Will Estes and Vanessa Ray bring the fan-favorite couple of Jamko, aka Jamie Reagan and Eddie Janko-Reagan, to life on Blue Bloods. The series is currently in its fourteenth and final season, which will be split into two parts and conclude in fall 2024. New episodes air on Fridays at 10:00 PM, ET/PT on CBS and are available to stream live on Paramount+.
BLUE BLOODS is a drama about a multi-generational family of cops dedicated to New York City law enforcement. Frank Reagan is the New York Police Commissioner, and heads both the police force and the Reagan brood. He runs his department as diplomatically as he runs his family, even when dealing with the politics that plagued his unapologetically bold father, Henry, during his stint as chief. A source of pride and concern for Frank is his eldest son, Danny, a seasoned detective, family man and Iraq War vet who on occasion uses dubious tactics to solve cases with his partner and new mother, Detective Maria Baez. Erin, the middle daughter, is a New York assistant D.A. who serves as the legal compass for her siblings and father, while also pursuing a run for district attorney. Jamie is the youngest Reagan, a Harvard Law graduate and the family’s golden boy. Unable to deny the family tradition, Jamie decided to give up a lucrative future in law and follow in the family footsteps as a cop. He’s found a friend and ally in his wife, Eddie, who keeps him on his toes, and has very different reasons than the Reagans for joining the police force.
I was lucky enough to speak with the duo over Zoom and ask them about learning from each other, what Jamie and Eddie’s family traditions would be, big moments of growth for Jamko, what final piece of advice they would give their characters, and more. Keep reading for everything they shared!
Thank you for doing this. I am so, so excited.
Will Estes: Thank you.
Vanessa Ray: Nice to see you!
Nice to see you! I’ve been watching this show for so many years, it feels crazy to think about not having it on my TV on Friday nights and you two are really the reason I started watching, so this is a dream interview right here. To start off, I want to ask what you have learned from working with each other because you are just magical together and have become such a staple, I think, to Blue Bloods now.
Ray: That’s a great question.
Estes: Gosh, I think one thing I’ve learned working with Vanessa is when I feel off or the scene’s not quite making sense, it’s always better if I just start listening to her and what she’s doing as an actor, and then it clicks in for me. I’ve learned to have a lot of fun. We really get along on and off camera and we laugh a lot, and it just carries you through a day. I think it’s so important to take the work seriously, but not yourself seriously, and I think Vanessa’s taught me that more than anyone I’ve ever worked with.
Ray: Oh, that’s nice. I mean, same, we have so much fun working together. I think for me, especially when we were first starting out, I really didn’t know anything about the cop world. And so, Will really helped me with the technical side of things.
Estes: “Let me tell you about cops! I’m not a cop, but I play one on TV.”
Ray: He was like, “Let me… this is what this means and this is what this means.”
That’s the perfect teacher next to you, right?
Estes: We have a real cop teacher for her, Jim Nuciforo.
Ray: We do have a real cop teacher but Will and I have a shorthand that just kind of came right away pretty naturally. And so, I can’t believe it’s been a decade that we’ve known each other and worked together.
Estes: Nor I. I can’t believe it, it’s really flown by.
Ray: Yeah, it’s really, really great.
I would do a spin-off of just you two. I’m not ready to say goodbye to Jamie and Eddie.
Estes: Me too.
Ray: We’ll do it. We’ll take it.
Estes: We’ll do it. One season, two seasons? Let’s do it. Pitch it!
Ray: Let’s pitch it! Let’s make it somewhere warm.
The last time I spoke to you, Vanessa, you said the crossover you would want to do was with The White Lotus for a vacation, so I feel like that fits very well, right?
Ray: Yes, we would fight crimes on a tropical island.
Estes: You cut off our uniform pants into shorts and I am there.
One thing I’ve been hoping for Eddie and Jamie is that they get to start their own family. I don’t know if we’ll see that and I’m not going to ask you because if you know, I know you can’t tell me, but if they were to start their own family in the future, what do you think some of their traditions would be? Because I love the Sunday dinner tradition that the Reagans have.
Ray: That’s a cool thing to think about. Well, for sure we’d have to do family dinners.
Estes: Family dinners. What other traditions?
Ray: We like to ride bikes, our characters ride bikes together and we’re a nice New York couple, so we’ve got to take our kid to Broadway shows and Central Park on the weekends, do all that stuff. We’ll take them to the museums…
Estes: And a life of service.
Yes, there’s the spin-off right there.
Estes: Any job in uniform shorts is a requirement for any child of…
Ray: The Reagan family.
Estes: Jamko.
If you could take Eddie and Jamie and place them in any different show or genre for an episode, what sort of adventure would you want to see them get up to?
Estes: NCIS: Hawai’i! No, I’m just kidding. Somewhere warm.
Ray: LL Cool J, call us!
Estes: LL! NCIS: Jamaica.
Ray: Well, of course, somewhere tropical and I think it would definitely have to be a comedy. If we could do a guest star on like Abbott Elementary…
I was holding myself back, but when you said comedy, I was gonna say Abbott Elementary.
Ray: Documentary style, we go and we talk to the kids about being police officers.
Estes: We want to keep it going. Once the characters are dead, we want to be on Ghosts.
Ray: Yeah, Ghosts!
Estes: Kill us now and put us on Ghosts.
Ray: We can spend an eternity together.
Both together: Awwwwww!
This is exactly why I called this my dream interview.
Estes: It’s our dream interview too.
Ray: There it is.
I knew it was going to be amazing. What do you consider to be the biggest moment of growth for each of your characters individually or in their relationship together?
Estes: I have one, can I start? I think one moment of growth for us that was huge, it just stands out in my mind, I guess, I’m taking it back a little bit, but we were partners for a long time who weren’t gonna cross any romantic boundaries because that’s not PC when you’re working together. Then, Eddie quite valiantly saves Jamie’s life when someone is trying to basically assassinate him and they sort of like, that moment shrugs off anything, any pretense, any walls they still had up and they kind of recognize outwardly their love for each other in that moment. There’s a photo circulating where we hug weird, but other than that…
Ray: Yeah, our bodies are really far away because of our belts.
Estes: You can’t really see them contacting, but it was a very PC hug. I think that that’s kind of the biggest moment of growth.
Ray: Totally. Are you ready for this answer? Because I think that they’ve both committed their life to service and they realize that protecting one another and loving one another is also an act of service…
Estes: It’s intrinsic to their spirit.
Ray: So being together, it all works together, yeah.
Amazing answers. I know told you last time how important this series is to my family and I. My grandparents kind of passed it down to me and we do the Sunday dinners, which was a tradition long before we watched, so I love the family aspect, it’s great to see on screen. What is your favorite Reagan family moment that you’ve gotten to do so far?
Estes: That’s a great question. I did get to fight Donnie one time in a scene. I never had brothers, so it really does stand out for me, actually, you know what I mean? I have a lot of cousins, so I was around a lot of brothers growing up and they did fight, but I didn’t get to do it. I only got to do it on holidays and summer vacations. But there’s so many moments, it’s really hard to pinpoint one. I love the scenes that I get with Len. I love the idea, I had great grandparents personally in my life, but I didn’t have access a lot to them growing up, they were in different states. So I love the scenes where Jamie gets to go in and ask his grandfather for advice. I love Len Cariou. I love him as an actor and I love the man that he is, and I just love those scenes with him, but there’s so many, it’s really hard to pick one.
Ray: Yeah, I actually sat down with a couple of our writers last season and I was like, “Hey, I’ve never got to do a scene just with Len Cariou. I’d really love — is there any way?” I’ve never asked [anything], it’s the only thing I’ve ever asked for on the show. I just wanted to have a scene with Len and so, they wrote that in and it was really… he’s just so impressive and so just present, and so getting to work with him. Then, any time I get to go toe to toe with Erin Reagan is amazing.
Estes: Which she does in the first episode, they go toe to toe on some stuff that the cops are fighting for with some shoplifting that’s sort of out of hand at this point right now in some ways in the country. And so, they, you and Erin, get to sort of fight both sides of that story.
Ray: Yeah, it’s good.
I was just reminiscing about the wedding and Eddie being walked down the aisle by Frank, and that was such a beautiful moment for the character and in Jamko’s relationship. It was just amazing to see.
Ray: In real life, it’s iconic. My whole family was like, “You got to have Tom Selleck give you away, are you kidding?”
Estes: I got to watch it. I was up there at the altar, but the star of that movie was them two walking down the aisle, so front row seat.
What advice you would give Eddie and Jamie either individually or together as a final farewell? Like, let’s say you could have a moment to speak to them before your final goodbye, what would you tell them as a piece of advice?
Ray: Oh my God, I don’t know how to answer that.
Estes: I don’t know how to answer that one either. I never expected that.
Ray: I would just say like, to continue to follow your gut, and thank you for teaching me how to follow mine. And love Jamie forever because he’s the best! I can’t actually honestly think about the end of it.
Estes: Yeah, just to follow your gut, you know? Follow your heart, follow your gut. These characters, I think, are characters that are just governed by their passion and their sense of justice, and I don’t think they’re wrong in that way. So I would encourage them to continue in that direction with their spirit and with their lives.
That was perfect. What do you hope their relationship gives viewers in terms of a message or takeaway?
Estes: A baby.
Right?
Estes: We get asked that question the most. That’s why it’s in my head. No, people always ask us that.
Okay, but have we considered a dog for Jamko?
Ray: Our own puppy!
Estes: Yes, baby steps, baby steps. We actually do have a dog.
Ray: We have a dog, but we don’t see the dog. Jamko, yeah, remember that? It was very short-lived, but we still have the dog. He doesn’t live with us, obviously, because he’s never at home with us.
Estes: He’s always on a walk. We have a walker. He lives in boarding school.
Where did the dog go? That’s the big question now.
Ray: You know, that’s a great question.
So next time I talk to you both, I expect that answer.
Estes: They say in this business never work with children or animals. So we had experiences that’s, you know, we love that dog.
Ray: We love that dog. I hate to break it, but that dog, there’s been two dogs.
Estes: There’s been two dogs.
Ray: Much like Eddie’s father. Eddie’s had three dads, we had two dogs.
Estes: The dog never knew his lines. He was smoking on set. It was hard. It was difficult.
Ray: True story, the second dog, they had to dye his fur black. I’m sorry, PETA do not come after us, but that is what happened.
If you need a dog for the last season, I’ll lend you my dog, Rosie. She’s not as big as the other dog was, but if you need another dog…
Estes: Done.
Ray: No one will notice. They’ll be like, “Rosie looks exactly like that German Shepherd they had before.”
All dogs are so cute, does it really matter what kind of dog it is?
Ray: No.
Estes: It doesn’t matter, rescue a dog. Go to Best Friends and pick out a dog.
Ray: Yes, good plug.
Thank you very much for your time, I really do appreciate it and I hope to speak with you both again before the show ends, but congratulations. It’s been a pleasure covering the series and talking with you.
Ray: Thank you, Sophia.
Estes: It was a dream interview, thank you so much.