Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland is a British and Canadian actor. He is best known for his starring role as Jack Bauer in the Fox drama series 24, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, and President Tom Kirkman in the ABC political drama series Designated Survivor.
Born to actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, he got his first leading film role in the Canadian drama The Bay Boy, which earned him a Genie Award nomination. He has since appeared in such films as Stand by Me, The Lost Boys, Young Guns, Flatliners, A Few Good Men, The Three Musketeers, Freeway, A Time to Kill, Dark City, Phone Booth, Melancholia, Pompeii, and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.
He has also starred in the Fox drama Touch, and provided the facial motion capture and voice for Venom Snake and Big Boss in the video games Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Sutherland has been inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and to Canada's Walk of Fame, and has received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Zurich Film Festival.
Early life
Sutherland was born on 21 December 1966 at St Mary's Hospital in the Paddington district of London, to Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, both successful Canadian actors who had been living and working in England. His parents divorced when he was three. He has a twin sister, Rachel Sutherland, who works as a post-production film supervisor. His maternal grandfather was Scottish-born Canadian politician and former Premier of Saskatchewan Tommy Douglas, who is widely credited for bringing universal health care to Canada.Sutherland is named after American-born writer and director Warren Kiefer, who directed Donald Sutherland in his first feature film, Castle of the Living Dead.
When he was a baby, his mother was arrested by the FBI and charged with conspiracy to possess unregistered explosives but was later exonerated. Sutherland's family moved to Corona, California, in 1968. His parents divorced in 1970. In 1975, Sutherland moved with his mother to Toronto, Ontario. He attended Crescent Town Elementary School and St. Clair Junior High in East York, and John G. Althouse Middle School in Etobicoke. He attended several high schools, including St. Andrew's College, Martingrove Collegiate Institute, Harbord Collegiate Institute, Silverthorn Collegiate Institute, Malvern Collegiate Institute, and Annex Village Campus. He also spent a semester at Regina Mundi Catholic College in London, Ontario and attended weekend acting lessons at Sir Frederick Banting Secondary School.
Sutherland told The Sunday Times that he rarely saw his father, outside of holidays and summer vacations, until he moved out at age 15. He told Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he and Robert Downey Jr. were roommates for three years when he first moved to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting. He and Downey also starred together in the film 1969.
Career
1980s: Rise to fame in Hollywood
Sutherland made his screen debut in Max Dugan Returns, in which his father Donald Sutherland also starred. Sutherland was one of the contenders for the role of Glen Lantz in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, which ultimately became Johnny Depp's feature film debut.After receiving critical acclaim for his role as Donald Campbell in The Bay Boy, Sutherland moved to Hollywood. Stand by Me was the first film Sutherland made in the United States. In the film, directed by Rob Reiner, he played a neighbourhood bully in a coming-of-age story about a search for a dead body. Before that, he played a silent, supporting character, as one of Sean Penn's friends who goes up against Christopher Walken in James Foley's crime-thriller At Close Range.
He next appeared as a vampire David in Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys. Promised Land, with Meg Ryan, was the first film to be commissioned by the Sundance Film Festival.
In the Western film Young Guns, he starred alongside Emilio Estevez and Lou Diamond Phillips. He was considered for the role of Robin in Batman, alongside Michael Keaton, in the early production before the character was deleted from the shooting script. He went on to star again with his close friend Lou Diamond Phillips, in the crime-action film Renegades. That same year, he and his father appeared at the 61st Academy Awards as presenters of the Academy Honorary Award to the National Film Board of Canada.
1990s: Success in films
In the sequel Young Guns II, Sutherland continued to play 'Doc' alongside some of the original cast and with newcomer Christian Slater., it is the only sequel to a feature film he has starred in. Sutherland starred as the lead in Flatliners, with an ensemble cast featuring Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon, a film about a student who wants to "experience" death's afterlife and record what happens during it, with the help of a group of young students who are "a little" crazy like him; the film received positive reviews from critics. He plays a young FBI agent coming to terms with his life in a commune in Flashback alongside Dennis Hopper. Sutherland had also starred in The Nutcracker Prince as Hans/The Nutcracker.Sutherland did not make a film in 1991. During an interview in March 2012, he said he had declined director Gus Van Sant's offer to star in the lead role in the movie My Own Private Idaho, a decision that he regretted. He was quoted as saying "I passed on My Private Idaho because I wanted to go skiing and didn't even look at it. I told myself that I needed to stick to my plan... and it was a really dumb plan."
In 1992, he played a doctor alongside Ray Liotta in the drama Article 99. He played a supporting character in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the continuation of the short-lived television series of the same name which ran from 1990 to 1991, as agent Sam Stanley; and also in A Few Good Men, where he played a junior officer subordinate to Jack Nicholson's Col. Nathan R. Jessup. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In The Vanishing, he starred alongside Jeff Bridges as a desperate man seeking the whereabouts of his girlfriend, three years after she mysteriously vanished. In The Three Musketeers, Sutherland played the central character of Athos.
In 1996, Sutherland appeared in three films. He starred with Reese Witherspoon in Freeway, which gained a cult following. He starred with Sally Field in the thriller Eye for an Eye, and he appeared in A Time to Kill alongside his father Donald Sutherland.
In 1998, he starred in Dark City, the science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas in which he portrayed the historical character Daniel P. Schreber. Sutherland also starred in the film Ground Control where he played Jack Harries, an air traffic controller who had a perfect record until one air crash haunts him to leave the business. Years later, he is hurtled back into the world he thought he left behind.
2000s: ''24''
In 2000, he co-starred with Woody Allen in the black comedy Picking Up the Pieces, but the film was received poorly by both commercial audiences and by critics. Since then, Sutherland has starred in small projects and festival-released films. He starred in the film Beat, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2000. He also appeared in 2001 film Cowboy Up, which won the Crystal Heart Award at the 2001 Heartland Film Festival. He also starred in the film To End All Wars, which won two awards at the Heartland Film Festival and one award at the Hawaii International Film Festival.Since 2001, Sutherland has been associated most widely with the role of Jack Bauer on the critically acclaimed television series 24. After being nominated four times for the "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" Primetime Emmy Award, Sutherland won the award in 2006 for his role in 24's fifth season. In the opening skit of the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards, Sutherland made an appearance as his 24 character, Jack Bauer. He was also nominated for Best actor in a Drama Television Series at the 2007 Golden Globe Awards for 24. According to his 2006 contract, his salary of $40 million for three seasons of the show made him the highest-earning actor on television.
Sutherland constantly emphasizes that the show is merely "entertainment". The dean of the United States Military Academy, Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, visited the set of 24 in February 2007 to urge the show's makers to reduce the number of torture scenes and Sutherland accepted an invitation from the U.S. military to tell West Point cadets that it is wrong to torture prisoners. In an interview with OK! magazine, Howard Gordon said it would be an "unbearable loss" if they killed off Sutherland's character.
Due to his extensive schedule with 24, he spent less time in film. In 2004, he starred in Taking Lives, alongside Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke, in which he had a "flashy cameo". In The Sentinel, he starred alongside Michael Douglas, as his protégé and he also starred in Disney's The Wild where he voiced the character Samson. He played the lead roles in Alexandre Aja's supernatural horror, Mirrors. In 2009, he joined the DreamWorks animated film Monsters vs. Aliens, reuniting him with actress Reese Witherspoon with whom he starred in Freeway. Monsters vs. Aliens is Sutherland's highest-grossing film to date.
The actor is also a frequent collaborator with director Joel Schumacher, and has appeared in The Lost Boys, Flatliners, Phone Booth, the big screen adaptation of A Time to Kill, and Twelve as the narrator.
In 2005, Sutherland was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, where both of his parents have also been inducted. He ranked No. 68 on the 2006 Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world's most powerful celebrities, his earnings were a reported $23 million. In 2008, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Sutherland was the first Inside the Actors Studio guest to be the child of a former guest; his father, Donald, appeared on the show in 1998. Sutherland was featured on the cover of the April 2006 edition of Rolling Stone, in an article entitled "Alone in the Dark with Kiefer Sutherland". The article began with Sutherland revealing his interest to be killed off in 24. However, he stated, "Don't get me wrong. I love what I do." It also revealed that he devoted 10 months a year working on 24. He has starred in Japanese commercials for CalorieMate, performing a parody of his Jack Bauer character. Sutherland also provides voice-overs for the current ad campaign for the Ford Motor Company of Canada. In mid-2006, he voiced the Apple, Inc. advertisement announcing the inclusion of Intel chips in their Macintosh computer line. He also voices the introduction to NHL games on the Versus network in the US.