Tom Selleck reflects on his 'accidental' acting career
The veteran actor has released a new memoir, titled You Never Know
Tom Selleck rose to fame in the '80s with starring roles in some of the decade's biggest hits, like the crime drama series Magnum, P.I. and the comedy-drama film Three Men and a Baby, which was the biggest box office success of 1987.
But in his new memoir, You Never Know, Selleck reflects on his road to stardom and reveals that acting was never his ambition. "You Never Know is the story, really, of an accidental career," he tells Q's Tom Power in an interview.
Selleck's career started by chance in the '60s when someone saw him as a contestant on The Dating Game. From there, he joined the Fox New Talent Program — a vestige of the old Hollywood studio system.
"It wasn't like I was magical on The Dating Game or anything," he says. "Just somebody saw me and a casting director said, 'You might want to go over to Fox.' They had an actual talent school. You didn't get much money, but you got a weekly salary and they had acting classes, voice classes, dance classes…. But the point is, if I hadn't grown up in L.A., none of this would have happened. So an awful lot was serendipitous."
As a college senior, Selleck says he was unmotivated, had terrible work habits and was always on academic probation, but he excelled at sports.
"I had excellent work habits in sports," he tells Power. "And I developed the same kind of work habits in acting and acting class. After Fox fired me along with everybody else in the program, I knew you had to study and I also knew you had to fail a lot, just like in sports."
Throughout the '70s, before landing his big break, Selleck did a lot of commercials while he auditioned for other roles. Though he'd never dreamed of being an actor growing up, once he got started, he put everything he had into it.
"Becoming a good actor became my dream," he says. "I was committed to being a good actor. I don't think I had visions of being a star, although I never thought of the business in that way."
Looking back, Selleck sees his early career struggles as a blessing in disguise.
"I did six unsold pilots before I ever got Magnum," he says. "It was frustrating finding work, it was frustrating going to interviews, but I got to say, when Magnum came on the air, I was 35 and I was schooled and trained and very few people get introduced to the audience the way I was fortunate enough to do on Magnum."
The full interview with Tom Selleck is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Tom Selleck produced by Ben Edwards.