Tom Selleck Having a ‘Hard Time’ With ‘Blue Bloods’ Cast: ‘He Can’t Imagine Not Seeing Them Again’

Tom Selleck remains devastated over the cancellation of Blue Bloods, but he’s in touch with cast mates 24/7 and determined to hang on to his T.V. family for as long as they’ll take his calls, a source exclusively tells Closer.

“Tom sees these people as an extended family, he’s bonded so tightly with them after nearly 15 years of working together. It’s not like a normal eight hour job, sometimes he’d be on set 15 hours a day, they shared so much. He can’t imagine just saying goodbye and never seeing them again so he’s making a huge effort to stay in touch,” the source says.

The veteran actor, 79, has been open about his disappointment with his show’s cancellation. “[I hope what the] audience takes away is it is a show worthy of an appointment,” Tom said at The Paley Center for Media during a panel discussion on the long-running series’ final season. “I have great faith and have had great faith in broadcast television. I think it’s suffered from being put in second or third place. And, you know, I don’t think everybody in the world wants to spend an hour on their remote control looking at what they might want to see that night. I’m proud to say [we became appointment TV].”

The Magnum, P.I. star struck up an especially tight friendship with Donnie Wahlberg, who plays his son on the show. According to the source, “He’s very close to Donnie, playing father and son became more than just acting for them.”

Mirroring their on-screen relationship, “Tom loves to give him advice,” and, “They text back and forth all day long and they’re always checking in on each other,” the source notes.

Beyond his Blue Blood son, “Tom’s relationship with Bridget [Moynahan] is really special too,” the insider adds. “He and Jillie [Mack] treat her like a second daughter, they’re both very protective and proud of her. They’re very close to all of the cast and even talking about hosting a watch party for the final episode next month.”

Once per episode, the cast comes together for a family dinner which became a foundational, formulaic part of the show. Speaking about his despondency over the series’ cancellation, Tom lamented, “What I miss most is my friends, my actor family. I had a team. You always say, like in high school, ‘We’ll see each other,’ but it never works out that way. Everybody works, everybody goes this way and that way and suddenly that opportunity we had, that gift of once every eight working days seeing everybody [at family dinner], that doesn’t happen.

“The way our show was structured, you could always look forward to that.”

The breakup of Tom’s “actor family” has him feeling as if his real family is breaking up. “Tom really doesn’t want to let these relationships go,” the source says. “He’s having a very hard time accepting that this is really over and hasn’t given up the fight to get some sort of a spin-off. They’d all love to work together again.”