Tom Selleck may not be involved in the "Blue Bloods" spin-off "Boston Blue," but his advice still looms large on set for his former co-star Donnie Wahlberg.
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Wahlberg, 57, spoke with PEOPLE about vital career advice Selleck offered him that he still applies today.
"Tom is not the type of guy to sit down and say, 'Let me tell you how it's done.' Right? He's a lead-by-example person. And he did," Wahlberg recalls of his Blue Bloods experience. "And I learned so much watching him. I now watch and remember what he did. And I think about it all the time."
Two decades removed from the "Blue Bloods" series finale, one piece of Selleck's advice still sticks with Wahlberg: "Slow down to hurry up."
"I say it all the time. I quote him a lot on set. 'Slow down to hurry up' is my favorite, though, because a lot of times we try to hurry, we try to rush through the scene or we try to rush through the preparation or the stunt rehearsal or the dialog. And when you hurry in your acting, you end up slowing yourself down," Wahlberg told the outlet. "You stumble over the lines. The camera's not in the right place. You're not on your mark when you're supposed to be. Whatever. And when you actually slow it all down, it speeds up the process. Everything is about slowing it down to speed it up."
Wahlberg, now an executive producer for "Boston Blue," also detailed how Selleck influenced his approach to off-camera roles.
"He gave the other characters their space and let the other actors manage their characters," Wahlberg recalls. "And he would just look for overall themes and things like that. And look for opportunities to just move the story along. But he was very respectful of the fact that he was an actor/producer."
He added, "I've definitely taken after him in that regard. I am on set as an actor. I am with my fellow actors. If I need to stand with them for something it will be as an actor. And if it needs to be as a producer, I will do that after the fact. But I want them to feel comfortable that they're with a fellow actor, who they can trust and not a producer who is going to alter their scene or something. Tom was very gracious about that stuff... I learned so much from him. And I discover it in new ways every day on set. I discover new things that I didn't realize I was absorbing while watching him.
Hopefully it'll take the Blue Bloods empty 10pm/9pm Friday night time slot as it worked for it's predecessor. I look forward to it this fall!!!
Still upset Blue Bloods was cancelled. It was so wholesome and balanced, but I'm looking forward to this. Hope they have the same wholesomeness and balance and we see returning characters.