Why Tom Selleck initially refused to play this iconic role: ‘I hated it’
Why Tom Selleck initially refused to play this iconic role: ‘I hated it’
Emlyn TravisWed, July 29, 2026 at 7:28 PM UTC
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Tom SelleckCredit: Noam Galai/GettyKey Points -
Tom Selleck says he initially turned down Magnum, P.I.
He shared that he didn’t like the original version of the character because he had “no flaws” to him.
After turning down the show, he auditioned several writers until he found Donald P. Bellisario, who wrote and created the series with his vision in mind.
It doesn’t take a private investigator to suss out that Tom Selleck was not a fan of the original version of Magnum, P.I.
During a recent visit to the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, the 81-year-old actor revealed that he initially declined to play what would become one of his biggest roles because he wasn’t a fan of how his character was portrayed in the script.
Selleck explained that he had a conversation about the predicament with Rockford Files star James Garner, telling him that he was contractually obligated to star in the project.
Tom Selleck on ‘Magnum, P.I.’Credit: CBS via Getty Images
“The show, incidentally, was called Magnum. And I hated it,” he said. “It was terrible.”
Garner, in response, told Selleck that he’d “never have more power than you do right now” if the studio really wanted him to play the private investigator.
“And I said no to the studio. And Jim Garner, in a way, just kind of saved my life,” Selleck said. “I would have been long gone from that version of Magnum. But it was a big fight for a long time.”
He also shared his biggest grievances with the initial iteration of the show. “It was written by Glen Larson, who’s a good guy, but wasn’t my kind of writer,” he said. “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.”
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Selleck shared that it took “a very long time” until his lawyer, Skip Brittenham, was able to reach a deal with the studio that worked for everyone involved.
“He said, ‘You’re not going to get out of this, but they’re going to offer you a choice of three different submissions. They want the commitment,’” he recalled. “I had also done by then a miniseries called The Sacketts, which was a huge, huge break, so they knew that I could handle a series.”
This time around, Selleck was tasked with meeting with three different writers who were “auditioning for me” instead of the other way around. It was during a meeting with Donald P. Bellisario that everything clicked into place.
“[He] 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,’” Selleck said. “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.”
Selleck would go on to star as the titular investigator across all eight seasons of the CBS series, which ran from 1980 to 1988. A reboot of the series starring Jay Hernandez aired decades later from 2018 until 2024.
Listen to Selleck discuss the series in the clip above.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
