The long-awaited mini-series “24: Live Another Day” is now airing Monday nights on Fox. When the cast and producers presented a panel to the Television Critics Association earlier this year, it was the hottest news of the television season.
Four years after leaving the air, ”24” is back with a shortened amount of episodes. After the panel, we joined reporters on stage following up with Kiefer Sutherland to get his thoughts on the new “24” series. Also spoiler alert for previous seasons of “24,” just in case.
CraveOnline: Would you have liked to have Kim Bauer back?
Kiefer Sutherland: I always love working with her and I’m not going to say she’s not coming back on some level.
How much input did you have on this story and the backstory for the four years in between?
One of the reasons, and it goes back to the very beginning, I think one of the reasons why we’ve been a successful unit and why we’ve managed to work together, the writers write, the actors act, the directors direct. I certainly have opinions on certain scripts where I think things are working or where they’re not and Howard [Gordon] is gracious enough to listen to some of them. But no, everybody does what they do. He’s got his team and they’re responsible for the scripts and the story and we work within the context of that.
Did you miss Jack?
I knew that was going to happen in the first place. We were tired. 24 episodes a year for eight seasons, it was hard. The character to me is associated not only in the character that I get to play, but all of the other actors I got to work with, the crew that I worked with for eight years. All of that was very difficult. Four years later, certainly we all go find other things to do. So yeah, a little nervous going back but very excited about the opportunity.
It was the role of a lifetime for you, so having four years off doing other roles, were you reminded how much you had on “24?”
No, because I was fortunate enough to go off and do things that I really cared about. Melancholia, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, I really enjoyed my experience on “Touch.” They’re just all very different. But you’re absolutely right with regards to “24,” I’ve never done anything in my career that had a kind of explosive reaction by an audience to a show like that and sustained over that long a period of time. That made that very exciting as well, and like television or unlike films where you make them in a vacuum and you just put them out there, audiences are watching “24” while we’re making it.
You just get a sense of it on the street what people are liking and what they’re not liking, the reaction in the first season when my wife was killed. People were very upset about that but then they also said, “Thank you though, I didn’t expect it.” And that was really great television. So it was a very collaborative experience I thought within audiences so for all of those reasons, “24” was really special.
Did you ever find yourself doubting that you’d play Jack Bauer again?
I don’t think of it in those terms. I’ve always remembered it in that four year period as a really special time in my life and then the opportunity to do it again, very exciting and very special and now very nerve wracking.
Do you feel you’ll always be connected with this character?
I certainly will be as an actor. It will be something that I will be associated with for the rest of my life and I’m very proud of that.
What is Jack’s frame of mind at the beginning of this new day?
He’s very motivated. He has a very specific agenda. He’s very much been operating on his own so he does not have the same kind of loyalty as a character that he might’ve in the previous eight seasons, certainly with regards to Chloe. I think he’s had enough bad things happen to him that he really doesn’t trust anybody and so I think he’s even harder a character now than he ever was. Trust me, in the last few seasons of “24,” he was a very hard guy but I think he’s even harder now.
You’ve played both villains and heroes. Is it more difficult to play a hero?
Everything has to do with the writing and the context with which the character maneuvers. If the writing’s good it becomes unbelievably easy and if there are problems in the writing, specifically with regards to structure, there are some leaps of faith you have to make and that inherently makes playing a character difficult.
“24” is so physically demanding, did you start training early for this?
I started training about five months ago [before January]. I do a run every day. Lighter weights, heavy repetitions. Everything I can for endurance because it’s a grinding show and I’m not getting younger.
Do you train differently than when you started the role?
Yeah, and the regime based on as you get older there are certain different things you need to do. I probably run a lot more now than I did back then, probably used more weights back then. Again, everything is designed for endurance and just being able to run all day. I’m actually in the best shape I’ve ever been in in my life.
People do love you in this role. I know you credit the format. Have you thought about what you personally bring to “24” that connects with people?
That’s something you’d have to ask an audience person, why they like me in that role. It’s really not for me to say. I can tell you why I connect with the character. I feel like Jack Bauer as a character has an unbelievably strong moral center. Why I can say that that character is in fact apolitical is because everything that he has done has been about trying to accomplish a mission and that mission was always to save people. It’s not because of someone else’s political agenda.
I think it was in the third season he took down a President because he was corrupt. First two seasons he was desperately trying to save a President who he thought was good, but in the end, the great dynamic of this character and what he’s had to suffer is sometimes having to make those terrible choices where you allow 10 people to be sacrificed in order to save 100. And there are people in our world that have to make those kinds of decisions and he is one of them. I’ve always respected that aspect of the character and that’s what I like about him.
Has his life been as eventful in the last four years?
No, he’s been underground, he’s been hiding and had kind of accepted that that was going to in fact be the rest of his life, and he intercepted some intelligence that puts him in motion for this season.
How did you end up doing the Cuervo tequila commercials?
I thought it was very funny. I thought the stories were very funny and just thought it was a very funny campaign and was very proud to be a part of it.
