Tom Selleck regrets Marlon Brando film

Tom Selleck got serious about balancing his career with his family life after a disastrous movie experience with Marlon Brando.

The Magnum, P.I. star had just completed a baseball movie in Japan when he was offered a role in the 1992 historical adventure film Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, which would take him away from his wife Jillie and daughter Hannah again, but he felt he had to say yes because his co-star would be legendary actor Brando.

"He's kind of the man...," Selleck explained during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show. "It actually wasn't a very good script and it turned out to be a lousy movie... I was so thrilled with the idea of working with Marlon Brando, I just said, 'I gotta go'.

"My daughter got viral pneumonia before I left, so I stayed as many days as I could before going to Madrid, where we were gonna shoot it. She was out of the hospital the day I left, but it really bothered me (sic). I don't know if it was an ego trip, but it was work out of balance with life."

The Blue Bloods actor eventually had the realisation that doing the movie wasn't worth the time spent away from his family and so he decided to take a break from acting.

"I went and did the movie and the movie wasn't really worth doing, frankly. I think Marlon was really in it for getting $5 million for two weeks' worth (of work) and it just bothered me. So I took a year off and a year off turned into three," he shared.

The movie was a critical and commercial failure and Selleck was presented with the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his performance.