Donald Edmond Wahlberg Jr. (born August 17, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, record producer, and film producer. He is a founding member of the boy band New Kids on the Block. Outside music, he has had roles in the Saw films, Zookeeper, Dreamcatcher, The Sixth Sense, Righteous Kill, and Ransom, as well as appearing in the World War II miniseries Band of Brothers as Carwood Lipton. From 2002 to 2003, he starred in the crime drama Boomtown. He has been starring in the drama series Blue Bloods as Danny Reagan since 2010, and since 2014 is an executive producer of the TNT reality television show Boston's Finest. He was nominated for Choice Scream at the 2006 Teen Choice Awards for his work in the Saw films. He has also produced and starred in Rock This Boat, Donnie Loves Jenny and Return of the Mac on Pop TV. He also produces and stars in Wahlburgers on A&E TV.
Wahlberg was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. He is the eighth of nine children, with older siblings, Arthur, Jim, Paul, Robert, Tracey, Michelle, and Debbie, and younger brother, Mark, who began his entertainment career formerly as the leader of the early 1990s rap group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He also has three half-siblings from his father's first marriage: Donna, Scott, and Buddy. His mother, Alma Elaine (née Donnelly), was a bank clerk and nurse's aide, and his father, Donald Edmond Wahlberg Sr., was a teamster who worked as a delivery driver; they divorced in 1982. His father was of Swedish and Irish descent, and his mother is of Irish, English, and French-Canadian ancestry. Maternally, he is distantly related to author Nathaniel Hawthorne.