“It was a lot to get used to”

The star of “Blue Bloods” spoke about “Magnum’s Life on the Beach” before the start of the show

Tom Selleck recently spoke openly about his discomfort with his sudden fame in the 1980s.

In an episode of Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) Podcast that Blue Blood The 79-year-old star sat down with Danson to talk about his decades-long career, including what he described as a “melancholy time in Hawaii” while waiting to start filming the first season of Magnum, PI during the SAG-AFTRA strike in 1980.

The series, in which he played the titular private detective Thomas Magnum, marked a breakthrough for Selleck after about a decade of appearing in small roles and guest spots in films and television shows. As Danson noted, while Magnum, PIAt the height of his career, Selleck was “probably one of the biggest stars in the world.”

Related: Tom Selleck Looks Back on His 'Happy Life,' His 'Accidental' Career and the 4 Decades He Loved His Wife Jillie (Exclusive)

“I didn't like it,” Selleck said of the sudden attention. “Especially because of the family and the feeling of privacy.”

“I've been asked questions in interviews that I didn't want to say – that I didn't want to answer,” he added. “I tried – I said, 'You better find a way and a line of what you're going to talk about.' I didn't always succeed, but it just evolved and I still can't describe it exactly.”

“But I didn’t go through this every day,” Selleck continued.

He explained that in the early days of the show, he was somewhat shielded from all the hype and lived a life not dissimilar to that of his character.

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“I had a beautiful house in Hawaii,” he said. “It was a tiny little house – a one-bedroom house. I rented it. Later I bought it. It was the first house I could afford. And I belonged to a club called the Outrigger Canoe Club, which was made up of locals. And yes, they kind of knew I was an actor, but that time – while the actors were on strike and we couldn't start the show, couldn't start filming – was great.”

“I actually lived Magnum's life on the beach and stuff,” he noted.

That changed after the series became a success and Selleck received his first People's Choice Award in 1981 and Golden Globe and Emmy nominations every year from 1982 to 1986. “I think it was really a lot to get used to,” he told Danson.

Still, he noted that filming in Hawaii helped. “Let's say the same show had been in LA and it had been just as hot,” he said. “I don't know how people do it. I had this huge buffer and that was a blessing.”

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