Tom Selleck isn’t counting Blue blood right now.
Yahoo Entertainment caught up with the actor to talk about his new memoir, Never know, out now. He’s in New York filming what CBS says will be the final eight episodes of the crime drama. The experienced TV star, however, says he is not thinking about the end of anything.
“I’m not seeing this as a ‘slow down,’” says Selleck, who plays New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan. “I prefer to be optimistic.
“Blue blood in our 14th season it is the third most scripted show of all broadcasts,” continues the Emmy winner. “We are winning our night. We are performing on Paramount+. So I’m not seeing this as a slowdown. I’m looking at this as a show that’s still a big hit and CBS will come to its senses.
Due to the SAG-AFTRA strike last year, the show’s 14th season was cut from its typical 20 episodes to 10. CBS announced that eight more episodes would be added to the season, airing this fall, but that would be the end of the series. . A fan-driven “#SaveBlueBloods” campaign was then launched, but CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach said last week that there are no plans for that to change.
“It’s not hard to add a full 15th season instead of just [the] eight shows,” says Selleck.
If Blue blood and his famous family dinners come to an end, Selleck sees this as “similar to Magnum, [P.I.]” — the crime drama that made him a Hawaiian-shirt-and-shorts-wearing TV megastar in the 1980s — in which both shows would end “with huge success. We’re still bringing it, as they say, Blue blood and performance, so it’s a little frustrating.”
In his memoir, Selleck details his years playing Thomas Magnum, a Vietnam War veteran turned private detective. The TV finale, which aired in May 1988 after eight seasons, remains one of the most-watched of all time, with “50.7 million viewers, but who’s counting,” he says with a laugh.
“Magnum It was definitely a milestone in my life and my life was forever changed,” he says.
One of the stories in your book is about how, ahead of the Magnum At the end of the series, when much was said about Magnum’s fate, he had fun at the expense of a tabloid. To set the scene: “The sexiest man in America” his love life was tabloid fodder at that time, which, after his divorce, he considered detrimental to his first wife, Jacki Ray, and her son, Kevin Selleck, whom he adopted. Then he laughed as he secretly leaked a fake script that claimed Magnum died at the end to a tabloid with a note that said, “Tom Selleck is an idiot. Here’s the last scene… Magnum dies.”
“In year seven, we toyed with the idea that Magnum might die,” he says. “If you think about it, in a one-hour series, there is no danger for the main character. He might get shot and you might worry for a moment, but the only way to actually deal with real danger for the main character is in the final episode. Then he really could die.
“I was seeing all these rumors [about the finale], and I didn’t like tabloids,” he continues. “In fact, I believed that you should write the truth. So I conjured this thing. We made a fictional script with an ending in which I die and I wrote that letter so that no one else could get in trouble. It says a lot that they didn’t bother to [fact] check it out… It was too good a story to pass up. Therefore, 50.7 million viewers. And not just because of that – Magnum it had a large following – but it certainly created some interest.
Selleck’s memoir took four years to write – by hand – because he is “computer illiterate,” he says. (His wife of 36 years, Jillie Mack, has been known to text him on his behalf.) In it, he also gets real about how difficult it was to launch his career, appearing in six TV pilots that weren’t picked up before. for Magnum. He writes about selling suits at a mall store frequented by Tom Brokaw and Bryant Gumbel to pay the bills and stand on the unemployment line. He refers to this as his decade of learning, feeling that each failure was “laying bricks” for the foundation of what became a decades-long successful career.
Selleck says that “actors never stop learning” and Blue bloodwhich he started in 2010 along with co-stars Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan and Will Estes, was another incredible opportunity to grow as he turns 80 next year.
“I learned a lot more about the pressure of command,” he says of the role of police commissioner. “Somebody who has the lives of 35,000 people who work for him in his hands… You can’t just walk past a scene and say, ‘Man, I feel pressured here.’ I’ve been learning more and more about how to communicate this to the public because [in] According to Frank’s stories, I don’t handcuff and shoot people. It is often a dilemma and a very difficult decision to make. Then [it’s]: How do I keep the audience inside Frank’s head?”
“But it’s always like that with every performance,” he says. “That’s why I love it. And I’m getting older, so I’m realizing: play with who you are, not who you wanted to be 20 years ago. There are many lessons.”
You Never Know: A Memoir It’s out now.
Selleck discusses his book with his Blue blood co-star Bridget Moynahan virtually and in person via the 92nd Street Y on May 7. Tickets are available here.
