How BLUE BLOODS Actor, Former Cop Brings Expertise to Set

Published: October 3, 2023

How BLUE BLOODS Actor, Former Cop Brings Expertise to Set

By Movieguide® Contributor

Former NYPD Detective James Nuciforo relived his career on screen for CBS’s BLUE BLOODS.

He also serves as a technical consultant for the show.

“Blue Bloods tries to keep it real, but a good technical adviser has to realize this is a TV show,” Nuciforo said. “It has to be entertaining.”

TV Insider reported, “Today, Nuciforo says, every actor playing a BLUE BLOODS cop could pass for one on the street, but in the early days, he had to teach them the correct way to hold a gun while searching a home, and he took them to the gun range for lessons.”

The cast members Nuciforo teaches apply their skills to real life, too. One day, a phone thief ran through the set with the phone’s owner running after him.

“A cast member hip-checked him, and he went flying,” Nuciforo said. He and other cast members detained the thief until the real NYPD arrived.

A policeman for over 24 years, Nucifero pays attention to the smallest details. How a baton is twirled or whether a jacket is buttoned can determine whether a scene is realistic or not.

“For me, as a detective, if you’ve got to go for your gun, and [if] your jacket is buttoned, you’re dead long before you go for your gun,” he told CBS 58.

“When New York beat cops still had nightsticks, I taught Len Cariou and Will Estes [Henry and Jamie Reagan] how to twirl them,” he recounts.

In another interview, Nuciforo shared the importance of roomy jackets. Stiff arms prevent police from drawing a gun quickly.

BLUE BLOODS Season 14 premiered Friday, September 29, on CBS.

Movieguide® recently reported on BLUE BLOODS actor Tom Selleck’s favorite episode across the show’s many seasons:

‘The one that will always be my favorite is ‘The Job,’ Selleck said during an interview with TV Insider, referring to the twelfth episode of Season 2.

The MAGNUM P.I. star explained that the episode was one where the viewers ‘found out that Frank [Reagan, Selleck’s character] was in the World Trade Center’s North Tower on 9/11.’

‘It was quite stirring because 9/11 was still fresh in people’s minds,’ the actor said. ‘It was hard for me to be strong as an actor, not to break down because Frank is tougher than that. My friend F. Murray Abraham played a [psychologist, Leon Goodwin] but Frank doesn’t like psychologists. The episode winds up dealing with the people who got sick from being there at the time. We were the first show allowed to show the Trade Center Memorial, right after it was finished.’