Veteran actor Tom Selleck, who portrayed NYC Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in “Blue Bloods” across 14 seasons from 2010 to 2024, has spoken about his frustration at the show’s cancellation two years ago.
Speaking on a recent podcast, Selleck revealed that the cast had even taken a pay cut in order to try and help the network keep “Blue Bloods” going but was left exasperated when the police procedural was abruptly ended. According to the actor, it was a particularly painful experience because the cast were so close and had stayed together for so long.
Tom Selleck Reveals Sacrifices ‘Blue Bloods’ Cast Made
GettyDuring an appearance on Ted Danson’s podcast “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” Selleck was asked about his time on “Blue Bloods.” He went on to reveal that the cast and crew wanted to continue the series and had no intention of stopping. If fact, they had already made sacrifices, including a significant pay cut, in order to try and ensure the show’s survival.
“The real truth to that is in the last year, at our last family dinner, everybody wanted to come back. We’d already taken a 25 percent cut in salary,” Selleck said on the podcast. “We’d already done all sorts of things to keep the show going.”
Selleck explained that the cancellation was more painful because the cast had largely remained the same since its debut, meaning that many of the actors had been working together for more than a decade by the time that CBS pulled the plug. He said, “It was very frustrating because… out of the top 100 shows on broadcast television, ‘Blue Bloods’ was number six in our fifteenth year.”
Selleck continued, “Nobody wanted to leave. Everybody was gonna stay on. That’s hard to get. It may be some kind of record to have the same cast intact for that length of time. Usually if it wasn’t a family, it would be different, but you know, you couldn’t very well replace Jamie or Danny or anybody with another actor.”
In a final remark on the subject, Selleck revealed that the cast were all great friends and working on the show had been a genuine pleasure.
“Maybe people don’t realize, but a lot of shows become miserable to work on,” Selleck said. “You get a lot of egos and ‘I’m not coming out of my dressing room until he’s coming out’… and it’s miserable. ‘Blue Bloods’ was never that.”
Tom Selleck Almost Turned Down Iconic Role
Selleck also recently revealed that he almost turned down one of his most famous roles but was ultimately persuaded to change his mind.
“Magnum, P.I.” effectively launched Selleck’s career and made him a familiar face to households across the U.S. and a dependable action star. But he did not want to sign up to play the character when he was first approached.
Despite being contractually obliged to take part in the show, he was hesitant to put his name to the project.
“And I said no to the studio. And Jim Garner, in a way, just kind of saved my life,” Selleck remembered. “I would have been long gone from that version of ‘Magnum.’ But it was a big fight for a long time.”
“It was written by Glen Larson, who’s a good guy, but wasn’t my kind of writer,” the 81-year-old shared. “He did ‘Battlestar Galactica’ and, I don’t know, ‘Fall Guy’ and stuff… but the character had no flaws. He had two beautiful women on his arm and a Ferrari. But I just said no.”
Ultimately, a deal was negotiated between Selleck’s lawyer and the studio to give him greater say over how the character was developed,
“[Bellisario] had lunch with me and he says, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to do something like ‘Rockford.’ I want a character with flaws and some heart.’ And he said, ‘Say no more,’” the “Blue Bloods” star continued. “He did it. And he came back in about two weeks with the best TV movie I had ever read at the time. And it was called ‘Magnum.’”
