CBS looking to cast diverse Magnum PI lead
According to a new report coming in right now via Deadline, the network is currently hoping for a non-white lead to play the title character, who Tom Selleck took on so many years ago. This is something that we’ve heard many people clamoring for over the past few years; now that we know CBS is going this route, we would love to see someone of Hawaiian or Asian descent have a chance at the character. The more representation that you can get for the character, the better of we’ll all be as people. It’s all about finding the right actor and then cultivating the perfect story all around them.
If we were to pick someone out of thin air to play the part, how about John Cho? There was that movement a couple of years back where many big-budget movies were re-imagined with him as the leading man, and we know that he has both the comedic and dramatic chops to pull off this sort of role. The only thing we wonder there is whether or not CBS will go younger, given that Cho is 45 and Selleck was in his thirties when he first landed the role. (We just love John Cho.)
Anyhow, the report also knows that the series will re-imagine one of the other lead roles as a woman, which should also give a little bit more perspective. We think that with MacGyver and Hawaii Five-0 already, CBS and executive producer Peter Lenkov have shown that they can think of creative castings and also respect longtime roles while injecting some new flavor. We’ve got the utmost confidence that something similar is going to happen here.
(Photo: CBS.)