Tom Selleck fought hard against taking on the role that has defined his career.
Selleck, 81, appeared on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast on Tuesday, where he said that he initially “hated” the pilot script for Magnum, P.I. He went on to star in the series from 1980 to 1988—earning five consecutive Lead Actor in a Drama Series nominations and one win at the Emmys—but revealed that he put up a “big fight” before he agreed to it.
“It was written by Glen Larson,” Selleck explained, “who’s a good guy, but wasn’t my kind of writer.” He continued, “The character had no flaws. He had two beautiful women on his arm and a Ferrari. I hated it… It was terrible.”
The actor was adamant that he was not interested in portraying the character, despite having signed a standard holding contract with CBS and Universal Studios, which posed a dilemma.
“I said no to the studio,” he said. It was his friend James Garner, who starred in The Rockford Files, who gave him the advice that led to one of Selleck’s most iconic roles. “Jim Garner, in a way, just kind of saved my life,” Selleck said.
Garner told him that he’d “never have more power than you do right now,” to get the script the way he wanted it. So Selleck teamed up with his attorney, Skip Brittenham, to demand rewrites. “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,’” Selleck recalled, feeling confident that being fresh off a hit would make his demands land.
Selleck was able to have writers “auditioning for me,” in a twist to the usual process. After he met Donald P. Bellisario, who would become the show’s co-creator, writer, and executive producer for all eight seasons, the character finally became one he wanted to play. “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.’”
“He did it,” Selleck continued. “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 won a Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for the role, which turned him into a major Hollywood leading man of the 1980s. He starred in 1987’s Three Men and a Baby toward the end of the show’s run, which became the highest-grossing film of that year. More major big-screen roles would follow.
Selleck said that if there hadn’t been major changes made to Magnum, he would have left the role behind as soon as possible. “I would have been long gone from that version of Magnum,” he said. “But it was a big fight for a long time.”
CBS revived the series in 2018, with Jay Hernandez as the new Magnum. The revival lasted four years on the network until it was canceled and picked up by NBC for its final season.
