Thriller feels right to Kiefer
Sutherland becomes U.S. president of last resort in new ABC series
NEW YORK Wherever she was, Natascha McElhone’s ears must have been burning thanks to Kiefer Sutherland, who stars as her devoted husband and the inadvertent president of the United States in ABC’s new thriller Designated Survivor.
“Aside from the way she can light up a room,” said Sutherland, singing her praises, “Natasha’s one of the freest actors I’ve ever worked with. That kind of freedom allowed me to relax a bit and put more of myself into my character.”
After a decade as action hero Jack Bauer in Fox’s 24, Sutherland shows viewers a new side as Tom Kirkman, a low-level cabinet member suddenly drafted as the nation’s chief executive after an attack on the U.S. Capitol kills the incumbent president and wipes out Congress during the State of the Union address.
“My character,” Sutherland said, “was an architect with an idea for low-income housing who became a member of the cabinet. He was never elected to anything. He wears a tweed jacket!”
As president, Kirkman must resurrect a shattered government, head the campaign to find its attackers — all while protecting his wife and their two kids.
“The show covers such a wide landscape,” Sutherland said. “How does he get the country back on its feet? Who did the bombing, and what is the appropriate response? And what happens to a family that inherits the White House overnight?”
But not without support from his wife, Alex, played by McElhone (feature film Ronin and Showtime’s comedy Californication).
“Initially, Alex is more tough than he is,” Sutherland said. “She’s an attorney, aggressive, and much more of a political animal.
“She is the centre of his universe. Then he becomes president overnight, and by accepting it, he puts the one thing that matters most to him — his marriage — in jeopardy out of his sense of patriotism and duty.”
Granted, this unsought mandate bears a save-the-world likeness to that of Jack Bauer. Yet Kirkman is anything but a lone wolf, and, also unlike Bauer, there’s no rock-’emsock-’em to his style.
“I always enjoyed the physicality of 24,” said Sutherland, who for this interview was clad in jeans and T-shirt — no tweed! — that seemed to favour Bauer’s fashion sense. “But, like Kirkman, I’m a much better talker than I am a fighter, so I feel more at home with this guy.”
As he spoke, Sutherland was several episodes deep into production of the series — which, despite being shot in Toronto, clearly keeps him in a D.C. state of mind.
He gets help with that from castmate Kal Penn, who plays a presidential speech writer but, while on a break from his acting career a few years ago, served in the reallife White House of Barack Obama.
“With that perspective, to have him on our show is invaluable,” Sutherland said.
“You can ask, ‘When the president’s walking down the hall, can you say “hi” to him?’ And Kal says, ‘Yeah, you can, I guess. But you DON’T.’
“Just as an ordinary person, I’m so excited to hear those details!”
But Sutherland is not an ordinary person, of course. He’s the leader of the free world, or at least pretending at a job he experiences as “mind-numbingly complicated — and WE’RE only making (stuff ) up!”
President Kirkman hasn’t been his only performance of late. During early shooting of Designated Survivor, Sutherland was also filming a sci-fi feature Flatliners with Ellen Page and James Norton.
Meanwhile, he’s been touring in support of his debut country album, Down in a Hole.
“The truth is, I really like what I do,” he said when asked about this jam-packed schedule. “When 24 ended (in 2010) I didn’t know what to do . ... I had a real hard time. So I learned something about myself.”
In 2012, he starred in the spiritually based Fox drama Touch, an ambitious misfire that lasted just two seasons.
Now he’s back in a new series that handicappers are forecasting as a surefire hit.
“My response to that is, ‘We’ll see,’” said Sutherland. “One of the great benefits of having done this for 30 years is you approach everything with cautious optimism. You can survive with that.
“But all of the components of this show feel right to me.” He smiled. “We’ll see.”