He won’t quit.
Tom Selleck, 79, has no plans to retire from acting, even though he has said that he’s worried he will no longer be able to afford his plush 63-acre ranch once “Blue Bloods” comes to an end this winter.
The actor, whose new memoir “You Never Know” is now out, told “Town & Country” in an interview published Tuesday, “I hope there’s another Western in my future. Certainly whatever happens with ‘Blue Bloods,’ I’m not going to stop acting. I still hold out hope that CBS will come to their senses.”
Selleck has starred in the popular CBS crime drama as the fictional New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan since 2010.
The show is in Season 14, which will be its last – with the second part airing in the fall and the series finale airing in December.
Without his paycheck from the show, Selleck fears that he may be forced to hand over his Ventura County, California, ranch as a result, he told “CBS Sunday Morning.”
Regarding the possibility of being unable to pay for his ranch, the former “Magnum PI” star said, “That’s always an issue. If I stopped working, yeah. Am I set for life? Yeah, but maybe not on a 63-acre ranch!”
Selleck has been vocal that he disagrees with CBS’s choice to end “Blue Bloods.”
“What nobody’s talking about is how successful ‘Blue Bloods’ is,” he told Town & Country.
He added, “It’s the No. 3 highest rated scripted show in all of broadcast. We’re winning Friday nights, and doing well on Paramount Plus. The show is not in decline. And I say that stuff not to brag, but everybody who works our show — actors, writers, everybody — deserves that five-star legacy on their resume.”
He continued to berate the network, “CBS isn’t talking about how well it’s performing. I do, because I think everybody needs to know, if the show ends, we’ll be ending in rather wild success, as ‘Magnum’ did.”
Selleck also had some brutally honest words about the TV industry.
“It’s constantly in flux. I don’t want to sound like an old timer and say it’s not as good as it used to be, but … I just don’t see the development and belief in projects,” he told the outlet.
“They seem to go in trends; if one show succeeds, let’s just copy that. There’s too much ‘Well that show worked, let’s do five of those,’ rather than figuring out what’s next. That takes a certain amount of risk, and I think there’s too many business people and not enough creative people in management.”
He added, “But the work is there and I love the work, and that will always stay. Actors are not widgets —people matter. Audiences tune in, in any kind of series, whether it’s a cable or Netflix, they tune in again to see the people, the people they become interested in. I don’t think that’s ever going to change, but I don’t think it’s in a very good state at the moment, frankly.”