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Catching up with Mass. native Will Reeve, who just reported from the Charles for a segment on ‘Good Morning America’
Reeve did a segment for Good Morning America's series "50 States in 50 Weeks: America the Beautiful."
“Good Morning America” was all about Massachusetts this week and sent an ABC correspondent with plenty of Mass. roots for a segment along the Charles River.
Will Reeve, an ABC correspondent since 2018, reported live from the banks of the Charles River at the Harry Barker Boathouse in Brighton for the morning show’s “50 States in 50 Weeks: America the Beautiful.”
The show’s yearlong series leading up to the nation’s 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026 launched in July, and each week highlights a new state in the order in which the state joined the United States. This week it was Massachusetts’ turn.
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During the segment, the GMA hosts in New York playfully referred to Reeve as “Good Will,” a nod to the 1997 Academy Award-winning movie “Good Will Hunting” which was set in Massachusetts and starred Mass.-born actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
Reeve chuckled over the nickname afterward, telling Boston.com, “That’s one of my all-time favorite movies and might be the all time greatest Boston movie.”
Accompanying Reeve on the banks of the Charles were jazz musicians from Berklee College of Music playing live, senior rowers from Boston’s Age Strong program, and Elynor Walcott, the owner of Wally’s Café Jazz Club in Boston, the first Black-owned jazz club in New England started by her father Joseph L. Walcott in 1947.
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“My father’s clientele has been like the United Nations,” Walcott told Reeve. “Wally’s speaks to people from all over the world, all cultures, all ethnicities, they come here.”
Mayor Michelle Wu declared Thursday Wally’s Cafe Jazz Club Day in Boston, Reeve told Walcott in a surprise announcement.
Reeve shared some Massachusetts history with viewers as well, noting that the state gets its name from the Massachusett tribe of indigenous people who once lived in the area. He also voiced a 90-second history round-up that included everything from the pilgrims landing in 1620 to the nation’s first public park and post office to the area’s sports championships to the celebrities who call the state home such as Damon, Affleck, Steve Carell, Mark Wahlberg, Ayo Edebiri, and more.
After the GMA segment aired, Boston.com caught up with Reeve to talk all things Massachusetts.
Boston.com: Tell us about where you’re from in Massachusetts.
Reeve: I hesitate to even go so far as to say that I am from Massachusetts. I was born in North Adams and my family for almost 40 years owned a home in Williamstown. I spent summers and holidays up there with my parents [deceased Hollywood actors Christopher Reeve and Dana Reeve]. It’s where my parents met in the ’80s. But I grew up in Westchester County and Connecticut. So I don’t want to claim that I’m from Massachusetts as much as I was born in Massachusetts and have a lot of love for Massachusetts and still have many family members and friends who live in Massachusetts.
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Boston.com: You live in New York. Does that make you a Yankees fan?
Reeve: It does. Die hard Yankees fan. New York sports, always and every day. I appreciate Boston sports teams and fans. I think it’s an amazing part of the Boston and Masachusetts culture, how much they love their teams and their players. There’s great atmosphere at all the games that I’ve been fortunate enough to go to in Boston and around the state of Massachusetts.
Boston.com: How often do you get back to Massachusetts?
Reeve: I get back to Massachusetts, and particularly Boston, quite frequently, often for work. There’s always a lot happening in Massachusetts and I tend to cover a lot of sports for ABC and the Celtics have been amazing recently so I’ve gotten to cover a few NBA Finals in Boston in recent years. And I have a bunch of family and friends in the state and I come up to visit as much as I can. I’m actually heading back to Boston next weekend for a wedding, which I’m very much looking forward to.
Boston.com: Tell us some of your favorite Massachusetts spots.
Reeve: Starting with Boston, I eat at Carmelina’s in the North End any time I can get in, which is rare because it’s so popular. Last night, I got take out from Lucia and I walked a few blocks over to the Old North Church to see the Revere statue. I love walking around the Seaport in Boston. There’s nothing better than a stroll through Boston Common. If I can get to Fenway I will do that, especially if the Yankees are playing the Sox. I grew up learning how to surf and boogie board at Nauset Beach, so anytime I can go out to the Cape and go onto Nauset Beach that’s one of my favorite things to do. [I’ve had] lots of fun summer moments on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
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In Williamstown, which is where my family had a house for decades, where my parents met, near where I was born, I used to go to tennis camp at Williams College. My parents were both active at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, so I always loved going to see a play there. I have to get ice cream from Lickety Split on Spring Street in Williamstown. And the Clark Art Institute and Mass MoCA and the MFA in Boston are some of my favorites.
Boston.com: What do you think makes Massachusetts special?
Reeve: I think it’s the breadth of things people can do and places they can visit. You can go skiing, you can see great art, you can have amazing food, you can see championship-level sports at the college, professional, and even high school level, you can go surfing and sailing and swimming, you can get the history of our nation in one tiny area just in Boston let alone the surrounding towns — Lexington and Concord come to mind. You can do so much to enrich yourself culturally, with food, with sports, with history and then the people of Massachusetts are a unique breed who are fiercely protective of their home state and their communities and they’re active in them and you don’t find that in the exact same way really anywhere else in the country.
Boston.com: Catch us up on you. You just did a cameo in the new “Superman” movie, released in July. Your dad, of course, once played Superman. How was that? And you wore his cuff links?
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Reeve: I wore his cuff links to the premiere. I got to have a little cameo playing a version of myself. I play a reporter on the scene of a busy day in Metropolis. It was an honor and it was a lot of fun.
Boston.com: Earlier this year, the documentary “Will Reeve: Finding My Father” aired. How was that experience?
Reeve: “Will Reeve: Finding My Father” which I made for ABC and which is on Hulu, was a project I had dreamed of making for almost my entire life. My dad, just before his [horseback riding] accident in 1995, finished filming a documentary in which he followed the migration of the gray whales from the Arctic Circle down to the lagoons of Baja, Mexico. And it was my favorite project of his that I ever saw because it was the most him, as it were, in all of his curious, dynamic, active, happy, exploratory glory. He filmed that when I was about 2 years old and then he got injured and I would revisit it over the years as a way to see a version of him that I did not get enough time with in my life. I had for a long time wanted to go retrace his steps, go see the things he had seen and experience that world and that part of the world in the way in which he experienced it so I set out to find the sons of the people who took him around 30 years prior as a connective tissue between his time there and my time in the present and it ended up being a profoundly moving experience.
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Boston.com: What’s next for you?
Reeve: I’m getting married in early 2026.
Boston.com: Congratuations!
Reeve: Thanks. We can’t wait. We’re planning our wedding and it’s a joy and I’m counting down the days until I get to marry the love of my life and start that chapter.
Responses have been condensed.
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