Blue Bloods’ Gregory Jbara Ad-Libbed An Intense S1 Line (With Tom Selleck’s Help) – Looper

The story comes to us from Gregory Jbara himself, who shared it with Starry Mag back in 2020. Asked about the amount of agency he’d had in his character’s development over the years, he admitted that it wasn’t much but then jumped excitedly to a story about a time when he took the wheel.

According to Jbara, he was shooting a scene for the back half of the show’s first season, but co-star Tom Selleck wasn’t having it. “Tom wasn’t happy with what was written,” he recalled. “[…] Garrett had to step in and bust the Commissioner’s chops about how he’s dealing with the Mayor. Tom said, ‘What would you really say, Greg, if this was going on?'”

Jbara shot straight. “I replied, ‘If this was really going on, I would say, ‘You’re an idiot! What you did just there was stupid!'” It was a choice that Selleck apparently felt fit the scene more naturally, giving Jbara the go-ahead and fixing him up with a brand new anxiety: “I was like, ‘Oh! I better be careful about what I say because Tom is really listening to me.'”

Jbara went on to sing his colleague’s praises and point out how appreciative he was for Selleck’s faith in him on the set. Still, it’s hard to imagine the emotional fortitude it must take to look Quigley in the eye when he asks what you think you should say and reply: “You’re an idiot.”