Kiefer Sutherland

This post contains major spoilers for the first two episodes of "Rabbit Hole." If you've watched the first two episodes of Paramount+'s new thriller, ...

"They play it to the hilt," Ficarra said about the co-stars. Dance also shared that he is "a huge fan" of Sutherland's. "And the one common denominator that you'll find in all his work is just how much weight he brings to the role. "I mean, I love Charles Dance, I've always wanted to work with him, but Kiefer was first to the party on that one [...] I think he knew him a little bit from before this, and we immediately realized that [Dance was] perfect." Ben is a major character in the series, and it turns out that Dance was at the top of Sutherland's list to play the part. "I doubt that there would've been a better person to be doing this character in this series than Kiefer," he shared.

Paramount+ invites you to fall down a "Rabbit Hole" with Kiefer Sutherland. Will you follow TV's erstwhile Jack Bauer on this twisty journey?

John slips away/evades a mounted cop, only to later arrive outside his loft building just in time to see the top floors explode in a ball of fire, with at least two of his associates inside. Valence asks John to do the thing he does, on a job that requires an extra level of discretion, before handing him an envelope with the details.](https://tvline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/rabbit-hole-recap-1x01-1.jpg) And there in the house’s basement, we see Treasury Department investigator Homm very much alive but bound to a chair. One of John’s associates, posing as a dog walker, uses her herd of pups to nudge the CEO closer to Homm, while another discreetly drops an envelope at Homm’s feet. Then, as John grabs a cab, he grows convinced that he is being followed — a suspicion he shares with Agent Jo Madi of the FBI’s Financial Crimes Unit, an apparent longtime adversary who is waiting for him outside his destination. He barks some orders into his phone and storms off.](https://tvline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/rabbit-hole-1x01-1.jpg)

Kiefer Sutherland wanted to play corporate espionage operative John Weir in "Rabbit Hole" because the character is plunged from a position of great power to ...

The more informed we are, the better off we are and I'm probably going to have to get a computer now that I said that." All of a sudden, I was the guy who liked doing 24 episodes a year. "In the right hands, technology can be really, really dangerous as well as it can be really helpful and really good. I was just happy to have a job and then just incredibly happy that it lasted a decade and I could watch my daughters grow up," he said. "I had no idea what I was doing. "There was just this shift of where the work was. That's what I think is the really scary part," he said. He also has been recording country music and touring with The Kiefer Sutherland Band in recent years. I don't struggle with it the way I've watched my children and grandchildren struggle with it." I've got a little library card and I can get through my day the way I always have. It's just something that I've been aware of in my career that those are great opportunities." I write in cursive," he added.

Corporate espionage is the new terrorism for the "24" and "Designated Survivor" star in an intense and timely new thriller.

What I thought was really interesting — it’s a real testament to the writing skill of John and Glenn — is that you have a thriller that is dynamic enough to have the stakes being life or death. I noticed that she was doing it and I didn’t know why. It was a great lesson that I learned from her on that film. The thing that I was most interested in was having a character that was going to go from a place of real strength and confidence and do a 180-degree turn to where they were vulnerable and weak. Sometimes, it’s interesting, if it was just there for me, it helped inform me about what I wanted to do and it doesn’t matter that anybody else knows about it or sees anything. That really is a testament to their writing skill and something I was so glad to be able to be a part of, because you and I both know that no one’s knocking down my door to get me to do their next comedy. I swore once to make a point in the scene, and I could’ve found seven different words to do that as well. So it’s a fascinating thing and I’m sure there will be some investors on Wall Street that will watch this show and it might change their point of view about what to do with their money and how to protect it. I wish I was that clever, so I don’t get too exotic with my finances, but I’m certainly aware of the fact that the FDIC only protects $250,000 per account. So those were the things that I found really interesting from an acting point of view. In this case, what was important to my client was a financial entity in the market. It’s the manipulation of the truth of anything that is important to you.

"To all the people that I had fight sequences with before, my hat's off to you," the actor says of taking his lumps in his new Paramount+ series.

"To all the people that I had fight sequences with before, my hat's off to you," the actor says of taking his lumps in his new Paramount+ series.

And the reasons that she starts to help him reminds me much more of the relationship in “The Bourne Identity,” where it is a semi-attraction and Stockholm Syndrome kind of wedged into one. And [in “Rabbit Hole”], they kind of hit it off out of the gate and yet they both know they shouldn’t because this is a really screwed-up situation. And she’s got one of the greatest senses of timing, and one of the greatest deadpan looks I’ve ever seen. We certainly use it as a tool in the context of our show. (Laughs) In “24,” I got to do all the beating, and in “Rabbit Hole” I get beat up all the time. She confidently walks out the door with half a leaf blower sticking out of her pants and I’m like, “Well, I guess confidence does make up for a lot.” I was watching the other day where a woman was stealing a leaf blower and she put it in the back of her pants. And two feet of the leaf blower is still popping the back of her pants, she can’t quite get her jacket over it and she gets away. When they pitched him on a series that’s a throwback to ’70s conspiracy thrillers “Three Days of the Condor” and “Marathon Man” and “The Parallax View,” he was fully on board. And the first big fight sequence I had in “Rabbit Hole,” I get hit from behind. He’s kind of like, “Oh, do we really have to do this?” For one thing, it’s been 22 years since “24” first premiered and Weir is not the action dynamo that Bauer was.

Flirting with the type of action-heavy chaos that served his character for 9 seasons on the surprisingly resilient 24, Kiefer Sutherland embraces ...

Self aware enough that it avoids any eye-rolling from potential viewers, Rabbit Hole should easily satisfy those that ate up 24 in continued fashion. Even though Weir is someone that shouldn’t be trusted from the outside, the series sets him up as our perennial hero, and even though each flashback, revelation, and side character detail has the potential to derail an already delicately-treading outing, Rabbit Hole is smart enough to know a well-placed action sequence or wild narrative swing will keep us salivating for the next episode. What we do know about Weir is that he has assembled a crack government team to frame a series of high-profile marks.

The one-time Jack Bauer is having the time of his life alongside Charles Dance in this high-tension conspiracy drama – and then it turns on a dime and goes ...

But this is the sort of thing that can easily be ironed out. Maybe he can tell me WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!!!” at what must presumably be a particularly disconcerted priest – but this is the point where the loopiness ramps up beyond all comprehension. And there’s a version of Rabbit Hole where this is all that happens. If there is one criticism of Rabbit Hole, it’s that it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. Weir is essentially a paranoid spy who knows that someone is on to him, and he spends much of the episode shooting concerned glances into his rearview mirror. Is this a coded way of saying that I wish 24 was still on TV?

Kiefer Sutherland talks to Radio Times magazine about the legacy of 24 and his new "more obviously political" drama, Rabbit Hole.

Sutherland went to a Catholic school in Canada – has he kept the faith? “I always approached it as a television show, it certainly wasn’t meant as any mirror of 9/11 or instructions on how to behave,” he says. Because I don’t know how else to show some respect for the gracious life that I’ve had the opportunity to live.” “I couldn’t get home [to Toronto] right away.” He missed the chance to say goodbye in person and the funeral service. But he has had his moments: the end of his engagement to Julia Roberts in 1991 was chronicled across the world’s tabloids – in particular, the claim that he was seeing a go-go dancer. “I don’t think there’s any possible way out of this – we are going to die, and I’m on the downward slope towards that. “I was fortunate that I had children at such a young age [20] that I managed to get away from a bunch of other things that I think could have been very damaging for me,” he says. “It was right at the start of lockdown,” he says. And if you’re pushing the edge of trying to experience life, and all the things that might come with it, there’s a chance that you’ll make a mistake – and those mistakes can be deadly.” “It’s harder to be on the other end of it,” he admits. “I have lost friends over the years,” Sutherland says. In the first episode, Sutherland is chased down a city street by a cop on horseback, in the second he’s beaten to the ground with a skateboard.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks – which is just as well, because this enjoyably pulpy Kiefer Sutherland vehicle is awfully familiar.

When bodies topple from a high ledge in a splat of ketchup, the first time it’s serious; the second time it’s hilarious. It’s all you can do to prop open your eyelids with matchsticks as he sings another of his yaddering arias about “the algorithms of control”. Even if you call a show Rabbit Hole, there’s only so many times a plot can yank the same bunny from the hat before, like Cassandra, it won’t be believed. “They’re not the kind you want to cross.” As the plot goes through the gears, playing out in skyscrapers and safe houses, SUVs and flashbacks, there’s fun to be had in watching him miraculously evade capture. It was the fate of Cassandra to be disbelieved.

Kiefer Sutherland is back in the political thriller genre with Rabbit Hole, an action-packed new series unfolding on Paramount Plus now.

For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to [The Radio Times Podcast](https://www.radiotimes.com/audio/podcasts/). [Drama](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/) coverage or visit our [TV Guide](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/tv-listings/) and [Streaming Guide](https://www.radiotimes.com/streaming-guide/) to find out what's on. [Game of Thrones](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/fantasy/house-dragon-season-2-release-date/) to [The Crown](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/the-crown-season-6-release-date/) to Godzilla, co-stars as Dr Ben Wilson, a mysterious client of John's. [Paramount Plus](https://paramountplus.qflm.net/c/1236178/175360/3065?subId1=radiotimes-1794049&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.paramountplus.com%2F) now. [Succession](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/succession-season-4-release-date/)), Meta Golding (Empire), Jason Butler Harner (The Handmaid's Tale), Ishan Davé (Kim's Convenience) and Wendy Makkena (Sister Act). [terms and conditions](https://www.immediate.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/) and [privacy policy](https://policies.immediate.co.uk/privacy/). [sign up to Paramount Plus now](https://paramountplus.qflm.net/c/1236178/175360/3065?subId1=radiotimes-1794049&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.paramountplus.com%2F) for £6.99/month or £69.90 for a full year, and get a seven-day free trial. [learn more](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/commercial-links-on-radiotimes-com/)) [Kiefer Sutherland](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/kiefer-sutherland-rabbit-hole-interview/) fans can find the action star in an all-new series on [Paramount Plus](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/how-to-watch-paramount-plus-uk/) starting from this week. [Sutherland](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/kiefer-sutherland-radio-times-new-issue-cover/) as corporate spy John Weir, who finds himself framed for murder by a powerful, unknown entity. [Collider](https://collider.com/kiefer-sutherland-rabbit-hole-series-interview/), Sutherland spoke of how Rabbit Hole is an homage of sorts: "We were gonna kind of hearken back to these thrillers from the ‘70s, like Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View and Marathon Man. [Subscribe to Radio Times magazine and get 12 issues for £1](https://www.radiotimes.com/magazine-subscription/?utm_term=evergreen-article)

In the eight part series Rabbit Hole, 56-year-old Sutherland plays John Weir, a man who plans elaborate espionage plots to help businesses get the upper hand in ...

I phoned up a couple of stunt guys that I did 24 with and I told them I just finally realised how hard it was to take the first punch – and I thanked them for their work!” “I’ve always said that I thought that the show was something that could and should continue on, certainly past me. I had such a great time making this show – I’m hoping that people enjoy it and so we get to make more.” “Jack Bauer would initiate a lot of the physical contact that he would have. “I’ve learned not to say no,” he says when asked if he’d play Jack again. I think for the first couple of fights that I lost, I maybe took it a little personally. And no matter how serious they might be, I think we have a natural defence mechanism inside of us that we use humour to kind of deflect a lot of things. “I’ll be absolutely honest with you, no one was knocking down my door to do a comedy,” he says. And so to have it as part of this content in the context of this genre, I think it was really important.” “I don’t think my interests lie in broad comedy,” he says. However, he finds himself embroiled in a deadly conspiracy that leads to friends dying and John on the run, determined to clear his name. “There’s a really kind of wonderful, reluctant love story between mine and Meta Golding’s character,” Sutherland says.

Sutherland is currently playing a private espionage agent John Weir in Paramount+ series Rabbit Hole. The series premiered on March 26, 2023 and is set to run ...

“Because I’m not going to go quietly at all.” I’m thinking, ‘I’d better watch myself, because he might make a mistake and smack me in the mouth.’ But I still love it and you either get into it, or it’s just miserable for you. The guy I’m fighting is 30 years younger than me and you can see the excitement in his eyes.