Tom Selleck is opening up about his frustration with BLUE BLOODS ending and sharing what he’ll miss from the show.
“My last scene was ironically family dinner; that was also the first scene I shot on the show 15 years ago! I’m not going to tell you everything about the last episode…but the family dinner kind of reunites the Reagan family,” he told TV Insider this month. “Erin’s daughter Nicky (Sami Gayle) was there and so was Jack (Tony Terraciano) Danny’s older son. Everybody agreed with me that we should close the set for the family dinner and not exploit that. Most of them had four more days to shoot, but not me.”
After the last scene was shot, there were tears all around.
“We were shooting for hours and all of a sudden, they said ‘Well, that was the last shot.’ I always wanted to say this poem, ‘Love Is Not All’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay. There was crying and there was an enormous amount of hugs. Donnie was really broken up; he didn’t say much.”
“Bridget spoke. Just about everybody said something,” he continued. “Vanessa [Ray] was pretty beat up by the experience.”
Part 2 of BLUE BLOODS: Season 14 releases Oct. 18 and will end in December. Now that the final episodes are about to air, Selleck doesn’t exactly feel peaceful about it.
“I’m kind of frustrated. During those last eight shows, I haven’t wanted to talk about an ending for BLUE BLOODS but about it still being wildly successful,” he explained. “In a Top 100 Shows of 2023-2024 (in total viewers, we were number 9 out of 100), if you discount the three football shows, we’re #6!”
“I’m not going to turn into a bitter old guy saying, ‘Get off my lawn!’ I don’t believe in holding grudges, but if you were to say to the television network, ‘Here’s a show you can program in the worst time slot you got, and it is going to guarantee you winning Friday night for the next 15 years,’ it would be almost impossible to believe,” the actor said. “My frustration is the show was always taken for granted because it performed from the get-go.”
He believes his feelings will take a while for him to “sort out.”
“I remember after the weekend [of the final episode’s shoot], I said, ‘I’ve got to get to bed early tonight because I have to do my dialogue for Monday.’ Well, there was no Monday. It’s just going to take a while,” he said.
As for what he’ll miss the most, it’s the people he’s worked with.
“The family of actors is as close as the Reagan family and the characters that they play. There’s isn’t a single one of them who didn’t want to come back,” he said. “Most shows don’t end that way — there’s petty jealousy and all sorts of things — and we seemed to overcome that. It’s something for everybody to hang their hats on and be proud of.”
His cast members love him just as much.
Movieguide® reported what they’ve said about Selleck:
Donnie Wahlberg was the first to talk about his on-screen dad: “It can never be overstated how much he’s committed to the show. He stays behind and works on the show in post-production. He works on the scripts before they’re even brought to the cast. He is just really dedicated to the show and he treats it very seriously. He is to BLUE BLOODS as Frank Reagan is to the NYPD and to the Reagan family.”
Bridget Moynahan said, “He shows up and gives a hundred percent — whether it’s to Donnie, or to me, or to that guest star who’s on for one or two scenes — there’s no difference. He’s always present and respectful and welcoming, so it’s been a pleasure.”
Will Estes noted Selleck has always kept the show’s core at heart.
“I don’t think we’d still be here [without him],” he said.
Selleck helped create a comfortable environment with the cast on and off set.
“You set a tone early, and I’m proud to say I had something to do with that, having had such a good experience on MAGNUM,” he said. “On BLUE BLOODS, in some ways, I was the patriarch of the actor Reagan family. They knew I [had worked on a long-running show before] so I had some credibility when problems came up. It helped, I think.”
TV Insider asked Selleck how important his character’s three close “sounding boards” at police HQ 1 are: Lt. Sid Gormley, Det. Abigail Baker and Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Garrett Moore.
“They’re probably the people he’s closest to in the entire police department. I really felt that Frank’s stories are what goes on behind the office’s closed door. They’re responsible for an awful lot of Frank’s success,” he said.
He just has one minor regret about his character.
“Everybody says, ‘Well, it’d be nice to see [Frank] have a relationship.’ If I had any regrets, it would be that because they weren’t writing a relationship, he didn’t get to flirt often enough. But that didn’t fit what became our format,” Selleck said.
But early on in the show, he did have a small fling with a reporter.
“She was an old pal of his, played by Margaret Colin, who I knew from THREE MEN AND A BABY. Frank’s not dead! He still wears his wedding ring, but he’s not beyond needing somebody and flirting with them.”
“But we had first three stories each episode and then four when Vanessa [Ray] became a regular so there’s not really room for that. I would have had fun playing it, but you just can’t do it all,” he continued.
For Selleck, the most enjoyable scenes were around the Sunday dinner table.
“Also: when [Frank] was at [NYC’s] 9/11 memorial. It was the first time any show was allowed to shoot at the memorial. It was kind of an out-of-body experience,” he said.
Selleck also confirmed that Frank does not retire from the police force, and he’s truly enjoyed playing him.
“I like my character! Most of the time I don’t know what the next script is going to be. You see what comes and informs you. Hmmm — this is a different side of my character that I haven’t explored.”
“I have to find a way to do it that’s consistent with who the audience thinks Frank is. Nobody’s perfect on the show; that’s why I think it [lasted so long],” he said.
And at 79, he doesn’t plan on retiring in real life either.
“You just go to work and you do the work,” he told CBS News in May. “And I have a lot of reverence for what I call ‘the work,’ and I love it. And I’d like to keep doing it.”
