all about,
right, That is the success,the journey, the process is the success.
You know. It's easy for meto say that when I'm in a
dance studio with the new Kids.I'm going to perform on Kelly Clark tomorrow
(34:00):
and I'm going to have someone driveme an suv back to my condo.
Right, Yeah, it's easy tosay that, And I respect people who
roll their eyes at me, sayingit's the journey. But in any facet
of life, it is the journey. My mom was successful, and she
worked nights in a hospital and shecleaned floors in a bank overnight. She
used to take the subway to workat nine pm and come in at seven
(34:22):
when we were all leaving to catchthe school bus to go to school.
She'd be coming in and we'd hopeshe got there before we left so we
could give her a hug because shewas like our angel. And she was
successful. And it's not because Markand I and my brother Paul is a
successful chef. And she's successful becauseshe did the best job she could with
(34:43):
the least at her disposal. Sheworked through every challenge. She probably wanted
to jump off a bridge dozens oftimes, but kept fighting the fight.
And she lived to see her childrengrow up in become productive people and care
about their families. And she gotto see that. And so her life
(35:07):
is more successful than mine will everbe, and more successful than Marks will
ever be. And I think someof my siblings who've been through crazier stories
than you've ever heard of Mark ormyself going through, they've been through way
worse than us, you know,to see them now with families and children
and being great parents and spouses andstuff. Their success is way more important
(35:30):
than mine. And I hope theyknow that. And so I think anybody
who is just taking on the challengeof getting through each day and finding a
way to get through life and meetall the crazy challenges that life has to
offer. If you're still chugging alongand still making it happen in whatever endeavor,
(35:52):
it is to me that success,that's lovely. Sorry, it's well,
that was wonderful. And she taughtyou that well, of course,
absolutely, and it was great.And that's another reason she was so great
and such a success. She lovedchopping us down to size. You know,
if Mark or I came in thehouse and you get over here and
(36:14):
grab you by, get over hereright now, I'm still your mother here
to sit down and shut up.You know, she never stopped being her.
And I'm talking when I was fortyyears old. She did that.
I'm not talking about when I wastwenty two, like the kids. The
one funny thing she did, theone thing where she really broke though,
where I really broke her. Igot my first tattoo and she pierced me
(36:35):
in Jordan's ears. By the way, Jordan and I were, I think
we're sixteen. We weren't. Ourproducer and manager were like, you can't
get earrings, you can't do anyof this stuff. And me and Jordan
are like, we're getting our earspierced. It was like, so my
mom did it. She took aneedle and pierced both of our ears in
our old kitchen. Yeah, andme and Jordan, I think it was
(36:55):
just me and Jordan and she piercedour ears and we were screaming and yelling
and we're like, yeah, wedid it, and we had so much
fun. But she then I piercedmy nose. I pierced my ear five
five more times, all up anddown. I had all these piercings.
And she was like, what areyou doing. Stop doing that stuff to
your body. And I was like, oh, leave me alone. I'm
like twenty one, I'm on tourwhatever. And then I got a tattoo.
And I remember we were at DodgerStadium and I was introducing her to
(37:21):
Lionel Richie because she loved Lionel Richieloved and so Lionel Richie's backstage and I
got my tattoo and she hasn't seenit yet. It's all got the gel
on it so it doesn't leak orwhatever. And so I walk over.
I go, mom, Mom,I got Lionel Richie's here. Come me
Lionel Richie and he's standing asked tome, and she goes, what the
hell is that on your arm?And I was like, oh, this
is a tattoo, and she's like, you son of a bitch. I'm
(37:44):
like, you can't say that.Do the math on that. You can't
say that to me. That doesn'tadd up. Don't do the math anyone
out there. Yeah, you momscan't call us that doesn't add up.
I don't think they realize what they'resaying when they say that. Anyway.
Sorry, So she goes, whatis that. I goes, it's a
(38:05):
tattoo. And look it's right there. It's your initials right there, Dad's
initials, and there's yours. Andshe goes, okay, fine, that
was me recently. I got mydad's handwriting. That's right. It went
better than the other ones. Yeah. See see they and of course my
mother, I think she turned sixty, maybe seventy, and she got a
(38:28):
tattoo on her lower back. Idon't know what they call them. What
do they call those? A trumpstump? That trump stump? Trump trump
stump? Trump stump is what Isound like, Dunning? Say it again,
A trump stump trump stamp, trumpstamp? How fun? I am
delighted. Yeah, my English accentsare all bad. It was excellent.
(38:54):
I did it on set the otherday and they said, what are you
doing? Like like Alabama, whatis that? What is your if you
had to sum up your career sofar in a chapter title? So we've
had everything from please tell me thecatering's good to that's good enough? Or
(39:17):
we also had falling back in lovewith your art? What would your chapter
title of your career be? Butwhen we might listen to a book,
Oh, Haley, are you goingto edit out this long pause that I'm
to think of this chat? Iedit down to the wire so you do
not have to worry. My gosh, what it's my chapter title? Okay,
the wheels on the bus. Wemighte this easy doing. It's all
(39:42):
gonna be alright, baby Donnie,don't be so good at this, I
know. But now I'll step outsideand like roll my ankle and break my
leg. No, I yeah,I don't know. I try to stay
very much in the present. Itry not to worry about the future.
I try not to do all inthe past. But because of the journey
(40:05):
I've been on, because there areso many moments, and I've been with
my bandmates forever and now I've beenon Blue Bloods for fourteen years. Yeah,
there are so many times now andI'm fifty four. I'm going to
be fifty five in the summer,and I know I don't look it,
but I'm on my way. WhatYeah, that's the LEO and it came
out lim Yeah. There are somany times I do have to think back
(40:30):
and reflect and just say wow,Like it's just even in my career,
where my career is gone, allthe different things. You know, it's
even after success at a young age, when you're successful at a young age
and it stops and you're like twentytwo and it's like, Okay, everybody
loved me a week ago. NowI can't sell a ticket, I can't
(40:52):
do anything, I can't get ajob, and all you can foresee is
okay, well here I go.Right. It's like you're those tales and
We've got so many stories of like, you're going to be like this band,
this teen band that crashed and burnedand this one. That's all anyone
would say every interview is like,are you going to be like those other
bands that were famous when they werefifteen and then they're all on drugs and
(41:12):
broke. And there are moments whenit feels inevitable right that that will happen
because I can't create any momentum formyself anymore. But beyond that, going
through a divorce and becoming a parentat a young age, and the fear,
the anxiety that I had, andbecoming a dad for the first time,
and going all the way back tomy childhood being a very nervous and
(41:35):
anxious kid who loved life and wasvery happy a lot of the times,
but when it got heavy in mychildhood home and the chaos that existed there.
Sometimes there have been many points inmy life where I just didn't know
if it was all going to beokay. And in reality, each of
those times, it was really mefeeling what baby Donnie felt, you know,
(41:57):
thirty thirty eight year old Donnie gettingdivorced and not knowing where the hell
is life is going to go andwhat's going to happen to the relationship with
my children and all just so muchfear right wrapped up in that process.
And it's like in that moment whenwe're going through trauma in present day,
so many times it's really we're tappingback into the trauma that we had as
(42:19):
a child. Yeah, right,And so many times why we don't handle
trauma, well, it's because weresort to the things that helped us survive
as a child. I used togo hide in a closet or lock myself
in the bathroom and flush the toilettill my mom would finally come and say,
who just flushing the toilet eighty times? And all I want to do
is get a hug because there's toomany kids in the house and my dad's
yelling at my mom and I justneeded a hug, right, So then
(42:42):
I find myself now I'm like marriedto Jenny and we have the greatest relationship.
But it's like suddenly I'm in theother room with the door closed and
I don't want to come out,and she's like, you're doing and then
light bulb goes off. It's likeI'm literally sitting in the bathroom like I
did when I was eight. I'mwaiting for you to come in here and
give me a hug and help meout of this mess. We revert back
to that, the trauma of ourinner child so much throughout our lives,
(43:04):
and we don't even know it.Somebody looks at us a certain way,
someone that we love and care about. They give us a look and it
feels like we don't even process.But it's like, oh, I'm actually
reacting to me. My dad lookedat me back then, and now I'm
projecting it into this situation. Right, all those times when trauma comes up
for people, when struggle comes up, when difficult times and we don't know
if we're going to get through,and we don't know where we're going to
end up, it's like, somehow, if we just persevere, we always
(43:27):
come out okay, right, Andso to me, that message would go
all the way back to baby Donnieand that's just going to be all right.
And again I say this, notknowing what tomorrow brings. Yeah,
the worst thing in the world couldhappen. I don't know. I just
hope that I take all this yearsof experience and handle it better. Than
I would have if it happened tenyears ago. That's about it. That's
awesome. Thank you so much fordoing this. This has been an incredible
(43:52):
I've tied up about five times.Oh come on, come on over there
in leads. No you didn't,I did, chuffed. You look chuffed.
I have chuffed. We made thispodcast not just for other artists,
but for ourselves to interview people weadmire and get words of wisdom and to
(44:15):
motivate us and our listeners to keepgoing. So this has been just incredible.
So thank you so much for yourtime as well. And I hope
our paths across at some point theywill are you're in California right, I'm
in La. Yes, yeah,we'll be out there soon and hopefully we'll
see you. And feel free tocome to the concert. Haley, come
over. I don't know when we'regoing back to the UK, but come
(44:36):
over to a concert. I'm comingour guest. Both of you guys,
be our guest and come backstage andsay hi, and you know you guys
to just know like your podcast,like I look at how look at cheese.
Oh, it's all gonna be allright, It's all gonna be all
right, isn't it all gonna beall right? Come on, I want
(44:59):
to too. Stuff. Wouldn't bethe first guest we made cry, but
well I might be the first guestI'm making you cries. That's great.
But you guys to just know,like you guys, like your light shines
bright. It shines bright. Iknow you like you want guests to come
on who can say things and helpbe a voice for inspiration or just positive
(45:24):
energy, and you guys radiate that. So thank you. I saw your
your Instagram and like it just resonatedso much and it was like it's just
awesome, like it's and you know, don't worry about the baby falling on
the treadmon with the bottom out hisbom His boem was out, like his
(45:46):
entire poems as good as I canget. That's as good as I can
get. I don't even know whatpart of a British accent that is potentially
the greatest moment of my life.All right, Well, in any event,
you don't know what someone's going tosee of you and what it's going
to mean to them. You justdon't know. Those fans who send the
(46:08):
message, thank you for helping meget through a bad time, But you
just don't know who's going to stumbleacross what you're doing and what it's going
to mean to them. And itmeant enough for me to want to be
here and surprise you with Jordan also, and so yeah, so keep going,
so keep on going and cherish thejourney because it looks like you all
(46:29):
are having a wonderful time despite thethe bumps and bruises and boom booms.
But keep going because it's really awesome. Thank you, Thanks Tony to All
right, we'll see you. Assumeone day you'll get that bus. That's
right, I'm gonna get it.I'm gonna get that bus. Do you
remember the Home Improvement show where theywere like move that bus and then you
(46:51):
just are going to be like,tonight, can I keep the bus?
Yeah? No, I just wantto move it. I'll move it back
because then I can have a busand still be on TV cause don't really
know how to do much else.There you go, all right, right,
you're allowed to go. Now,we'll see you at the show.
I look forward to it. Thankyou so much. Bye, thank you,
don a bye. Do you wantto ask our next guest a question?
(47:19):
Follow us at How to Make Itpodcast, where we'll reveal who our
future authors will be and give youthe chance to submit a question to ask
them. Your question could end upin a future epilogue mini episode
Hi, I'm Emily and I'm Hayley. After meeting online, we became international
best friends who bonded over how hardit is to find success in the entertainment
industry. Join us and ourur celebrityco authors as they help us write the
book on how to make it and, more importantly, uncover what making it
(00:22):
even means. You know, sayingwe met online sounds a lot sexier than
it actually is. Emily, youdon't think it's clear we met on a
networking site? No, I thinkit sounds very much like I swiped right
on you, my friend. Wouldyou like to meet a British person online
site? We're going to have todo this again now, aren't we.
Yes. Hi, my name isDonnie Wahlberg, and I wanted to be
(00:52):
a member of a very successful boyband when I grew up, and an
actor and you know, on ashow, on a show kind of like
Streets of San Francisco or Hill StreetBlues, or if all that failed,
a baseball player in the major leagues, and if all that failed, maybe
(01:15):
a bus driver. Wow, abus driver? Yeah? This drive a
bus? Okay, Okay, Well, I wasn't going to college. College,
was never going to be in theequation, so I could probably drive
a bus, and I like todrive. I always felt bush driving be
quite interesting, get around meets people. Not in a major city that would
(01:37):
be that would be scary, Ithink, Well, I didn't say which
type of bus. School bus,could have been, a public transit bus,
could have been a Greyhound bus coastto coast action. I don't know.
Well, when you retire. Myparents live in Florida, and there
are retired people who drive little golfcart buses to transport people to and from
(01:57):
the beach. That always sounded niceto me. Yeah, I think maybe
a win a Bago or a tourbus that I actually drive. I'd like
to retour the country one time onmy own in a tour bus and see
all the things, like stop andtake in all the things that I never
get to stop and take in becausewe're always just yeah, moving in and
out, quickly turning around. Andusually when we get to a place it's
(02:23):
a lot of fans. It's,you know, we give them the time
instead of yeah, I don't takethe time to like go sight seeing.
I just go meet hundreds of fansand take pictures at the hotel lobby or
whatever, like I'm there for themanyway. I'll go back and see the
sights. Yeah, when I'm retired, they'll always be there. Yeah,
yeah, the sites will be there, the fans. You know, I
(02:44):
got to give back, got togive back. Oh that's very nice.
Gotta do it. Tony is sorare as well. It's so rare.
Yeah, you could have been drivinga bus right now, but you're not
talking to us, a babe,you know, I would have been okay
driving a bus. I think Ithink. I think acting and being in
The New Kids is kept me young. It's one thing in the band we
(03:06):
do. And we're not a bandthat really goes out and does a lot
of work. Like we work out, we stay healthy, we eat well,
but guys aren't getting you know,I got jowls and stuff. I
have some makeup on from Blue Blood, so I probably look a little smoother
than usual. But well, nothing'shappening here. But we always have conversations
like we'll say, like, whatdo you think we would look like if
(03:28):
we didn't become successful, Because thereis a certain thing, like we're still
performing. We have to stay inshape, we have to eat good,
and we're like, oh man,I'm going to be on stage every night.
There's clips like you could see starswhen I was a little kid,
the stars ages and like people whoare like forty years old look like an
eighty year old, Like people usedto age so much more. And it
(03:52):
could be all the preservatives in thefood. It could be a bunch of
stuff. But we always have thisrunning thing like what do you think we
would look like if we never gotfamous? Because see, people talk about
my teeth a lot, and they'renice, but they are. But what
people don't know is I did havework done on my teeth because when I
was in the sixth grade, myolder brother Bob, smashed me in the
(04:14):
mouth with a hockey stick, andso until tenth grade, I had half
teeth. They were all half teeth. Oh my god. So I literally
like, my mouth is crooked becauseI talked in the hole where the half
teeth were. I would whistle,See that's crooked. So I developed all
these things, like with the holein my mind, with the hole of
(04:35):
my teeth. So when I couldfinally get my teeth repaired, we couldn't
afford a dentist, but there wasa community dentist who would fix them.
Basically for free. You just hadto accept that it was free work and
it wasn't really going to be anygood. There was no reality shows where
like you can get a makeover likeon a Nicky Lake or something, right,
(04:55):
we didn't have that right. Therewas no you get a car and
you get a car on open,none of that. So I went to
the free dentist and over the courseof a year he root canaled all my
front teeth and put all my cementcement in my gums and steel posts so
every time a light would be onyou could see the gray posts. So
pictures from all through my early newkids' days, all through my life there
(05:20):
was always like this gray teeth andthis really bad veneer job on my broken
teeth, which made me sometimes wishI just kept my broken teeth. I
think it was during COVID I couldn'tgo anywhere. I was like, this
would be a good time to getthis steel and concrete out of my face
and give myself a smile that looksgood. So he had to. I
had to get surgery and do allthat. But if I hadn't gotten it,
(05:43):
those teeth were real. They werealso crooked, and the replacement teeth
were crooked. Wow. But Idon't even know if I would have been
motivated to fix those up a littlebit if I couldn't afford it. Right,
So it's like, so I thinkabout, like, where would I
be, what would my teeth belike? Whatever I ever even got my
teeth fixed? I was starting aboy band. I knew I needed some
teeth, so I went to thefree dentist and got the whatever I could
(06:06):
possibly get. So we have athing that was a really long story to
get back to the point of wedo talk a lot about what would we
be like, where would we bein our lives if we hadn't formed this
band to become successful. I don'tknow. I think you've got I don't
know, man, I don't know. Man. Also, I didn't think
the thing I would have in commonwith you, Donny Wahlberg, is the
(06:29):
whole teeth story, because I prettymuch got the same story as you with
a hockey stick by your brother.Not with a hockey stick, but my
bike when I was about eleven,and I broke them all and then I
had a budge job after budge job, and then during COVID, I was
like, right, that's it gettingfixed. Yeah, well, in and
I'm not in a boy band.I don't know if you know you're not
(06:50):
in a boy band, so Ithink you would have done it anyway,
Donny. Well, not to breakup the teeth party, but Donnie,
we would like to bring up torandom facts about our guests. And I'm
really excited about mine because I'm areally big fan of the Masked Singer.
Okay, and you were on theMasked Singer sort of, well you were.
(07:14):
You were on stage in a costyou want a mass singer. I
liked. I liked it, youknow, I like to hold on to
my my Uh. I'm a littleI'm a little stuck up about it.
I wasn't competing on the mask Singer. I was a surprise guest, yes,
which in my book, I wouldkill to be a surprise guest on
The mask Singer. So I'm wonderingwhat that experience was like for you.
(07:36):
It was. It was tough.It was tough. So I really had
to Jenny, And I don't listento like criticisms. If I go in
my Instagram and there are ten thousandcomments and there's two bad ones, there's
they're good ones to me. Idon't even care. It doesn't bother me.
So we just we just Everything isokay. People's opinions are their opinions.
(07:56):
It's it's fine, and I respectthem all as long as they're not
hurt anyone. It's fine. Saywhat you want. In terms of how
it relates to me. I don'tcare. But a lot of people think,
how could she not know? Howcould she not know? Oh the
things I had to do to foolher. Every night she calls me from
the panel when they're taping, rightbefore they're about to roll, and she'll
(08:18):
FaceTime me and oh, no,well, I know Robin and Nicole really
well, and now I know Kenas well. But I knew Robin and
Nicole before I knew Jenny. Iknow them for years. So she'd be
like, oh, say hi,and so Robin will say hi, and
then Nicole go, oh, dote, so we all talk. So I
brought Blue Blood's clothes to LA withme. I flew overnight while Jenny was
(08:39):
asleep, I brought my blood.I was in the dressing room in my
suit at Mass singing. Yeah,so in her mind she might have thought
that's my husband singing. But Ijust talked to her as Danny Reagan.
Yeah, right, And I'd beentelling her for a week, like I
gotta work this day, and Igotta work that day, and da dah.
So I'm sure she said that soundslike my husband, but in ordinarily
(09:03):
she would say it can't be.Well, she would say she always references
me on the show, and Ithink they told her after a while,
you can't guess Donnie Wahlberg every time, because she'd be like, I think
you know that's my husband, orthat's someone in my husband's band. My
name always comes up on the show, and I think they said tone it
down on guessing it's Donnie to theother panelists and your husband. So that
(09:24):
combined with me literally just talking tothem as Danny Reagan, just they didn't
know I loved it. Where theyall might have thought that could be Donnie,
they just talked to me thinking I'min New York. I thoroughly enjoyed
it. But I also one thingthat happened. Yeah, yeah. The
costume was really heavy, very difficultto perform in. I only rehearsed in
(09:46):
it the day of, so therewas no try on the suit. The
first thing I did was rehearsing itand then back produce other things. So
the first step I took in theperformance, well, I can't really show
you here, but literally, ifanyone watches the performance, the first step
I took with my right leg theclaws, the talons whatever they were,
(10:07):
the chicken claws, I took astep and my whole right calf just went,
it just popped, and I waslike, oh, but I have
to sing and I had to keepgoing, and I'm like, oh man,
I'm like trying to do all thischoreography with the dancers and stuff.
It hurt so bad, and ifI didn't have on the mask, people
definitely would have saw that I washurting because I'm not good enough to be
(10:30):
like. It was brutal and itwas tough. Like Jenny's told me,
some of the people who perform arehaving panic attacks and their costumes and stuff
like that. And I didn't havea panic attack, but I definitely was
freaked out. It's hard to breathe, it's hard to carry it around,
it's hard to perform in it.And I only had to do it once
(10:52):
and I didn't have to like doit a bunch of times. You know
what, I mean like, Iwasn't practicing all day and doing all this.
I just came in, did aquick rehearsal at a day and studio
in my street clothes, put onthe costume, and it was like,
let's go. It was brutal.Well, I can cross being on the
mass singer off my list of thingsto do. Now, Yeah, that
doesn't sound like something you'll coat with. Well, we're starting to have non
(11:13):
costume guests, so you can dothat. Oh what if I just wore
like a COVID mask and that wasmy Maybe I don't know, I don't
know. It always just seemed funto me, all right. AnyWho.
My fact is I've loved to youguys for a really long time. We
(11:33):
didn't have a lot of money growingup, so I couldn't afford the proper
new Kids on the Block merchandise.But we used to go to the local
market and they sold some wall calendars, but they were a year out of
date, so I had nineteen ninetyone when it was really nineteen ninety two
on my wall. But it wasfine because you were all there. So
it excites me massively that new Kidson the Block are going on tour again.
(11:56):
Excites me as well. Tell usabout it. What's happening? Well,
I love your calendar story. Yetanother thing we have in common.
Really, Well, I have abook. It's a daily sort of book,
but it was for a specific year. But I love the book so
much. I keep it by mybedside, And even though it's the wrong
year, I still look at theday, so it might say h Wednesday
(12:20):
October ninth, but it's actually twoyears later and it's now Friday October ninth.
But I don't care. I stillI love the book so much,
so I every day I look atthe page I'm supposed to read, and
I read it and I love it. And it's completely off cycle, but
I don't care. One day it'llmatch up again. Oh yeah, that's
true. Yeah, I'm about I'mabout eighty. It'll match up, and
I'll think of you. Yeah,I'll think of You's calendar must have matched
(12:43):
up at some point. It musthave matched up again. Yeah, man,
it must have done. Yeah.Well, back to the tour,
the tour. Yeah, we're goingon tour again. It's the Magic Summer
Tour twenty twenty four. So eventhough you've been a long time fan,
you maybe we never did a MagicSummer Tour alver in the UK. This
(13:05):
was a US thing, yea,And so we're great, we're doing a
we're reimagining the Magic Summer Tour withoutthe magic. The magic will be the
fact that we're all still here doingthis thirty four years later, and and
we're still hanging in there and havinga good time and still indulging and living
like kids. There's a I think, as you know, going back to
what we were saying earlier, Ireally do think this keeps us young.
(13:28):
I think not just us when Isay us, most times when I say
us in terms of new kids,I mean us and our fans collectively.
I think it it keeps all ofus young. The fans a lot of
times they'll say things like, yeah, you guys are like just the cherry
on top. I'm road tripping withmy girls to go to six concerts.
We're gonna go have fun, andyou guys are just kind of the thing
that brought us together. But we'regood. You don't have to worry about
(13:52):
taking pictures with us, like we'reWe're gonna just be friends and do the
things that we can't do anymore atthat we did in high school, but
our parents drove us. Now wecould drive ourselves. Now we could do
all this cool stuff, and theytake their kids along, and how the
husbands are coming along. It's justturned into this I don't know what the
right word is, but this renaissancemaybe is the word. It's just this
(14:13):
magical, magic summer. It's thismagical thing where we come out, we
go on tour, and everybody justkind of let's go and lets themselves have
a good time. And I thinkwith the pressures that so many of us
have, and so many people havewith work and unemployment and the challenges that
so many face nowadays, it's justit's I take pride in the fact that
(14:35):
we can be an escape, thatwe can be comfort food, if you
will, for so many people whoneed it, and so many fans who
had to let go of what theylove a lot. Yeah, when we
grow up and we get more responsibilities, we kind of have to put sometimes
the things that we're passionate about onthe back burner. And I think somehow
(14:56):
the new kids have come back andallowed people to say, wait a minute,
my happiness is important too, whenin fact, in reality, each
one of our individual happiness and selflove is the most important thing. Yeah
right, It's like the oxygen maskon an airplane. But if you can't
love yourself and feel good and behappy with your life, how are you
going to really provide that for anyoneelse or help someone else find that for
(15:18):
themselves? Right? You know we'reperformers where artists. We're entertainers. I'm
an actor. You know, wedo other things. Jonathan has a phenomenal
bunch of unscripted shows where he doesmakeovers, renovations and stuff. But if
our legacy is that we provided aspace for people to be happy and feel
young again, that's a legacy I'mproud to be a part of. I
(15:48):
wanted to talk to you about Bandof Brothers because I think you are outstanding
in that. Donnie, thank you. And just a creaky table. Sorry,
this table is really creaky. Sorrycan you hear the creaky table?
Oh? Is it okay? Sorry? I'm trying to stay stick. You've
got a little creaky table. Soexcited. Yeah, I'd really like to
(16:11):
speak to you about your role ofLipton and the responsibility of playing a real
life person on screen and working withhim as well. I know you called
a lot and such like, whatwas that? Like? I did call
a lot. I spoke to himpretty much every day. The whole experience
was phenomenal. I lived in Londonfree year, which was amazing. One
(16:37):
of the few times I actually gotto really indulge in a place and really
get to spend a lot of timethere. I got a bicycle and just
rode everywhere nice and like, yeah, it's one thing to go by Buckingham
Palace in a taxi, but it'sa whole other thing on a bicycle,
right when you can just absolutely youtake it in the air and you can
stop and you can walk around,it's like, you know, it's just
(16:59):
it's such a cool place. Butit was just a great experience. It
was difficult. It was very challenging. I tell people it was like being
in the army, but not beingin a war. Nobody was getting hurt,
nobody was in jeopardy. But itwas from boot camp on. It
was very much like being in themilitary, long long days and we stayed
in character. It wasn't like someoneknocks on your trailer door and says,
(17:22):
all right, Donnie, two minutes, we'll drive you to set in a
fancy car. It was like liptIn round up the first platoon and march
him down to the armory and theyget, you know, wepping up,
and then march four miles down tothe forest wow, and get ready to
shoot, and we're like all right. I knew all the cast by there,
the men they were playing. Hisnames. I never called. We
(17:45):
never called each other outside of ournames. Some still don't. Some guys
still refer to each other as thecharacters. No way. Yeah, but
Lipton was a great man. Ilove talking to him every night. He
would always give me great advice.And even if the was one line and
what didn't seem that important, Iwould ask him things and he always helped
me. There was in the eighthepisode there was one little scene with Colin
(18:07):
Hanks was playing this guy, LieutenantJones, and I had one exchange with
him, and it was written thatmy character had a cold. Lipton had
a cold and kind of told him, just brushed him off. And I
called Lipton, I said, hey, do you remember Lieutenant Jones? He
said, oh yeah, he saidyeah. When I got my battlefield commission
and became an officer, I wasnow an officer, and suddenly I'm with
(18:29):
the other officers, and he camein from the States as a new officer
in the company, and so himand I were basically the two new officers
together, and I really liked him. We got along really, really well.
We became really good friends. AndI only had one exchange with Colin
in one scene where I'm playing Lipton, and I thought, okay, so
(18:51):
you wouldn't have been rude to himif he showed up asking hey, guys,
where's Captain so and so right?And he said no, I was
really fond of him, and Isaid okay. So rather than play the
line as scripted the next day,I played it helpful. I played it
with the just a moment of respectbetween these two men. It's the only
moment that I had to acknowledge LieutenantJones as lipped in. But I did
(19:15):
it because he told me that hereally liked this guy. So I made
sure to acknowledge that and put thatin there. It's subtle, no one
even noticed, but it was importantto him, and it meant the world
to him that I gave him thatspace to share and I listened to what
he had to say. I thinkthat stuff really matters as well. I
think it will have mattered. Ithink it's things like that that kind of
(19:36):
elevates work. Yeah, just alittle added things that you don't really think
about absolutely. You know, wewere at boot camp and Steven Spielberg and
Tom Hanks came over and Tom Hankswas in the middle of filming Castaway and
his beard was, you know,down to the floor and his hair was
gray and he was emaciated. Andhim and Steven Spielberg they came to like
the chow hall when we were eatinglunch, and they gave speeches and they
(20:00):
said, do it for the menyou're playing. Don't be an ego.
Don't do it to make yourself famous, don't do it to become a star.
When you're crawling through a trench andthere's fire going on in your head
and that temptation is to look upand get on camera, don't do it
the right way. Stay in thattrench and do what they would do and
(20:21):
try to stay alive in that moment, right. And so I really took
that to heart, and all theguys did. We all took it to
heart, and that speech was soprofound, And then getting to know the
men helped reinforce that because we knewthe people that were playing. So when
Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberger are saying, honor these men, honor them.
Every decision you make in front ofthat camera, you honor them and don't
(20:41):
do selfish, stupid actor things likefocus on being a soldier and doing what
is the right way to represent them. And we took that to heart,
and then getting to know the men, it was like, Okay, this
is the man they're talking about merepresenting, so I have to represent him
the right way. And that wasone of the ways that I did it,
was by communicating with lippt In andjust staying dialed in at all times
(21:04):
and just really trying to represent themthe right way. And the other guys
we all had each other's backs.We all did it too. If somebody
was trying to do too much,someone would be like, hey, you
know, settle down, settle down, Wahlberg. And now there's all these
stars. There's all these stars whocame out of the show, right.
Yeah, Michael Fassbender, you knowhe might have said if he was lucky
(21:26):
ten lines in the entire series.Yeah, he showed up every day every
day, committed and working hard likeeverybody did. That Tom Hardy came on
for like I think two episodes,and you know, and it was at
the end and everybody had all theseclicks, and him and I actually hit
it off really really well. AndI think he was a rapper at the
time, but I really liked him, and he was young, and you
(21:48):
know, you don't know what's goingto happen, like someone's going to become
a massive movie stars. Like we'rejust in this show and I'm living in
England for a year and I'm atwork twenty hours a day with guys from
all these different countries in Europe andAmerica, and so many of the guys
we just hit it off so well, and a lot of guys didn't have
a lot to do. I wasfortunate and I played one of the more
(22:11):
impactful roles. But every role wasimpactful. Every character that showed up came
in, and so many guys,like the two I reference, Michael and
Tom, they they put so muchinto so little. And that is,
like you said, Haley, thatis why it was so special because everybody
gave so much to it. Yeah, you can really feel it just through
it. Hey, do you knowwhat Tom Hardy's famous for over here in
(22:33):
the UK. He's really famous,the UK's most famous. And I think
if you ask any parent this,Oh no, there's a children's TV channel
called cbb's and he reads bedtime storiesbecause he's really fit. All the mums
like it and all the children likeit because he tells a really good story.
(22:55):
Yeah, and I think you shouldgoogle Tom Hardy's bedtime story. I'm
doing it. I'm doing I thinkI need to have a kid. Now,
why you sleep? You need?Do you need someone to read you
a bedtime story? Noted that,don You just saved me so much money.
(23:15):
Don't rush. Tom Hardy's reading thebedtime stories. Whether you have children
or not. You can tune inany time. I will do that,
and if you can't find it,I'll have Jordans. I'll have Jordan do
a bedtime story on your podcast.Thank you, yes, please? Wow.
Making a lot of promises here,Hailey, do you want to tell
(23:40):
your story about your son? Leadinginto our next question? Oh yeah,
okay, that was a really goodseques. Thank you. I'm a pro.
That was a great segue. Sometimesseges just have to be blunt,
all right, Hilly, next question, Yeah exactly. Hey, let's move
on. To something else. Yes, this week, I was having a
(24:02):
really important production meeting with quite ahigh level client, and it was in
my office room. There's a treadmillin the background, and my four year
old comes in starts running on thetreadmill while I'm having this really important conversation.
I'm trying to ignore the facts thatthis child is here. And then
his trousers fall down. He's gothis bum out during this whole thing,
(24:22):
and then it gets so fast thathe just flies off it and bands into
the wall with these trousers down byhis ankles. And in that moment,
Donnie, I was just thinking,what the hell is my life? What
am I doing? Why am Idoing this to myself? Why am I
pursuing this career? Have you hadever had a story like that, Donnie,
(24:45):
like a what the hell am Idoing? It doesn't have to involve
your pants fallowing out? No,there doesn't need to be any like bums
or anything. I'm sure, I'msure, Thank gosh, Oh what the
fuck moment? If you will,well, early in the New Kids' Days,
there were dozens of Okay, whatam I doing? What? What
(25:08):
are we doing? We we performedin a prison? Whoa yeah, a
couple times. Three prisons. Threeprisons we performed in yeah, wow,
and it was definitely like what arewe doing? And my older brother,
my older brother was in one ofthe prisons at the time show. Yeah,
(25:30):
he was my older brother. Iwon't say his name, but he's
my older brother and he has abook about it. Yeah, he was
in there. But it was cool, you know, he was he was
trying to get his life together.That's cool behind bars and said would you
come and play with your band inour prison? And I was like,
okay, okay, that's wickid Thefirst time we played in a prison,
you know, we were frightened anduh but I smuggled in a box of
(25:56):
cigarettes. This is not answering yourquestion. All I smuggled in a cart.
So we threw all this. Wethrew all the cigarettes out to the
inmates and they loved it. Theywere all chanting for us afterwards. And
so we got invited back to playthe following year for the annual Christmas concert
and we played again in the sameprison. Yeah, we got a curtain
call at prison. That's amazing.It was Johnny Cash. Yay. But
(26:19):
I would say for auditioning in actingthere was many times when I auditioned that
I was like, Okay, whatam I doing? What am I doing?
Where I would didn't know what Iwas doing, or I wasn't just
prepared, or I would be preparedand the part was already cast with someone
else, Like I remember. Iremember one audition I went to the casting
(26:41):
director I was going to read forthis part. I was totally wrong for
it physically everything. It was likea six foot five, three hundred and
fifty pound guy and here I amfive foot eleven, if I'm lucky,
pretty fit, one hundred and eightypounds. And I walk in and I'm
like, what am I doing here? And the casting the secretary or whoever
(27:02):
is they're working at the front deskis clearly a new Kids fan who's now
doing this, And I realized,like, I am only here to meet
her, not to audition for thispart. Nobody wants me to play this
part. There's nothing I could doon earth to get this part. And
I literally left and I was like, yeah, I'm pretty sure. Because
(27:22):
I'm still trying to get the part. I'm like, yeah, I can
gain weight. I'll do it,you know, I'll wear big heels.
I got this and convincing myself,you know, And that's what we do
when you're acting, is until youget to a point where you get really
honest with yourself and you say,no, I could never play this part.
I'm not going to audition for that. I don't want to talk about
that part. When you're first tryingto get hired and you can't get hired,
(27:45):
to save your life, you're talkingyourself into every part. I can
do this. I am a murmaman. I don't even need costume. I
have real flippers. Right, youtell yourself you can do anything. And
I auditioned for the part, andthe casting doctor was looking at me,
like this guy, what is heeven doing here? And I walked out
(28:07):
and I saw the young lady atthe front desk again, and I realized
she just said yeah and Donnie andthey'd love to see him, and they
didn't want to see me. Shejust wanted to meet me, and she
met me. And if it werenot that long ago, we would have
selfies. But it was in themid nineties, so if they didn't really
exist yet, So I may havetaken a photo with her in a different
way, but I don't know.She may have had a camera there.
(28:27):
I don't recall, but I realized, like, oh my god, I
just drove five hours from Boston toNew York. Oh, trying to further
my career because no one's hiring meanymore. The new kids are broken up.
I can't seem to get any job, and I'm literally like a month
away from being on Where are theynow? I was like, this is
(28:48):
terrible, this is terrible. Drivinga bus. Drive Jay, driving a
bus. I was going to getthat bus, get on that greyhound.
I would have been that was it. I was like, literally I was
a month away from buying a tourbus and driving around and hiding on my
bus and growing a beard like TomHanks and castaways pop up in different towns.
(29:08):
There's that site I never saw allright back on the bus. Oh
look, that's what a tumbleweed lookslike up close. Who knew? Oh
my gosh, stand up comedy mightalso be Yeah, in your retirement phase
(29:29):
two. So now that you havefound success in acting as well as with
music, what would your definition beof what making it means? Ah,
it's a great chance for Donnie toget all mystical again instead of just saying
(29:56):
simple things. We always get crazyanswers, so you're not alone if you
get missedic making it okay because Ijust something that I was just saying about
acting and auditioning and being honest withmyself and realizing, okay, no no,
no no no, I can't playthis part right, I would say
making it there's two different ways ofmaking it right. So making it when
(30:18):
I was a kid, when Iwas fifteen years old and I was the
only member in the New Kids onthe Block, there was no New Kids
on the Block. It was megoing to the studio to record and trying
to recruit kids around Boston to jointhe band. With me, making it
would have been like being able tobuy a scooter or a moped, right,
Like making it up money to havesome cool sneakers and a cool kit,
(30:41):
you know, a leather jacket andsome jeans and a moped or a
scooter that I could drive around andlike drive down to the beach and be
like, hey girl, what's up, Like you want to ride? Like
that would have been making it right. The guy at the pizza shop down
the street saying, hey, Donnie, come in and have a slice on
me, Like that's what I thoughtmaking it was being played on local radio,
(31:02):
making it. Then I thought,as we started to become successful,
would be like, you know,winning awards and doing this stuff. It's
none of that. It's none ofthose things. It really it's being able
to appreciate the journey and the process, right, and to get through those
moments Haley where it's like why amI doing this? Right? To get
(31:22):
through those wire you know, thosemoments are what Those are the journey,
Those are the those are what youremember. Right. You didn't talk to
me about the great times that happenedin the rest of that meeting. You
talk to me about the lowest momentof the meeting. Right, Sofia child
fell on the treadmill. Right,It's like, huh yeah, but it
was bum out. That was thelowest moment, right of your journey.
(31:47):
And yet it's the one you remember. It's the one you'll talk about,
it's the one you're sharing. Right. It's the journey is so magical if
we can just let it be earnedfrom the lows, appreciate the highs,
and just keep moving forward on thepath, and it will deviate, It
will take detours. You will thinkyou're going one way and realize, Wow,
(32:10):
I was going totally backwards for thelast two months, and somehow going
backwards will now advance you in waysthat you didn't foresee. Right, it's
success is great being able to Iwent to the basketball game in Boston yesterday
to see the Celtics. I satin the front row and with Jordan Night,
and they put us on the jumbotron and like everyone class, everyone
(32:30):
cheered for us. Right, itwas really awesome. It's like, well,
there was a time when everyone wouldhave boot us. It's really sweet.
There is there is, It's it'spart of growing it's part of being
a boy band, and part ofgrowing up and maturing. And honestly,
once I stopped caring if they bowedme is when they stopped booing me.
Honestly, that's just the life lesson. It's like when you stop worrying about
(32:53):
the negative, the negative kind ofceases to exist. Challenges will still occur,
but it have becomes less of aproblem for you. But it sounds
cliche, and it's easy for meto say, like I couldn't have afforded
to fix my teeth thirty years ago, right, and now I can.
It's a luxury when I was sayingwhen we joke as the guys, we
joke about what would I look likeif I wasn't famous, I have no
(33:15):
more hair, and I wouldn't havecared. I wouldn't have taken the steps
to put all this amoxe doll orwhatever the hell you put on your hair,
like I would have done all thesesteps to stay young looking, right,
I would have just aged. Yeah, because I couldn't have afforded to
do anything else. Right, Sothat's all great. I don't want to
make it sound like if you're notsuccessful and able to pay your bills and
(33:37):
take care of your family and dothings, it's hard to for people to
absorb these cliches or take them atface value. Right. It's like,
it's easy for me to say,the journey is what it's all about,
right, That is the success,the journey, the process is the success.
You know. It's easy for meto say that when I'm in a
dance studio with the new Kids.I'm going to perform on Kelly Clark tomorrow
(34:00):
and I'm going to have someone driveme an suv back to my condo.
Right, Yeah, it's easy tosay that, And I respect people who
roll their eyes at me, sayingit's the journey. But in any facet
of life, it is the journey. My mom was successful, and she
worked nights in a hospital and shecleaned floors in a bank overnight. She
used to take the subway to workat nine pm and come in at seven
(34:22):
when we were all leaving to catchthe school bus to go to school.
She'd be coming in and we'd hopeshe got there before we left so we
could give her a hug because shewas like our angel. And she was
successful. And it's not because Markand I and my brother Paul is a
successful chef. And she's successful becauseshe did the best job she could with
(34:43):
the least at her disposal. Sheworked through every challenge. She probably wanted
to jump off a bridge dozens oftimes, but kept fighting the fight.
And she lived to see her childrengrow up in become productive people and care
about their families. And she gotto see that. And so her life
(35:07):
is more successful than mine will everbe, and more successful than Marks will
ever be. And I think someof my siblings who've been through crazier stories
than you've ever heard of Mark ormyself going through, they've been through way
worse than us, you know,to see them now with families and children
and being great parents and spouses andstuff. Their success is way more important
(35:30):
than mine. And I hope theyknow that. And so I think anybody
who is just taking on the challengeof getting through each day and finding a
way to get through life and meetall the crazy challenges that life has to
offer. If you're still chugging alongand still making it happen in whatever endeavor,
(35:52):
it is to me that success,that's lovely. Sorry, it's well,
that was wonderful. And she taughtyou that well, of course,
absolutely, and it was great.And that's another reason she was so great
and such a success. She lovedchopping us down to size. You know,
if Mark or I came in thehouse and you get over here and
(36:14):
grab you by, get over hereright now, I'm still your mother here
to sit down and shut up.You know, she never stopped being her.
And I'm talking when I was fortyyears old. She did that.
I'm not talking about when I wastwenty two, like the kids. The
one funny thing she did, theone thing where she really broke though,
where I really broke her. Igot my first tattoo and she pierced me
(36:35):
in Jordan's ears. By the way, Jordan and I were, I think
we're sixteen. We weren't. Ourproducer and manager were like, you can't
get earrings, you can't do anyof this stuff. And me and Jordan
are like, we're getting our earspierced. It was like, so my
mom did it. She took aneedle and pierced both of our ears in
our old kitchen. Yeah, andme and Jordan, I think it was
(36:55):
just me and Jordan and she piercedour ears and we were screaming and yelling
and we're like, yeah, wedid it, and we had so much
fun. But she then I piercedmy nose. I pierced my ear five
five more times, all up anddown. I had all these piercings.
And she was like, what areyou doing. Stop doing that stuff to
your body. And I was like, oh, leave me alone. I'm
like twenty one, I'm on tourwhatever. And then I got a tattoo.
And I remember we were at DodgerStadium and I was introducing her to
(37:21):
Lionel Richie because she loved Lionel Richieloved and so Lionel Richie's backstage and I
got my tattoo and she hasn't seenit yet. It's all got the gel
on it so it doesn't leak orwhatever. And so I walk over.
I go, mom, Mom,I got Lionel Richie's here. Come me
Lionel Richie and he's standing asked tome, and she goes, what the
hell is that on your arm?And I was like, oh, this
is a tattoo, and she's like, you son of a bitch. I'm
(37:44):
like, you can't say that.Do the math on that. You can't
say that to me. That doesn'tadd up. Don't do the math anyone
out there. Yeah, you momscan't call us that doesn't add up.
I don't think they realize what they'resaying when they say that. Anyway.
Sorry, So she goes, whatis that. I goes, it's a
(38:05):
tattoo. And look it's right there. It's your initials right there, Dad's
initials, and there's yours. Andshe goes, okay, fine, that
was me recently. I got mydad's handwriting. That's right. It went
better than the other ones. Yeah. See see they and of course my
mother, I think she turned sixty, maybe seventy, and she got a
(38:28):
tattoo on her lower back. Idon't know what they call them. What
do they call those? A trumpstump? That trump stump? Trump trump
stump? Trump stump is what Isound like, Dunning? Say it again,
A trump stump trump stamp, trumpstamp? How fun? I am
delighted. Yeah, my English accentsare all bad. It was excellent.
(38:54):
I did it on set the otherday and they said, what are you
doing? Like like Alabama, whatis that? What is your if you
had to sum up your career sofar in a chapter title? So we've
had everything from please tell me thecatering's good to that's good enough? Or
(39:17):
we also had falling back in lovewith your art? What would your chapter
title of your career be? Butwhen we might listen to a book,
Oh, Haley, are you goingto edit out this long pause that I'm
to think of this chat? Iedit down to the wire so you do
not have to worry. My gosh, what it's my chapter title? Okay,
the wheels on the bus. Wemighte this easy doing. It's all
(39:42):
gonna be alright, baby Donnie,don't be so good at this, I
know. But now I'll step outsideand like roll my ankle and break my
leg. No, I yeah,I don't know. I try to stay
very much in the present. Itry not to worry about the future.
I try not to do all inthe past. But because of the journey
(40:05):
I've been on, because there areso many moments, and I've been with
my bandmates forever and now I've beenon Blue Bloods for fourteen years. Yeah,
there are so many times now andI'm fifty four. I'm going to
be fifty five in the summer,and I know I don't look it,
but I'm on my way. WhatYeah, that's the LEO and it came
out lim Yeah. There are somany times I do have to think back
(40:30):
and reflect and just say wow,Like it's just even in my career,
where my career is gone, allthe different things. You know, it's
even after success at a young age, when you're successful at a young age
and it stops and you're like twentytwo and it's like, Okay, everybody
loved me a week ago. NowI can't sell a ticket, I can't
(40:52):
do anything, I can't get ajob, and all you can foresee is
okay, well here I go.Right. It's like you're those tales and
We've got so many stories of like, you're going to be like this band,
this teen band that crashed and burnedand this one. That's all anyone
would say every interview is like,are you going to be like those other
bands that were famous when they werefifteen and then they're all on drugs and
(41:12):
broke. And there are moments whenit feels inevitable right that that will happen
because I can't create any momentum formyself anymore. But beyond that, going
through a divorce and becoming a parentat a young age, and the fear,
the anxiety that I had, andbecoming a dad for the first time,
and going all the way back tomy childhood being a very nervous and
(41:35):
anxious kid who loved life and wasvery happy a lot of the times,
but when it got heavy in mychildhood home and the chaos that existed there.
Sometimes there have been many points inmy life where I just didn't know
if it was all going to beokay. And in reality, each of
those times, it was really mefeeling what baby Donnie felt, you know,
(41:57):
thirty thirty eight year old Donnie gettingdivorced and not knowing where the hell
is life is going to go andwhat's going to happen to the relationship with
my children and all just so muchfear right wrapped up in that process.
And it's like in that moment whenwe're going through trauma in present day,
so many times it's really we're tappingback into the trauma that we had as
(42:19):
a child. Yeah, right,And so many times why we don't handle
trauma, well, it's because weresort to the things that helped us survive
as a child. I used togo hide in a closet or lock myself
in the bathroom and flush the toilettill my mom would finally come and say,
who just flushing the toilet eighty times? And all I want to do
is get a hug because there's toomany kids in the house and my dad's
yelling at my mom and I justneeded a hug, right, So then
(42:42):
I find myself now I'm like marriedto Jenny and we have the greatest relationship.
But it's like suddenly I'm in theother room with the door closed and
I don't want to come out,and she's like, you're doing and then
light bulb goes off. It's likeI'm literally sitting in the bathroom like I
did when I was eight. I'mwaiting for you to come in here and
give me a hug and help meout of this mess. We revert back
to that, the trauma of ourinner child so much throughout our lives,
(43:04):
and we don't even know it.Somebody looks at us a certain way,
someone that we love and care about. They give us a look and it
feels like we don't even process.But it's like, oh, I'm actually
reacting to me. My dad lookedat me back then, and now I'm
projecting it into this situation. Right, all those times when trauma comes up
for people, when struggle comes up, when difficult times and we don't know
if we're going to get through,and we don't know where we're going to
end up, it's like, somehow, if we just persevere, we always
(43:27):
come out okay, right, Andso to me, that message would go
all the way back to baby Donnieand that's just going to be all right.
And again I say this, notknowing what tomorrow brings. Yeah,
the worst thing in the world couldhappen. I don't know. I just
hope that I take all this yearsof experience and handle it better. Than
I would have if it happened tenyears ago. That's about it. That's
awesome. Thank you so much fordoing this. This has been an incredible
(43:52):
I've tied up about five times.Oh come on, come on over there
in leads. No you didn't,I did, chuffed. You look chuffed.
I have chuffed. We made thispodcast not just for other artists,
but for ourselves to interview people weadmire and get words of wisdom and to
(44:15):
motivate us and our listeners to keepgoing. So this has been just incredible.
So thank you so much for yourtime as well. And I hope
our paths across at some point theywill are you're in California right, I'm
in La. Yes, yeah,we'll be out there soon and hopefully we'll
see you. And feel free tocome to the concert. Haley, come
over. I don't know when we'regoing back to the UK, but come
(44:36):
over to a concert. I'm comingour guest. Both of you guys,
be our guest and come backstage andsay hi, and you know you guys
to just know like your podcast,like I look at how look at cheese.
Oh, it's all gonna be allright, It's all gonna be all
right, isn't it all gonna beall right? Come on, I want
(44:59):
to too. Stuff. Wouldn't bethe first guest we made cry, but
well I might be the first guestI'm making you cries. That's great.
But you guys to just know,like you guys, like your light shines
bright. It shines bright. Iknow you like you want guests to come
on who can say things and helpbe a voice for inspiration or just positive
(45:24):
energy, and you guys radiate that. So thank you. I saw your
your Instagram and like it just resonatedso much and it was like it's just
awesome, like it's and you know, don't worry about the baby falling on
the treadmon with the bottom out hisbom His boem was out, like his
(45:46):
entire poems as good as I canget. That's as good as I can
get. I don't even know whatpart of a British accent that is potentially
the greatest moment of my life.All right, Well, in any event,
you don't know what someone's going tosee of you and what it's going
to mean to them. You justdon't know. Those fans who send the
(46:08):
message, thank you for helping meget through a bad time, But you
just don't know who's going to stumbleacross what you're doing and what it's going
to mean to them. And itmeant enough for me to want to be
here and surprise you with Jordan also, and so yeah, so keep going,
so keep on going and cherish thejourney because it looks like you all
(46:29):
are having a wonderful time despite thethe bumps and bruises and boom booms.
But keep going because it's really awesome. Thank you, Thanks Tony to All
right, we'll see you. Assumeone day you'll get that bus. That's
right, I'm gonna get it.I'm gonna get that bus. Do you
remember the Home Improvement show where theywere like move that bus and then you
(46:51):
just are going to be like,tonight, can I keep the bus?
Yeah? No, I just wantto move it. I'll move it back
because then I can have a busand still be on TV cause don't really
know how to do much else.There you go, all right, right,
you're allowed to go. Now,we'll see you at the show.
I look forward to it. Thankyou so much. Bye, thank you,
don a bye. Do you wantto ask our next guest a question?
(47:19):
Follow us at How to Make Itpodcast, where we'll reveal who our
future authors will be and give youthe chance to submit a question to ask
them. Your question could end upin a future epilogue mini episode
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