24 Other News

Will Jack's Female Counterpart pull a Nina Myers?

2009-03-12T19:06:00.001-05:00

PopWrap: I know you were a big fan of the show going in, how does that change the experience for you as an actor?
Annie Wersching: It's very strange. I worked so much with Kiefer [Sutherland] that I got used to sharing scenes with Jack Bauer. It was more surreal when all of a sudden I would have a scene with Tony or Chloe, where it was like, "Wait, why is Chloe talking to me?" It just freaked me out. Unfortunately as a fan, "24" is pretty much ruined for me -- now it seems like a totally fake show.

PW: I've loved how Renee has evolved -- how much of her arc did you know at the outset?
Annie: None. Nothing [laughs]. It's a very interesting show in that way. They very much write as they go. They want to see how scenes play out and how the chemistry is between certain characters and then write based on that.

PW: In that case, did you spend much time planning out Renee's pre-Jack Bauer life?
Annie: You know, I was cast pretty last minute for the role -- they were having a hard time locking Renee down. They couldn't decide how old to make her, how tough to make her, all these things -- so I was only cast a week before we started shooting and didn't have that much time to develop a back story. But I'm also not the kind of actor who, you know, writes in journals as the character -- I just play her at that minute.

PW: Historically, the women in Jack's life don't tend to fare too well.
Annie: I know, but it's so fun -- this is such a great role where I get to do it all; action, stunts, running around waving a gun and shouting with Kiefer. But then I also get to be so conflicted over everything I'm doing. There's a real emotional arc, and there aren't too many female roles like her on TV. I love Renee.

PW: Plus, she might be the only character to slap Jack Bauer and live to tell about it.
Annie: I know! I was so excited for that! When I first read Renee slaps Jack I was like, "Oh my god!" It's such an interesting dynamic they have because Jack's seen some terrible things over the years and learned to harness his feelings in a way that, even if he is conflicted, he's not bawling in a hospital about it. I think Renee's good for him. I think she brings back some humanity to Jack and makes him think about things he's tried not to think about for years.

PW: So that begs the question -- is Renee good for him romantically?
Annie: I think she's very intrigued by Jack. He has some sort of pull over her. He's obviously become a strange mentor to her as well and I think she's mystified by him and how he's survived all these years. I think, right now, Larry [her old flame & boss] is in the back of her mind.

PW: The ladies on this show also love to turn evil -- would you like to see Renee stay a good guy?
Annie: It's hard because those twists are what make "24" so ridiculously amazing. It's what they're known for, those "No way!" moments. So that would be so much fun to be a part of, but I hope that Renee stays true. I hope.

PW: Tonight's two-hour movie event seems like a game changer. What can fans expect to see?
Annie: It's going to be awesome! Although the audience knows the White House is under siege, none of the characters know what the next target is. Renee gets to go out a lot on her own tonight, just like Jack. And I have a pretty cool fight sequence. Then I end up in the Potomac.

PW: The real Potomac River?
Annie: It was actually in San Pedro California. It was 5:30 am and we'd been shooting all day and the water was 52 degrees. We were chasing the sun and I had to jump in without my wetsuit -- it was the worst moment of filming throughout the whole season.

PW: Wow, so you might get another costume change -- three per season must be a record!
Annie: I know! I was very excited for that at first, but then a few episodes later I was like, "Oh man, I miss that suit." It was a good suit.

PW: They should let you keep one
Annie: Yea, they should! There's like eight of them in a variety of sizes just in case you shoot an episode after the holidays and eat too much.

PW: I know it took longer than usual to film this season -- how long in total were you working on season seven?
Annie: Oh my god, it was forever. My first day of shooting on episode one was Sept. 7, 2007. Yeah. And then we shot till December and the writer's strike happened. So we were off until May, then shot a few more, then I had June off while they filmed "Redemption." We finished filming the 24th episode in December.

PW: And for all that time you couldn't change your appearance in any way, right?
Annie: Yeah, that was hard -- even the weird things I never thought about, like cutting your fingernails. And it's hard with all those long breaks, making sure you don't gain a couple of pounds -- it has to look like the same day, so it's challenging.

PW: Was it difficult to keep track of what Renee had done?
Annie: Definitely. Even filming it. The first eight episodes were shot in the fall of 2007, so when we were promoting the season premiere and reporters would ask me questions, it was like, "Um ... I don't remember. It was so long ago."

PW: Speaking of, you seem to have something on your resume from a long time ago -- that you are a facial contortionist and can burp on command?
Annie: Oh god, yes. They so need to take that off my resume -- everyone asks me about it! I did a radio interview and he was the first guy to ask me, I was totally thrown. Then I ended up doing it for him on the air, and I was horrified -- what was I thinking?

PW: How exactly does that make it onto an actor's resume?
Annie: It goes back to college -- I was a musical theater major and I lived in a big house with some friends and we would always make crazy faces. Then the next person would them try to match it. We came up with some weird stuff, like I can do this really weird goose thing with my mouth.

PW: And the burping?
Annie: Somehow through growing up and high school it just developed. But I have to say, I'm pretty damn good at it!

Thanks to the NY Post!

Monsters vs. Aliens

2009-03-12T18:43:00.000-05:00

Loads of Monsters vs. Aliens photos on the photo page (be sure to scroll down & see them all from Berlin, the UK & Spain) & the Super Bowl video promo spot in the video section! Check out all the goodies!

“Monsters vs. Aliens” is directed by Rob Letterman (who directed “Shark Tale“) and Conrad Vernon (who directed “Shrek 2“), two very experienced DreamWorks team members.

Susan Murphy aka Ginormica (Reese Witherspoon), is a modern-day California girl who has the bad luck to be hit by a meteor on her wedding day and grows to be 49 feet, 11½ inches tall.

Ginormica is taken to a secret government compound where she meets a ragtag group of monsters also rounded up over the years. As a last resort, under the guidance of General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland), on a desperate order from The President, the motley crew of Monsters is called into action to combat the aliens and save the world from imminent destruction!

Aside from Witherspoon, other actors joining the film include Hugh Laurie (Dr. Cockroach, PhD), Seth Rogen (the jellylike B.O.B.), Will Arnett (the half-ape, half-fish Missing Link), Kiefer Sutherland (Gen. W.R. Monger), Stephen Colbert (the president), and finally, Rainn Wilson (the evil alien Gallaxhar). In theatres March 27, 2009.

Agent Renee Walker: 24's New Leading Badass?

2009-03-10T21:21:00.002-05:00

Annie Hersching talks about her role as Agent Renee Walker in this season's 24! When asked if she was hoping her character gets to kiss Jack Bauer, she says: "...the second you get to that place with Jack Bauer, you're probably not going to survive very long..." Click the image below to read the entire article from TV Guide Magazine. Thanks to Liz =)

A Little Intel on Eyal Podell (Ryan Burnett)

2009-03-10T21:07:00.002-05:00

Eyal Podell, who was born on November 11, 1975 in Tel Aviv, Israel and raised in Hong Kong, was educated at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He has been married to wife Ashley since 2004 and together they have one child, daughter Oren Lily, born October 11, 2006. He launched his acting career by appearing in numerous television shows such as Ally McBeal, The West Wing, ER, JAG, Without a Trace, Charmed, Angel, CSI, Everwood, Crossing Jordan and Navy NCIS. In 2006, he was cast for the role of Adrian Korbel in the soap opera, The Young and the Restless as Adrian Korbel (contracted as a recurring player). He currently portrays evil minion Ryan Burnett on the FOX hit show 24.

*Just a little note - I totally remember him in that episode of House! Never thought it was him since he doesn't sport the facial hair on 24!*

Kiefer at Elton John's Oscar Party

2009-02-28T22:58:00.001-06:00

The photos are from Feb. 22, 2009. Enjoy =)

Kiefer & Mary Lynn made Forbes Bankable Stars List

2009-02-28T22:27:00.000-06:00

Click on the images below to see where our favorite 24 stars landed on Forbes' list!

Just in case you're interested in how stars got their ranking, check this out:

How the rankings were compiled.

Forbes Star Currency: Survey Objective
The project's primary goal is to gain insight from the global entertainment industry regarding 1,400-plus actors in today's worldwide marketplace from a financial perspective. Many elements contribute to the financing of a film as well as its ultimate theatrical box-office performance and post-theatrical life--the actor's involvement being one of the central components. This confidential survey, while subjective, seeks to evaluate the actor's impact in a number of areas.

Forbes Star Currency: Criteria for Ranking Actors
When ranking each actor, voters were asked to consider a number of elements regarding the actor's participation in a film as they applied in the market at the time of the survey. Criteria used were:

--The amount of financing that flows to a project is significantly determined by the individual actor's presence in a film.
--The individual actor's presence in a film guarantees theatrical distribution.
--The individual actor's presence significantly drives the film's theatrical box-office performance.
--If the individual actor's involvement is essential in securing rights deals for revenue streams, including DVD, pay/free TV, video-on-demand and online/downloading/streaming (when applicable), as well as a project's ultimate financial performance in those areas.
--If the individual actor can attract audiences in any film genre.
--If the individual actor can attract other top-line talent based on his or her involvement in a film.
--If the individual actor is popular among most demographic groups.
--Whether media exposure the individual actor receives (positive or negative) enhances his or her ability to attract financing and audiences to a project.

Forbes Star Currency: The Scale
Voters were asked to use a scale to rank each actor and to mark the category they felt best applied to the actor at the time the survey was conducted, based on the voting criteria. Voters were asked to assign a ranking to each actor as it applied to the actor as an individual and not in comparison with other actors.

The scores for each actor were determined only by those voters who chose to rank an actor with one of the survey's scale points: ultimate, strong, average, low, none, don't know/no opinion. (If a voter checked don't know/no opinion, this ranking was not included in the overall score.)
*Ultimate--The top of the scale. Actor is able to achieve all of the voting criteria on a consistent basis no matter what type of film. (Value of 10.00.)

*Strong--Actor achieves the majority of the elements of the voting criteria for most studio projects and certainly for independent ones. (Value of 7.50.)
*Average--Actor is a solid component of a project. Achieves various parts of the voting criteria, but not the majority, regardless of whether her or she is in a studio or independent film. (Value of 5.00.)
*Low--Actor has a minimal impact on the elements of the voting criteria. (Value of 2.50.)
None--Actor has no influence on the elements of the voting criteria. (Ranking suggests they are interchangeable with others based on the criteria.) (Value of 0)
*Don't know/no opinion--If a voter did not know of the actor or was unable to determine a ranking for the actor, he was asked to check this box. (As noted above, if a voter checked don't know/no opinion, it was not included in the overall score.)

Forbes Star Currency: Research Firm
Forbes conducted the survey in conjunction with Erdos & Morgan, a New York-based independent research firm that advised Forbes on the survey and also handled the tabulation and ranking of the results.

Forbes Star Currency: Participants/Voting Period
There were 157 participants who took part in the global survey.
The voters' list was compiled by Forbes and consisted of members from the studio and independent sectors. Voters included members who work in acquisitions, development, distribution, production, finance or marketing; or work as consultants, creative executives, investors, market analysts, producers, producers' representatives and sales agents. (Voters were able to check multiple job titles when applicable.)

The survey was conducted from Sept. 3, 2008, through Nov. 16, 2008. Voters were mailed a package that included a cover letter, paper ballot, return envelope and an access code to complete the ballot online, if preferred.

Forbes Star Currency: The Actors List
The list of 1,400-plus actors included in the confidential survey, compiled by Forbes, is meant to reflect a cross section of names from around the world appearing in all types of films, though not an all-encompassing list. (If a name is not on this list, it does not reflect a lack of currency at any level.)

Forbes Star Currency: The Results
Scores were aggregated in various ways, when sufficient data existed. At the end of the ballot, respondents had the option to provide answers to various demographic questions provided. The Star Currency scores for each individual provide a cumulative rank.

Forbes will be releasing shortly further data in certain demographic groupings, including by job title and area of business.

Data presented here include:
--A cumulative score that combines all voters' responses regardless of whether they were thinking about the entire world or individual part(s) of the globe when filling out the ballot.
--Worldwide and country-specific scores. (Participants had the option, based on their knowledge, to rank the actors either on a worldwide basis or in the individual country/countries with which they were familiar.)
--An actor's individual country score, shown when sufficient data exist, may differ from his or her overall cumulative score. It is possible, for example, for someone to have a score of 10 in certain territories shown but not a cumulative score of 10. This reflects that the actor has a score lower than 10 in a country not appearing.
--When a score of 0 appears for an actor in a particular country, it is possible his or her finish in the country (such as No. 1,351) is higher than in another country where the actor has a score above 0 (such as having a 2.25 country score and a finish in that country at No. 1,398). This reflects that several other names in that country also have a score of 0 and that they are all grouped together.

Kiefer in January 2009 Men's Vogue Magazine

2009-02-17T18:31:00.000-06:00

View the other photos here!

Like the counterterrorism agent he plays on TV, Kiefer Sutherland lives life at full tilt and sometimes takes a beating for it. But despite some well-publicized travails, he's back—and nothing can get in the way of making the most addictive 24 yet.

By Kevin Conley. Photographed by Norman Jean Roy.

In 24: Redemption, the two-hour kickoff of 24's seventh season on Fox, Jack Bauer, the freewheeling counterterrorism operative in self-imposed exile in the fictional country of Sangala, kills more than a dozen African insurgents—at first, almost reluctantly. He does so mostly from a distance, on the move and under heavy fire. Then, when he is momentarily captured and his hands are tied, he pulls out the flying scissor lock he used to kill Vladimir Bierko in Season Five, snapping the neck of his torturer with his legs before the bad guy can reach a group of nearby schoolboys and turn them into child soldiers forced to fight a military coup. Welcome back, Jack.

Kiefer Sutherland, who plays Bauer—and who famously spent nearly seven weeks this past winter in an L.A. city jail in Glendale, California—has also been out for retribution lately. And so he arrives at the back table of Grano, a Manhattan trattoria, dressed like a poet in a trim tweed vest, checked tie, and pair of Yeatsian spectacles. He orders sparkling water (the following takes place between the hours of 1:00 and 3:00 P.M.) and plays nervously with a butter knife, without a trace of menace.

Unlike the trained assassin he portrays on television, Sutherland is Canadian, and therefore modest and polite by nature. He instinctively adds phrases like "thank you" or "excuse me" to Bauer's gruff, pared-down dialogue, which, the actor admits, have to be edited out. Still, after surviving 144 hours of national crisis with the man (104 hours if you watch the entire series commercial-free on DVD), it's jarring to see him in real life daintily bringing his hand an inch or so from his mouth while he eats. I've watched the guy chomp down on the neck of a hostile interrogator and spit out an Adam's apple onto the floor, and now he's worried about a stray piece of chicken parm?

Two autumns ago, Sutherland was gearing up for 24's current season, when, at 1:10 A.M. on September 25, 2007, he was pulled over for an illegal U-turn and failed a field sobriety test. After it came out that he was still on probation for a DUI three years earlier, he received a sentence of 48 days in jail. The actor worked out a deal with the L.A. city prosecutor to serve eighteen days over Christmas break and then complete the sentence the following spring, once the show had finished filming. But after the writers' strike shut down all film and TV work, Sutherland checked himself in to serve his entire sentence at once. Still, despite this change in circumstance, one aspect of the original deal remained: Prisoner #1085109 would not be eligible for time off for good behavior.

Now here we are, barely ten minutes into our conversation when a tall, dark-haired woman brushes his shoulder, excusing herself for interrupting. "I left my phone in the studio," she says, apparently referring to Sutherland's apartment in the city. The actor, squeezed against the wall, half stands in a courtly fashion. The woman turns out to be Siobhan Bonnouvrier, the style director at Allure magazine and Sutherland's girlfriend of several months. She has been, by all accounts, a stabilizing influence. "I'll find you in a minute," he says, veering into his signature smoke-and-a-shot-glass whisper especially for her.

But does anybody really look to Kiefer Sutherland for good behavior at this point? After his more than 20 years in the spotlight, it should be clear that his talents do not lie in that direction. Nobody's rooting for bad behavior, exactly. But it's a bit uncomfortable when he starts talking dutifully about the aftermath of his arrest, about damaging his family and losing his freedom. "It was just a really dumb mistake," he says of his most recent DUI. "It certainly wasn't intentional. I wasn't thinking, and I was being careless."

Like it or not, on-screen and off, Sutherland specializes in deeply flawed behavior. On-screen, after a decade or so of star turns playing likably repulsive shitheels and sociopaths in low-budget shoot-'em-ups and police procedurals, his talent has been rewarded with a $40 million contract that will carry him through a Season Eight of 24. Offscreen, he has weathered his share of tabloid humiliations without once casting blame or complaining. In the mid-nineties, he disappeared entirely from the Hollywood scene and threw himself into team roping on the rodeo circuit. "I got into roping mainly because I was up in Montana," he says. "I moved up there to ski, and I didn't know what to do in the off-season. And if I don't have something to do, I get myself in a lot of trouble."

When Sutherland began to land big parts back in the eighties, he got the charming enfant-terrible roles—the cokehead friend in Bright Lights, Big City, a cupid-lipped vampire in The Lost Boys—and he played them with a precocious glint of evil at odds with his baby fat and flawless skin. By now, the baby fat is gone, and his skin bears the record of his long days and late nights. When we step outside to smoke his Camel Lights, I spot a raw, red bruise on his left temple from a hockey game and a gash over his right eyebrow from 24. But when I ask him how that happened, he deflects the attention. "I have less than the camera operator has," he says. "Generally, whenever I'm running, he's running as well. And he's hit a couple of things that have knocked him senseless."

Sutherland's instinctive, winning modesty is not just an act for interviews. It fits the profile of a flawed, Bauer-like man who takes his punishment and still tries to do his absolute best in every situation. Long before extended families became the Hollywood fashion, Sutherland stuck around through two divorces, helping to raise his 20-year-old daughter, Sarah Jude (from his first marriage, to Camelia Kath, widow of the late Chicago guitarist Terry Kath), three stepchildren, and even a stepgrandson, all of whom he calls his own. "They're my family," he says. "We have Christmases together, my ex-wife Camelia, her boyfriend, Jeff. Look, in all fairness, when people have those problems, it's economic. It's difficult enough to go through the anguish and pain that separation will bring. But then to go from living in a house to a tiny apartment and half of your check disappears?"

Sutherland has inherited a pugnacious lefty take on economics: His grandfather, Tommy Douglas, the Socialist premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961, introduced public medical insurance to Canada. (In 2004, when the CBC held a nationwide "Greatest Canadian" contest, he won.) His mother, the actress Shirley Douglas—who was briefly married to Kiefer's father, Donald Sutherland, in the late sixties—was known for her campaigns on behalf of such causes as civil liberties and the Black Panthers. She has continued to fight against the erosion of Canada's system of universal coverage to the present day.

In conversation, Sutherland taps both sides of his background, moving quickly from politico-historical overviews to actorly personal detail. When I brought up his team roping, for instance, he talked about the roots of rodeo events in small frontier towns. This led to a discussion of the unrivaled ability of the United States to raise cattle, and to feed not just this nation but other nations as well. Soon afterward, he was talking about how his single mother raised him, his brother, and his sister on Hamburger Helper and minute steaks.

During this same era, his famous father was getting leading roles in M*A*S*H and Klute and Fellini's Casanova. But despite such good fortune, Donald Sutherland's contribution to the family welfare seems to have been largely notional. Longstanding evidence of the father and son's closeness is surprisingly thin and primarily genetic: They share certain eerie and uncommon traits—the distinctive voice; the scornful and sensual upper lip; the louche, insinuating, feline presence. "The weirdest one was: He had a photo," the younger Sutherland says. "An old eight-by-ten from when he was maybe 35 or 40. And I had some done when I was 20. And when he saw it, he went, 'Oh my God! Hold on.' And he went running upstairs, and I could hear cartons of stuff he was throwing about. Then he came down with it. You have to understand—I didn't live with him, I didn't grow up with him, or any of that. And he shows me the photo, and there he is, sitting like that." Sutherland cradles his head in his hands, with two fingers thoughtfully across his lips, demonstrating the same pose the father and son actors assumed years apart for the head-shot photographer.

By contrast, with his own family (or families) Kiefer Sutherland has for the most part been present. He's in New York today because his daughter Sarah's in college here, and he's been renovating a place nearby that he can move into once 24 is done. (When that might be, he wouldn't say.) "There's a sexiness to the people here that's extraordinary," he says of the city. "Everybody's full of purpose. No one's just fucking around. And you can spot a tourist a mile away. I'll be walking down the street with friends of mine, and I'm the only one who stops at the light. 'Sorry, that was very Canadian of me.' " Manhattan seems to represent a homey alternative for him, as he lives in a former iron foundry in Los Angeles that doubles as a recording studio and is consequently filled with musicians at all hours of the day and night.

Sutherland—whose record label, Ironworks, is getting too big to run out of his (albeit large) home anymore—certainly doesn't seem ready for 24 to end just yet. "The truth is, we haven't made our perfect season," he says. "And I'm a relatively competitive person, so I want to make it." This season, Jack is lured out of exile in Africa back to Washington, where he must appear before a Senate subcommittee reviewing the counterterrorism unit's history of torture and covert investigation. Coincidentally, on the very day he testifies, President Taylor uncovers evidence of far-reaching conspiracy on the part of Jonas Hodges (played by Jon Voight, the vocal right-winger and oft-estranged father of Angelina Jolie) to supply arms to brutal African insurgents. You can only guess that Jack Bauer will be called in to bring this unsavory business to an end.

There are further surprises, of course, including the reappearance of Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), who died at about 7:50 P.M. back in Season Five. This time, Almeida pops up as a villain; in one trailer, Bauer shoves him against the wall, yelling, "So help me, God. I will kill you, and you will stay dead this time!" I tell Sutherland that this line cracked me up, and he takes it as a compliment. "Jack's had two laughs over eight years," he admits. "Which is not a high ratio. One of them was just a look he gave to Chloe O'Brian"—the sexy tech geek parked in front of a computer at CTU's Los Angeles headquarters—"after I killed Kim Raver's husband." (Raver played Audrey Raines, a Defense Department operative who falls in love with Jack.) "Chloe asked me if I wanted to talk, and I just gave her a look. We laughed so hard when we did that, and then we just decided to keep it."

For many years, 24 has been written off in some parts as a right-wing pro-torture fantasy vehicle, a characterization that seemed confirmed when both Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh called it their favorite show. Accosted with such accusations, Sutherland, who calls himself a "deep-red-diaper baby," cites certain counterweights to this reputation. "We had the first African-American as a president in television history," he says. "We indicted a right-wing president and had him arrested. Explain to me how the show is right-wing." If you've seen 24, you know that Sutherland can be quite persuasive.

The producer Howard Gordon, who has written for the show since the first episode, also doesn't believe the criticism has been evenly distributed. "I'm of the mind that if we're going to get blamed for Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, then I have to insist that we also get credit for Barack Obama," he says. "24's been given an unfair rap. Frankly, I think the show has been used by people on both sides of the aisle to popularize and sensationalize some very real issues." Sutherland agrees, and even seems willing to consider the effect 24 might have had on Obama's run for the White House. "What's that great maxim from the Kevin Costner baseball film? I forget the title."

"Field of Dreams?"

"Yeah. If you build it, they will come."

Sutherland fully expects this season to be the best so far. "Jack has finally reached a point where he says: 'No, I won't. I won't take a bullet for this specific person just because that's my job.' " In previous seasons, he says, Bauer was apolitical in the way that the military is apolitical—they fight for both Democratic and Republican administrations. "But out of his huge disappointment at what this blind faith in his government has led to, his conscience has actually developed."

Ironically, it was the writer's strike that gave 24's producers the chance to look at the bigger picture: to think about plot twists and to deepen the show's conscience. "The relation between Kiefer Sutherland and Jack Bauer is a very close and complicated one," Gordon says. "So the idea of Jack Bauer being called upon to serve time for his conduct and of Kiefer, who actually had to serve time for his conduct—you know, this is not necessarily coincidental."

Sutherland spent much of the strike in jail, but back on the set, his efforts to arrange his sentence to minimize its impact on the show was not lost on the cast and crew. "He didn't want to put the production in jeopardy," Carlos Bernard says. "So he basically asked the judge to throw the book at him but make sure it didn't affect other people's lives or livelihoods."

For his part, Sutherland takes on the subject of his time served with surprising openness and humor. "I was told, you know, 'You'll have your own cell,' " he recalls. "But I didn't for the first two or three weeks; I had a cell mate. He got out—but not for long. He came back in pretty quick." Judging from the gleam in his eye, Sutherland—who tried to make the most of his time inside by catching up on reading and reflection—seems to believe he won't be reentering the system as quickly as his former bunk buddy.

But, of course, he has been widely noted for his sailor-on-shore-leave approach to alcohol. He favors J&B Scotch, and, in fact, can be seen in a photo widely distributed on the Internet at a Halloween celebration between DUIs dressed as a J&B bottle. He's also known for never missing a day of work, no matter the circumstances of the night before. Still, I couldn't help wondering if those 48 days gave him any trouble in this area. "My drinking was not a daily thing, so it wasn't an issue," Sutherland says. "And, oddly enough, neither was the smoking."

"You can't smoke in prison?"

"No. In the L.A. municipal jails, there's no yard. There's no smoking. The lights never go out, 24/7. You can't cover anything. You can't even put your head under a blanket. All the cells have cameras in them." After this brief recitation of horrors, Sutherland shivers, then brightens unexpectedly at his prospects for reform. "For me, the smoking was the thing. I was very glad to know that I could quit. And one day soon I will." He picks up his Camels, and we head outside again.

Out in the sunlight, I notice his beat-up cowboy boots for the first time—paint-splattered, the steel toe peeking out of the worn leather. It's precisely this beleaguered Everyman quality that you can't miss whenever Sutherland faces the camera as Jack Bauer. "He's a normal guy who never gets it all right, you know?" the actor says, raising his gashed eyebrow. "He's a normal guy—aside from some unique skills." He fires up a last cigarette and that old-school rascal grin.

"Redemption Song" has been edited for Style.com; the complete story appears in the January 2009 issue of Men's Vogue.

Elisha Cuthbert in Complex Magazine

2009-02-03T22:30:00.002-06:00

She's so pretty! This is a great cover! Can't wait to see "Kim" again!

Where would 24 be without the "occasional" pain?

2009-02-03T22:24:00.001-06:00

Sure, torture is such an issue on 24. It's pretty much everywhere. It's attracted a lot of attention, mostly the unwanted one, but if you ask the folks behind the show, it's a matter of being as real as possible—although they probably meant the grisly details, rather than with the interrogation itself. It's pretty weird, then, to see that life has somehow imitated art—before we knew it, torture has become a point of political conversation, and if the show did something, it was predict (somehow) what would soon become a convention of sorts.

And it's attracted controversy to 24. There's talk of members of the military liking the show very much, to the point that they're imitating the interrogation techniques shown on the show. Sure, torture on the show may border on the extreme, but some argued that if torture is legally wrong, why can 24 get away with it? Insert Kiefer Sutherland, on yet another interview about this bit, this time with British newspaper The Guardian.

“What Jack Bauer does is all in the context of a television show,” he started off. “I always have to remind people of this. We're making a television program. We're utilizing certain devices for drama. And it's good drama. And I love this drama! As an actor I have had an absolute blast doing it … But I know it's not real. The other actor certainly knows it's not real. And up until a year ago, everybody else knew it wasn't real.”

And then it became real. Some from the military picked up the show for ideas, and when the spotlight went to torture—on suspected terrorists and all that—the blame was thrown on the show. 24 is aiming for authenticity, Sutherland contended, but eventually they were being blamed for affecting military training. So, should they stop? It's an issue that gets the star (and executive producer) of the drama passionate, to say the least. Perhaps annoyed.

“I'm just going to tell you outright, the problem is not 24,” he said. “To try and correlate from what's happening on a television show to what the military is doing in the real world, I think that's ridiculous … [If] that's actually happening, then the problem that you have in the US military is massive. If your ethics in the military, in your training, is going to be counterminded by a one-hour weekly television show, we've got a really big problem. If you can't tell the difference between reality and what's happening on a made-up TV show, and you're correlating that back to how to do your job in the real world, that's a big, big problem.”

You've probably heard of this, but if not, then representatives from West Point actually came to 24's producers to discuss the matter. Reports say Sutherland didn't attend the formal meeting, but later talked with the generals, where he apparently expressed his worry about the show's effect. The Democratic Party supporter says that second meeting didn't happen—let's cancel the expletive he used. “I declined to meet them because I found it to be so deeply manipulative,” he said. “When the entire country was looking at the US military's behavior in places like Abu Ghraib, I found that whole thing was a real effort to slide the blame on to something else, and I wasn't going to be a part of it.”

So, if it's eventually proven that 24 has indeed had an effect on changing practices in the military, would Sutherland change a thing? Quite simply, he won't. “[We] are not responsible for training the US military," he said. "It is not our job to do. To me this is almost as absurd as saying The Sopranos supports the mafia and by virtue of that HBO supports the mafia. Or that, you know, Sex and the City is just saying ‘everybody should sleep together now.' I have never seen … an average citizen in the US or anywhere else who has watched an hour of 24 and after watching was struck by this uncontrollable urge to go out and torture someone. It's ludicrous.”

Chloe & Janis - Frienemies to the end!

2009-02-03T22:02:00.002-06:00

Ideally, these two should be butting heads. Chloe O'Brian went rogue, and Janis Gold replaced her at the beginning of 24's current season. Apparently, that will be the case—these two would really butt heads from the February 16 episode, when these two will first meet. But, of course, things are different in between takes. In fact, the complete opposite can be said about the friendship of Mary Lynn Rajskub and Janeane Garofalo.

On screen, it's simple. “We're under the impression that each are more talented hackers than the other, even though I know deep down she's better than me,” series newcomer Garofalo said. But these two are very close together, having met 15 years ago in one of those parties in Los Angeles. Both did stand-up comedy, and that's how they first met—and still do. In fact, Rajskub got her first television exposure thanks to Garofalo and her television series on Comedy Central.

Ultimately, both credit their fame to one person: Garry Shandling, the star of the much-loved HBO series The Larry Sanders Show. Garofalo was part of the comedy's original cast, and Rajskub replaced her in 1996. “I was always really scared but really excited,” Rajskub said, of the way she was taught to improvise. “[But now,] where I can't change the words, I just make a face.”

It's another irony, considering that their comedic background don't exactly fit with their current roles on 24. In Rajskub's case, it's weirder—Chloe, after all, isn't exactly a funny character. Garofalo thinks otherwise. “[She's not funny] on purpose,” she said. “The way [she shows] no emotion toward people, even people [she's] been intimate with … The only people [she seems] to like are Jack Bauer and that guy from The Sopranos with the lisp,” referring to Louis Lombardi's character, Edgar Stiles.

Garofalo also finds a challenge in having to act so serious. “Some people say, ‘Do you just act like Chloe?'” she said. “There is only one Chloe; there is only one Mary Lynn. There's no way to imitate it … as the episodes go on, because it's such serious material, there's no room to be wacky or kooky.”

Off-camera, it's another thing that differs. “If we make eye contact, forget it, especially with that kind of dialogue,” Garofalo said.

24 executive producer Howard Gordon is all praises for the two. “[They] can take some of the most mundane material [and] do stuff few other actors can do,” he said. “[But their characters] are not exactly alike … Chloe is tone-deaf in a way; she doesn't know when she's saying something inappropriate, [while] Janis has a very self-conscious, self-aware sense of irony.”

And this pair-up almost didn't happen. Garofalo, a noted political activist, initially turned down the role because of the way the show depicted torture scenes. Rajskub thinks otherwise. “Love it,” she quipped. “Quote me on that.”

Not exactly your typical definition of butting heads, I assume.

FOX TCA Winter Special

2009-01-24T23:12:00.003-06:00

For more 24, visit our home page!

Kiefer on Jimmy Kimmel

2009-01-20T22:42:00.001-06:00

For more 24, visit our home page!

FOX Winter Press Junket

2009-01-08T13:42:00.002-06:00

Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer, attended FOX's Winter Press Junket last week. Here are a few details with regards to 24!

"'I can't believe he's teething,' says Kiefer Sutherland.

The elevator at the Palomar Hotel in Los Angeles ascends quickly to the 16th floor. I stand, staring unapologetically, as Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub stand next to me and talk. Well, perhaps that's not accurate – Kiefer does the talking, complimenting various aspects of Rajskub's status as a new mother (hence the above quote), while Mary Lynn embraces Kiefer from behind, exuding a silent affection for TV's Jack Bauer that could, in no way, be construed as disingenuous.

Kiefer is well under six feet tall and has a voice like a rock quarry, all gravel and dust. Despite his DUIs and past transgressions, Kiefer seems like a kind, intelligent, normal guy who ended up famous for probably every reason other than the fact he desired it. You get the sense that he never wanted the fame he holds, and would rather have a beer with a local townie than a martini with a Hollywood executive. Mary Lynn Rajskub the Actress is almost unrecognizable juxtaposed to Chloe O'Brian the Character. The actress is skinny, charmingly disheveled, and has smiled more in the last thirty seconds than Chloe has on all of her 24 seasons combined. The elevator bell dings, the 16th floor opens before us, Kiefer Sutherland gets out of my way, and I head to my room... It's not everyday you share an elevator with Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brian... (I cannot reiterate how small they both are).

After the day of interviewing was over, and we finished the roundtables with Kiefer and Mary Lynn, it was time to for the 24 Premiere Party... It was the classiest Hollywood party I had ever attended, easily, with cast members Kiefer Sutherland, Elisha Cuthbert, Rhys Coiro, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Annie Wersching, Cherry Jones, Carlos Bernard and Jon Voight on hand. The production team was all there too – Jon Cassar, Howard Gordon, Evan Katz, Manny Coto and David Fury. FOX bigwigs Kevin Reilly and Peter Ligouri also showed up... the food was preposterous (in a good way, mostly), the bar was open and they gave away free Dominican cigars.

I managed to shake hands with Rhys Coiro and Jon Voight, pat Carlos Bernard on the shoulder while whispering sweet nothings in his ear (actually, I politely asked him to get out of the way; he was blocking my path to the food), and gawk at Elisha Cuthbert..."

For more 24, visit our home page!

24 & Comic Con

2008-08-09T21:26:00.001-05:00

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