Tom Selleck Stars As Not-So-Nice Guy In ‘The Closer’

Tom Selleck is known as a nice guy, but he’d rather not play one on TV.

So before he agreed to star in a new CBS sitcom titled “The Closer,” Selleck insisted that his character not be a warm and fuzzy family man but rather one with plenty of rough edges.

The creative team behind “The Closer” came up with a charming but roguish advertising executive named Jack McLaren, who careens through life with a swollen ego, a hypercompetitive streak, and a personal life in disarray. The show is a midseason entry scheduled to air the last week in February, after the Olympics conclude.

“You can say a lot of positive things by playing a character who makes mistakes,” Selleck explained Monday to TV critics gathered here for their winter meeting. “The audience keeps watching and doesn’t tune out if you play a character who’s got edge, who’s got flaws.”

Edge, flaws - and Selleck’s trademark mustache, the one familiar to legions of “Magnum, P.I.” fans. When he played Courteney Cox’s older lover on NBC’s “Friends” - a role that rekindled the TV industry’s interest in building a show around him - Selleck was cleanshaven. “I went through gestation without one, so it wasn’t my first experience,” he joked Monday.

But he said he agreed to regrow the mustache at the urging of CBS President Leslie Moonves. Though clearly Selleck is the show’s star, he has a strong supporting cast: Penelope Ann Miller, Edward Asner, Hedy Burress (Wyleen in “Boston Common”), David Krumholtz (“Chicago Sons”), and Suzy Nakamura.

Asner, who joined Selleck and other cast members at a press briefing, is a busy man these days. In addition to “The Closer,” he also has a recurring role on Fox’s “Ask Harriet.”