Hear our full conversation on my podcast “Beyond the Fame.”
He’s best known for his Emmy-winning role as the iconic Jack Bauer on TV’s “24.”
Soon, Kiefer Sutherland will perform live at City Winery in D.C. on March 14.
“I’m certainly aware of the stigma of an actor doing music, so I was kind of drug into this kicking and screaming,” Sutherland told WTOP.
His debut album “Down a Hole” (2016) featured the single “Not Enough Whiskey.”
“I was dear friends for 30-some years with a really incredible artist named Jude Cole,” Sutherland said. “He produced the first two albums and we wrote those songs together. It wasn’t until he recorded a few of the songs and played them back to me that I made the decision, well, if you can’t stand by this, you can’t stand by anything.”
His second album “Reckless & Me” (2019) was the No. 2 Country Album in the UK.
“We’ve always done really well in Europe,” Sutherland said. “‘Reckless & Me’ was just an evolution from the first record. There were a couple songs I wrote like ‘Saskatchewan,’ dealing with my mom and the idea of losing people. … We made that record when I was shooting a television show called ‘Designated Survivor,’ so it was complicated.”
His most recent album “Bloor Street” (2022) just dropped earlier this year.
“‘Bloor Street’ is the first record I’ve done without [Cole],” Sutherland said. “I did it with the band that I’ve been playing with live for the last seven or eight years. It’s much more of an Americana record than it is a country record.”
How did a British-Canadian actor fall in love with country and Americana music?
“After ‘Young Guns 1’ when we finished that movie, Emilio Estevez had a place up in Montana, I went to visit him and I fell in love with the area,” Sutherland said. “I bought a small farm there, I started raising horses, raising some cattle, learning how to rope and handle the cattle. I had a real affinity with a rope and started competing as a team roper.”
Indeed, Sutherland competed in the United States Team Roping Championships circuit.
“When we would travel around the country to different rodeos, I would travel with these cowboys and this is what they were listening to,” Sutherland said. “They were listening to Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, all the original outlaw country stuff and I just fell in love with it.”
The deep storytelling is what Sutherland admires the most about the genre.
“The thing that I loved about country music is that it was mostly told in the first-person narrative,” Sutherland said. “For instance, one of my favorite bands of all time, Led Zeppelin, I couldn’t tell you the meaning of ‘Black Dog’ to save my life, but when I heard Johnny Cash sing ‘A Boy Named Sue,’ I knew exactly what the song was about.”
He was born “A Boy Named Kiefer” after his father Donald Sutherland’s first film director, Warren Kiefer, who directed him in the horror flick “Castle of the Living Dead” (1964).
“You grow up with a name like Kiefer, you better start to develop a right hook,” he said.
What’s his favorite role that his father ever played?
“My favorite film that my father made was a film called ‘Don’t Look Now,'” Sutherland said. “I’m not a guy who likes scary movies, but it scared the crap out of me. There are so many: when I think of films like ‘Ordinary People,’ ‘The Eagle Has Landed,’ ‘Eye of the Needle’. … He’s gonna smack me across the head if he hears this and I forgot about ‘M*A*S*H!”
His mother was actress Shirley Douglas, who appeared in “Dead Ringers” (1988) across Jeremy Irons’ dual role as a pair of identical twins. Ironically, Kiefer is himself a twin.
“We’ve been together since day 1 and I love her more than anyone,” Sutherland said. “We don’t read each other’s thoughts and do all that kind of stuff, so it’s not the kind of freaky stuff, but I love my sister to death and she’s my best friend.”
Born in London, he moved to California in 1968. After his parents divorced in 1970, he moved with his mother to Toronto, Ontario, before making his way to Hollywood (rooming with Robert Downey Jr.) to make his film debut in Rob Reiner’s “Stand By Me” (1986).
“It was the luckiest thing on the planet, wasn’t it?” Sutherland said. “I remember taking my girlfriend at the time to go see a screening for the cast and crew. I wasn’t very happy with what I did and I remember telling my girlfriend, ‘I better get another job before it comes out.’ It ended up being the biggest film of the summer, so it shows you what I know.”
The film’s success led to his casting in “The Lost Boys” (1987) by late director Joel Schumacher, who also cast him in “Flatliners” (1990) and “A Time to Kill” (1996).
“Joel Schumacher was my friend,” Sutherland said. “He was my boss, but he was also my friend. Joel had one of the most unique perspectives on filmmaking that I’ve ever worked with. He started as a costumer designer … and a window dresser for Bloomingdales and ended up one of the most prolific filmmakers of the ’80s and ’90s. I miss him very much.”
He reunited with Reiner to play Lt. Kendrick in “A Few Good Men” (1992).
“It’s the only movie that I’ve ever gone in on a day off to watch someone else work,” Sutherland said. “When Jack Nicholson was doing the final scene where he says, ‘You can’t handle the truth,’ that whole speech, he did it in two takes. … Jack Nicholson was extraordinary, Tom Cruise was extraordinary. … I was so grateful to have that opportunity.”
Still, his career role remains as counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer in “24” (2001-2010).
“I had no expectation that ’24’ would become the show that it did,” Sutherland said. “It saved my life, and in many ways, it saved my career. It was a character that I loved. I certainly am not Jack Bauer, but I really admired the character’s integrity and commitment to what he thought was right. … I miss him very much and I hope he’s well.”
The world could use a little Jack Bauer protection right now with Russia invading Ukraine.
“It’s disappointing to say the least,” Sutherland said. “Music and entertainment are forms in which we communicate and share experiences and comment on shared experiences together, so those are unifying forces. Entertainment can bring us together and I think has been something that has helped us be more peaceful over time than I think anything else.”
Hear our full conversation on my podcast “Beyond the Fame.”
