The Times Magazine 49- named after Sarah Jessica Parker – but the
marriage lasted less than two years, allegedly
falling apart due to Sutherland’s fondness
for drinking and other women. He married
former model Kelly Winn in 1996 but that
relationship ended after four years. Those
marriages bookended an ill-fated engagement
to Julia Roberts, who called off their wedding
three days before the big day – he had allegedly
been enjoying a dalliance with a stripper
called Raven, something he has always denied - and flew to Europe with Kiefer’s best friend
at the time, Jason Patric. Sutherland has in
the past admitted that he was heartbroken
but believes Roberts did the right thing.
“We were young,” he told another
interviewer, “and I think she very smartly
realised, ‘Oh gosh, this is for life. I’m not ready
to do this.’ And fair enough. Good for you.
Thank you – in hindsight.” Sutherland was not
quite so equanimous at the time – the public
humiliation sent him into a spiral of boozing
and womanising and, with his film career
faltering, Sutherland quit Hollywood.
It was a phone call from a British director
friend who was working on the pilot for a new
real-time TV series that lured Sutherland back
to acting. The show was to be called 24 and the
director wanted Sutherland to play the lead.
“I thought it was a huge long shot,” he
says. “Television in America is designed to feel
familiar and it is not something that changes
easily. It took me a full season to accept that
the show was becoming a hit.” 24 first aired
in November 2001 and eventually ran for
nine series. It won 20 Emmys, 2 Golden
Globes and was watched by a global audience
of more than 100 million viewers. The role
of Jack Bauer brought Sutherland his second
career peak: his salary of $40 million for three
seasons made him the highest-earning actor
on television.
“It was incredibly exciting to be a part of
something people were enjoying,” he says. “I’d
done films, some that I’d been proud of, but
no one would see them. And suddenly I was
part of a show that millions and millions of
people were watching every week and they
were really enjoying, and that ended up being
a fantastic ten-year period for me.”
24 ended in 2014 and suddenly Sutherland
was unmoored again. “I’m not the kind of
person to curl up by the fire with a good
book,” he says. “I have tried that and by page
six I can smell it: there are people outside
having a much better time than I am right
now. And before I know it, my jacket’s over
my shoulders and I’m out the door. When you
start finding yourself walking into a bar during
the day, it’s time to say, ‘Let’s figure this out
and go do something else.’ ”
He found other things: he started dating
actress and model Cindy Vela, to whom he
dedicates a song on the new record. He also
starred opposite his father in the 2015 western
Forsaken. “There was a moment [during
filming] where I caught myself watching
him work and I forgot that I was even in the
scene,” he told one interviewer, “because I was
so moved by what he was doing.” I ask if he
felt he learnt anything about acting from his
father. “I’m so inspired by what he’s managed
to do,” he says. “If you look at films like Don’t
Look Now or Ordinary People and Bertolucci’s
1900 , the fact that one actor did them is
just extraordinary – he’s an extraordinarily
talented guy. He’s seen things in the world.
Hearing my father tell stories about what
it was like to do The Dirty Dozen or Kelly’s
Heroes – that’s a really nice evening. What
I’ve learnt just from watching his work is
profound. I’ve had very few conversations with
him about work, but the ones that I have had
I can recite word for word.”
Sutherland had thought that his 40 years
of acting experience might have helped when
embarking on his music career. “I was really
wrong,” he admits. “I remember the very first
show – my right hand was shaking so badly.I was so nervous. [Since then] we have played
easily 700-odd shows in the past five years
and it took me a long time to realise that the
audience wasn’t coming there to kill you. They
wanted you to do well.”
The list of actors who have tried their hand
at music is long – Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves,
David Hasselhoff, William Shatner – but
hardly distinguished. “I’ll be very honest with
you, I am aware of that list,” Sutherland tells
me. “When you talk about actors doing music
it’s an instant eyeroll – I’m one of the people
rolling their eyes.” So why do it? The short
and honest answer is probably because he can.
The longer answer is that Sutherland has
been loving and playing music his whole life.
He used to have a collection of more than
100 guitars, which he has whittled down to- He had started writing songs during the
second season of 24 , but the plan was to sell
them to a record company for another artist
to record. It was around 12 years ago that he
played them to a musician pal who suggested
Sutherland record them himself.
“I said I wasn’t interested,” Sutherland
recalls. “He got me a couple of drinks and
I was more agreeable and so we recorded a
couple of songs. He said we should make a
record and I said, ‘Over my dead body.’ ” Once
the record was made, Sutherland changed his
mind. “I was really proud of them,” he says,
“and I wanted to put them out.”
Our time is nearly up, but Sutherland says
he is happy to keep talking. So I pitch him the
question I had most wanted to ask: is it true
that he is a fan of Blackadder?
“I thought it was amazing” he says,
recalling how he felt watching the last episode
of the First World War-set Blackadder Goes
Forth. “It ended with them all coming out
of a trench and machinegun fire and they’re
all dead,” he says. “Man, that was just like a
sock on the jaw. That blew my mind. It was so
profound, I was thinking about it for days.”
Would you be up for starring in a British
sitcom? “I would be thrilled to be given an
opportunity to try something like that,” he says,
adding that, “Acting is the great love of my
life and I hope they let me do that to the day
I die.” While the world waits for Jack Bauer
meets Baldrick, Sutherland will be on our
cinema screens in the upcoming action thriller
The Contractor and as Franklin D Roosevelt in
the new Showtime TV series The First Lady.
“It’s good for me to stay busy,” he says. “Me
with nothing to do is not a good thing.” I have
time for one more question: how does 55 feel?
“It is what it is,” he says. “There’s no getting
around it, you’re going downhill. You’re skiing
now – get in as many turns as you can and
make it last as long as you can make it last.” n
Kiefer Sutherland’s latest album, Bloor Street,
is released on January 21‘At my first gig, my
right hand was shaking
so badly. It took time
to realise the audience
wasn’t there to kill me’
On stage at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London, 2019GETTY IMAGES