Regis: Our first guest's career spans across the worlds of music, film, and television. Currently he stars in NBC's hit series, Boomtown. Here is Donnie Wahlberg (applause).

Regis: Donnie my man, how you doing buddy? Meet my wife Joy.

Joy: It's so nice to meet you.

Regis: Donnie, Donnie.

Donnie: I'm glad you're here. I came a while ago when Boomtown first premiered and Howie Mandel was here, and he's fast.

Regis: So you're glad I'm here because I'm slow, is that what you're saying?

Donnie: No, No.

Regis: Is that some kind of compliment, good old reliable Regis.

Donnie: I use to be afraid of doing this show. I use to do this show a lot with the new kids and stuff, and I use to be afraid cause it's early in the morning you know.

Regis: You're not a morning person.

Donnie: No I'm very slow in the morning.

Regis: What's your problem in the morning?

Donnie: I don't know. I get up early, I'm up at 6 am pretty much everyday. I'll go into the kitchen and I'll start to make my breakfast, I'll put the oatmeal in the bowl and get it ready and I just warm it up in the microwave, but I'll put it in the refrigerator some mornings. I'll put face wash on my toothbrush and brush my teeth with it. Just bad things. So the morning I came here to do the show, I mean anytime I come here I have to get myself really awake cause you guys are quick with the questions and the jokes. And the morning Howie Mandel was here…

Regis: He really let you have it.

Donnie: It was straight from hell, it was really bad.

Regis: Well I got a solution for all of this, wake up later.

Donnie: Well I have a baby at home.

Regis: You have a baby and you have a little guy too named, Xavier.

Donnie: Yeah, yeah.

Joy: So you're up and down all night, not really sleeping.

Donnie: No, he sleeps, we get through the night.

Regis: What's his name.

Donnie: Elijah, beautiful baby.

Regis: I haven't heard the name Xavier in a long time. You know it's my confirmation name.

Donnie: Right.

Regis: Regis Francis Xavier Philbin. So what made you call the big guy Xavier?

Donnie: Well, we looked through hundreds of names, and something about it just stuck. You know one things you do is when you come up with a name you like, you think of anyone with that name and if you don't like them you go, "Oh No." (laughs)

Regis: That's absolutely exactly right.

Joy: Absolutely.

Donnie: So I only knew one Xavier in my whole life. Other than the Saint Francis Xavier from church. But I knew a guy in high school, named Xavier, and he was a great guy and I love the name and I was like that's the one. Cause every other name, I knew someone with it and they were creepy or something. So it just wasn't a good thing.

Joy: It's hard to have a nickname for Xavier isn't it?

Donnie: Well, we just called him pops

Regis: After the beating Howie Mandel gave you you'll never call the kid Howie!

Donnie: No, No.

(commercial break)

Regis: Donnie Wahlberg, starring in Boomtown over there on NBC. Critics loved this series when it first came out, and it's doing quite well.

Donnie: Yeah the critical response has been phenomenal. Which is great for me, I really enjoy getting good reviews, finally. You know what's interesting we've done 12 shows that have already aired, and the reviews where phenomenal. But the next six that are going to start airing this Sunday blow the first 12 away. If we got those kinds of reviews for the first 12, I mean really we had time to get the formula right and figure it all out and the first 12 we were just flying by the seat of our pants.

Regis: You've had a nice acting career develop over the years…

Donnie: Thank you.

Regis: …with nice meaty roles, including The Sixth Sense, a movie we loved.

(applause)

Joy: Yes, I thought you were chilling.

Donnie: Thank you, thank you.

Joy: It was a great scene. And you had to prepare for that and did you say you slept in a park?

Donnie: Yeah.

Joy: And did a lot of strange things?

Donnie: Yeah I did a lot of strange things. (laughs) It wasn't really by design it just sort of happened. I was sorta losing weight, which I planed to do, but I'd lost 15 pounds in like two weeks and there were still 3 ½ weeks before I shot, so I had to keep going and I lost about 48 pounds when all was said and done. And I was rehearsing in a park one day in Philadelphia in Ritten (sp?) House Square and the guy I was rehearsing with was like, "I'll be your character's friend." And it occurred to be that this character probably didn't have any friends. So I just took off from the guy and hide under a bush and I stayed there for like a half an hour and I started to get scared about coming out, cause there were beat cops walking around and I was around 139 pounds, looked close to death and I'm a former pop star so I figured if I'm coming out from under a bush and one of these cops sees me, it wouldn't look very good. (laughs)

Regis: It would be in the papers! (crowd laughs) Donnie Wahlberg goes nuts!

Donnie: So I became afraid to come out and I slept under the bush until the next morning. But, it was great for the character, because it made me feel the fear my character probably felt seeing dead people. Like the little boy did, cause he was afraid to come out because of what he might see.

Regis: Donnie is a serious actor here.

Joy: Why didn't you just tell the guy you didn't want him to be your friend?

Regis: You ran away from him.

Donnie: I know, I know.

Regis: So you play a cop in this one, lieutenant and in this clip you're reaching out to a fellow officer to assist you in a certain request and he's not happy about it.

Donnie: He doesn't like my character basically.

(clip w/ Ray and Joel)

(audience applause)

Regis: This guy could be a problem.

Donnie: He is a problem. (laughs)

Regis: The next six episodes, Donnie says are going to blow the first 10 away, so let's see what happens.

Donnie: That's right.

Regis: It all starts Sunday night on NBC. It's nice to see you.

Donnie: Thank you very much.