MAGNUM P.I.
Jay Hernandez knows what you are going to ask. Yes, he knows Thomas Magnum (a.k.a. Tom Selleck) had a moustache on the show’s original run from 1980 to 1988. No, he has no plans to fill his upper lip with bushy whiskers. But just to keep you guessing, he sports a goatee in the pilot episode of the revival series (starts Sun., May 26 at 8.30pm; FOX8) and jumps from a plane – in space!
So, red Ferrari fans, Hernandez’s Magnum may not turn out to be exactly what you expect. “I almost stopped reading the script,” recalls Hernandez, 41, last seen on Scandal and The Expanse. “I was like, ‘What? Space?! What is going on with this show?’ Then I was, like, ‘Well done, guys.’ It was a good way to take the piss out of it, deflate the detractors early.”
Some things haven’t changed – similar to Selleck’s version, this new Magnum is a former Navy SEAL in Oahu who works as a private investigator with help from his one-time military pals TC Calvin (Stephen Hill) and Rick Wright (Zachary Knighton). To help pay the bills, Magnum is also a live-in security guard for a successful but very elusive author whose property manager just happens to be a disavowed MI6 agent named Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks).
Naturally, sparks fly as they’re solving tropical capers. But back to a more pressing matter: why say aloha to the moustache? “I know people are gonna have opinions,” says Hernandez. “I thought it was a smart thing not to do because you’re never gonna replace Tom Selleck.”