‘Blue Bloods’ Star Abigail Hawk Reveals the Incredible Way Tom Selleck “Changed My Life”
The 42-year-old actress opens up about her favorite BTS Blue Bloods moments.
Blue Bloods has been on the air for 14 spectacular seasons—and now, it’s all coming to an end. The beloved police procedural is set to debut the second half of season 14 on Friday, October 18, with eight episodes airing through the end of the year. While fans will still have access to their favorite characters through CBS reruns and streaming apps, parting ways with the characters we’ve come to know and love will be bittersweet. But Abigail Hawk (Detective Abigail Baker) reminds us of the importance of simply being grateful for such a solid run of Friday night fun. In an exclusive interview with Country Living, the 42-year-old actress reflects on the most monumental role of her career, the reality of working with Tom Selleck, and more.
“I think I’m still almost in this state of denial,” she admits, acknowledging that her longest-standing, life-changing role has reached its final chapter. At this time of year, Abigail and the Blue Bloods cast is typically on set, filming episodes for the season ahead. “It’s just very strange to feel like we should be working and chomping away and to not have that happening is almost surreal,” she admits. “I almost feel as if time is suspended in a way. There’s this anticipatory waiting. We have episodes that will be airing shortly but it’s just surreal. I almost feel like I’m hovering above, observing my life, and I’m trying to look back but I can’t yet because I’m not far enough away from the fire of it. It’s still so present. It’s a third of my life.”
While she works to gain clarity on the situation, Abigail is grateful for her work on Blue Bloods and what the end of the show has meant for her personal life.
Blue Bloods has been on the air for 14 spectacular seasons—and now, it’s all coming to an end. The beloved police procedural is set to debut the second half of season 14 on Friday, October 18, with eight episodes airing through the end of the year. While fans will still have access to their favorite characters through CBS reruns and streaming apps, parting ways with the characters we’ve come to know and love will be bittersweet. But Abigail Hawk (Detective Abigail Baker) reminds us of the importance of simply being grateful for such a solid run of Friday night fun. In an exclusive interview with Country Living, the 42-year-old actress reflects on the most monumental role of her career, the reality of working with Tom Selleck, and more.
“I think I’m still almost in this state of denial,” she admits, acknowledging that her longest-standing, life-changing role has reached its final chapter. At this time of year, Abigail and the Blue Bloods cast is typically on set, filming episodes for the season ahead. “It’s just very strange to feel like we should be working and chomping away and to not have that happening is almost surreal,” she admits. “I almost feel as if time is suspended in a way. There’s this anticipatory waiting. We have episodes that will be airing shortly but it’s just surreal. I almost feel like I’m hovering above, observing my life, and I’m trying to look back but I can’t yet because I’m not far enough away from the fire of it. It’s still so present. It’s a third of my life.”
While she works to gain clarity on the situation, Abigail is grateful for her work on Blue Bloods and what the end of the show has meant for her personal life.
“My first day on set, Tom took me aside and said, ‘Hey, I really am working on curating this authentic reality and if we view Frank Reagan as this colossal, larger-than-life man as the king—the king, he can’t show his feelings; he can’t actually express what is going through his mind because he has the burden of being the leader, but his team—his inner circle, those that he trusts, and his advisors—they can show the stress of the job,’” Abigail reveals.
“I come from the theater world; I am a very expressive individual and here I was stepping into the shoes and self-creating this stoic, composed, poised, mature woman who was the exact opposite of me and just having him go—my favorite thing was when he’d take me aside and go, ‘I’m not trying to tell you what to do but if I were you, have you considered, maybe try…’ and then you would see this lightbulb go on and I would just nail the next take just because of some small tweak or suggestion that he would give me,” Abigail remembers.
Meanwhile, being Frank’s workplace confidant on-screen allowed Abigail to be so in real life, too.
“Seeing his approach to work has taught me an insane amount of lessons,” Abigail shares. “The authenticity that he brings, his absolute need for it to be right, but not perfect; I love that he made Frank Reagan flawed and messy and sometimes a little grumpy and perhaps he has to come to a decision through ways that are not necessarily the straight and narrow, you know, he walks around and dances around it, and it’s just—the humanness of it all and watching this mastercraftsman build what became such a venerable, beloved television character was very exciting for me as a young actor.”
And the fact that he was so willing to share his craft and the lessons he, himself, had learned in his career, felt like a pinch-me-is-this-real-life moment, time and time again, for Abigail.
“We started creating what became a completely elaborate and significant shorthand and he changed my life,” she admits. “If he had not seen something in me, seen a spark in me that I, to be totally honest, didn’t know that I had… I watched this man [growing up] and to have him standing there like the human embodiment of the Brawny paper towel man was just indescribably incredible. To now consider him one of my dearest friends, it’s just… Time is amazing. I’m just grateful, I’m so very grateful.”
