He also says he's finally on track to star in a movie opposite his son, Kiefer, tentatively set to begin filming later in the year.

"I am loathe to tell you anything about it," says the 76-year-old, taking a break from a hectic day of promoting The Hunger Games before the movie opened March 23.

"I can tell you it has a temporary title of Redemption, and it's a western, and it's about a father, and a son who comes back, then goes away again."

One thing is certain, however: Sutherland's Redemption shoot with his son will have to work around the schedule for the second film in The Hunger Games series called Catching Fire, which will likely begin production in the fall.

FOX: 'TOUCH' Preview: January 25, 2012 - 9:00 p.m. - 1.9 million viewers, 3.9 rating with adults 18-49

Kiefer Sutherland talks about bringing his hit TV series - and the apocalypse - to the big screen, and the day he saw his father on film.

TOUCH: Kiefer Sutherland (R) returns to FOX as Martin Bohm, a widower and single father, haunted by an inability to connect to his mute 11-year-old son (David Mazouz, L). But everything changes when he discovers that his son possesses the gift of staggering genius - the ability to see things that no one else can and the patterns that connect seemingly unrelated events in TOUCH premiering Spring 2012 on FOX.
Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Brian Bowen Smith/FOX

FOX Press Release:

TOUCH, the distinctive new drama created by Tim Kring ("Heroes") and starring Kiefer Sutherland ("24") will debut with a special preview Wednesday, Jan. 25 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT), immediately following AMERICAN IDOL (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT). The uplifting drama, which makes its series premiere Monday, March 19 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT), features Sutherland as a widower and single father haunted by an inability to connect to his mute 11-year-old son. But everything changes when he discovers that his son possesses the gift of staggering genius - the ability to see things that no one else can and the patterns that connect seemingly unrelated events.

DISTINCTIVE NEW DRAMA "TOUCH" PREVIEWS WEDNESDAY, JAN. 25 AND MAKES ITS SERIES PREMIERE MONDAY, MARCH 19

'Touch' New Cast -- Maria Bello Joins Fox Drama Series
By Nellie Andreeva
deadline.com
March 23, 2012

EXCLUSIVE: Kiefer Sutherland’s new Fox drama series Touch is amping up the star power. Maria Bello is joining the show for a multi-episode arc this season with an option to become a series regular if the drama, as expected, is picked up for Season 2. Bello will play an earth-mother type whose daughter shared a gift similar to that of Martin’s (Sutherland) son Jake (David Mazouz). Bello is coming off a starring turn on NBC’s praised but short-lived drama Prime Suspect. She is with CAA and John Carrabino.

In this March 18, 2012 photo, Kiefer Sutherland attends the premiere of the new Fox series "Touch" in New York. Sutherland plays the father of an emotionally challenged child in the new series "Touch," premiering on Thursday at 9 p.m. EST on Fox. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)

Kiefer Sutherland lends a common 'Touch' to his new series uniting the human race
By Frazier Moore - AP Television Writer
March 21, 2012

NEW YORK - "Touch" hero Jake Bohm is obsessed with numbers, and in a voiceover on this week's premiere episode, the otherwise mute 11-year-old numerologist shares an interesting statistic: "Today the average person will say 2,250 words to 7.4 other individuals."

An average person, sure. But not Kiefer Sutherland in recent weeks.

Sutherland (who plays Jake's devoted father, Martin) has lately been a chatterbox, talking up his show all over the world.

"I'm like the brainy student who blows the curve for the rest of the class," he says with a laugh. In sum: "I've met a lot of folks."

It's Monday, the morning after a "Touch" world-premiere screening in Manhattan, which came on the winged heels of a global blitz that took Sutherland to London, Berlin, Madrid and Moscow. In a couple of hours, he'll be back on a plane returning to L.A., where, with the publicity campaign now just about over, he'll resume shooting "Touch" full-time.

But right now, he's got a few more words to voice about the show (which debuts Thursday at 9 p.m. EDT).

For instance, how the universal focus of "Touch" (created by Tim Kring, architect of the likewise far-flung series "Heroes") is reflected in its launch strategy: It's premiering in synch with the U.S. market in more than 100 other countries. Convening a global TV audience that way is unprecedented for a weekly drama series.

"If 'Touch' can be the conduit for a conversation between 150 million people worldwide on a website — talking about things they have in common, as opposed to their differences — that would be amazing," muses Sutherland.

But as "Touch" has gotten under way, it has touched on Sutherland's memories of his first season doing "24," the action-intrigue show where he played intrepid counter-terrorist Jack Bauer for eight seasons starting in 2001.

"I'd forgotten what it was like to build the framework of a new show," he says. "It's the most exciting part of doing a show, but it's also the most difficult. The pilot script for 'Touch' was beautiful, but if it isn't fully realized as a series, I'll feel culpable. So there's a kind of panic I had forgotten about since we started '24.'"

The biggest challenge, says Sutherland, is crafting the on-screen relationship between widowed father Martin and his son.

No wonder. Jake is an emotionally challenged child who never speaks and recoils from any physical contact, even with his dad. Yet, in his seemingly isolated state, Jake is able to discern mathematical relationships between divergent people around the world (a "giant mosaic of patterns and ratios... hidden in plain sight," as he puts it) that help bring those people together in beneficial ways.

It falls to Martin to puzzle out Jake's numerical cues and then follow through with the necessary legwork. Meanwhile, he struggles to forge a human connection with his son.

"You have to make this relationship relatable to viewers," says Sutherland. "When I read the script, I identified with it hugely: There was a time with my daughter between her 12th and 13th birthdays when, literally, there wasn't a question I asked her that she didn't answer with a single word. I think all parents have communications issues with their children.

"But on our show, it's a parenting experience to the power of 10. Which means that dramatizing it calls for constant maintenance, making sure that it feels real in the context of this very fantastical idea the show trades on. It's the thing I focus on the most."

Of course, there's an associated challenge for Sutherland. At age 45, he's a veteran actor with a hit TV series and dozens of film roles to his credit. But now he must share scenes with a child who has no lines to volley back to him, and who displays little physical response to anything.

"That was the thing I feared the most," admits Sutherland. "But it's now the thing I look forward to the most."

He showers praise on David Mazouz, the remarkable young actor who plays Jake with penetrating restraint.

"In our scenes, he has to be so disconnected from me — doesn't speak, can't be touched, doesn't look at me. But I feel something that radiates off of him. I just do.

"I'm not a Method actor," he goes on. "I believe in absolute objectivity when I'm working and I'm very conscious of everything I'm doing. But there are times with David where things get very cloudy and I feel things from my own life, and it makes me gasp. There's a moment in the ninth episode where he actually does look directly into my eyes. A chill came over me.

"These have been the only times for me as an actor where the reality of my own life has intruded on what I'm trying to do with a character. It was certainly very powerful for me, and complicated as well, and I'm so grateful to him."

"Touch" has a child-is-father-to-the-man theme that issues from a child with a special gift for recognizing that life across the planet is preordained by mathematical probability.

It's a cosmic view that Martin Bohm, led by his son, is struggling to fathom and embrace.

But what about the actor who plays him?

"I don't really go for that," says Sutherland with a laugh. "I'm far more cynical than Tim Kring. But I think he's really struck a balance.

"When I read his pilot script, I found it uniquely hopeful. I believe that we are absolutely in charge of our own lives and responsible for what we do. But what I take from the show is that, if you become aware — just a LITTLE more aware — that everything you do might affect someone else... well, that might be a good thing."

Online:

Kiefer: the role I really loved? Jack the lad in Ireland!
Independent.ie
March 20, 2012

Kiefer Sutherland's publicist isn't happy. The actor is supposed to be maximising our time together touting the virtues of his new TV series Touch.

Instead, the jet-lagged star is leaning out of a hotel window overlooking London's Parliament Square, smoking a cigarette, and reminiscing about a road trip around Ireland in the early 1990s.

"It was really the first holiday I'd ever taken," he recalls. "The first time I ever went -- me and a friend went to Dublin, rented a car, drove to Dingle, then on to Galway, and then back to Dublin.

"We had two weeks, and the whole idea was we'd stop at every pub along the way to have one drink. But we realised after quickly becoming sh*t-faced and not getting out of the first town that we'd have to do one pub a town instead."

Nicotine fix sorted, the 45-year-old settles back on a sofa, and, to the publicist's relief, steers back on-message to Touch.

In it, Sutherland plays Martin Bohm, a widower and struggling single father who comes to believe that his mute son has been misdiagnosed as autistic.

In fact the boy is able to predict future events through his gift for, and obsession, with numbers.

Touch is launching worldwide this week. And tying in neatly with the show's pan-global narrative reach, Dublin features in the pilot.

The show has other more high-falutin' objectives as well; Sutherland speaks eloquently about wanting to explore how we all forge connections with one another in the modern world.

But even he accepts that, for most telly fans, Touch (the brainchild of Tim Kring, creator of sci-fi hit Heroes) will become shorthanded as 'What Jack Bauer Did Next', referring to Sutherland's career-defining -- and reviving --role as the brutal counter-terrorism agent in the TV sensation 24.

However, Sutherland stresses that his latest role couldn't be more different from the torture-friendly, pistol-whipping Bauer.

"There was a forthrightness with Jack Bauer that you don't find in other characters," he says with considerable understatement. "He was so committed to what he thought was right.

"Martin in Touch is much more tentative, but, like all parents of special-needs children, he's incredibly courageous to wake up every day, understanding that the circumstances aren't going to change, but he goes at it with the same energy, love and compassion for his child."

Indeed, despite its more fantastical elements, Touch is essentially all about fatherhood, a topic close to Sutherland's heart. He has four children: at age 19 he married actress Camelia Kath, and became stepfather to her Michelle (now aged 34).

The couple had another daughter together, Sarah (now aged 24), before splitting up in 1990. The actor subsequently became stepfather to Julian (22) and Timothy (19) through his second marriage to Kelly Winn, which ended in 2000.

The actor admits that he drew from his own experiences as a father for this latest role, more so than from his relationship with his own father, the actor Donald.

"I don't know a single parent who gets through a day thinking, 'I did that perfectly'," he explains. "We always feel like we screwed up somewhere. My character Martin is feeling that to the extreme every day, so that's where I started."

The fact that Sutherland's young co-star, David Mazouz, reminds him of his own daughter Sarah only adds to the emotional tenor of his performance.

"She had these really big eyes, and she would always wake up with a smile," he says. "I'd never seen anyone so excited to just make it to another day. So when those eyes weren't smiling, or it looked like something was wrong, it'd just break my heart. David has eyes like that too."

Sutherland is evidently a doting father, but he's no pushover either. He's probably better placed than most to know the importance of discipline and rules, given his own colourful track record that saw him spend 48 days in jail as recently as Christmas / New Year 2007/2008 on a drink-driving charge.

There was also an incident two years ago where Sutherland head-butted a fashion designer at a fundraiser, but no charges were pressed.

"I really do believe that a parent's responsibility is to create a structure and boundaries for your children, because without them it's very difficult for a child to know what to do," he says.

Hard as it may be to believe, Sutherland is actually a grandfather too, to Hamish (7) and one-year-old Quinn.

"On my lunch break earlier I went out to a gift shop, and bought them two wooden swords," he reveals. "I said to a friend, 'The best thing about being a grandfather is that I get to give them these wooden swords, but I don't have to take them to the hospital to get the stitches done!'"

Inevitably, the conversation comes back to 24, and the role that bagged Sutherland an Emmy and a Golden Globe, not to mention a fortune of some $40m.

Today he can joke about how newspapers greeted the news of his initial casting in that show with headings along the lines of, 'Kiefer Sutherland: Back From The Dead!'

"There was a point when I had the No 1 and No 2 movies out in the US at the same time,"he says. "I didn't know how well I was doing at that moment or how to take advantage of that.

"Subsequently, in the almost 10 years before 24, I had not been working in the A-list feature film world for a while. So I was aware that things weren't great, but 'Back from the Dead'? I certainly thought I was doing better than that."

Does he miss playing Jack?

"I do, a great deal," he replies. "24 was a fantastic experience for me, for so many different reasons. I came out of a time when the career you wanted was Robert de Niro's, where you make one movie every three years, and it was a real event.

"So all us young actors tried to do that. We turned down projects, and it was so stupid.

"With 24 I got to work every day, and what that ended up giving me was a confidence as an actor that I'd never had before."

Kiefer Sutherland Interview for Touch & 24
By Oliver Franklin
GQ.COM (UK)
March 20, 2012

Reclining in the corner of a darkened London hotel room, knitted black cardigan half-zipped, scuffed boots on show beneath faded jeans, Kiefer Sutherland looks distinctly unprepared for staving off nuclear catastrophe. After nearly a decade of 24, Sutherland is no longer Jack Bauer. "I don't actually wear a watch," he chuckles, the urgent growl we're used to now calm and contemplative. If 24 is shelved (save for a potential movie adaptation, currently on hiatus) so too are the headline-making antics and resulting prison stints. The newly calm Sutherland sitting in London's Corinthia is assured, focused, and better than ever: following up a magnificently spiteful performance in Lars Von Trier's Melancholia with Touch, a drama from Tim Kring (of Heroes fame) in which a widower's young son seems to be able to predict the future. To mark the series premiere on Sky One this week, we sat down with him to talk overzealous 24 fans, working in a rodeo and how he knew about the Black Keys long before you did.

GQ.com: Touch has a very different pacing to 24. After eight seasons, you must have been exhausted from sprinting around preventing bomb plots.

Kiefer Sutherland: I hope I'm smarter than that! It wasn't because I was tired of running around - in fact in Touch I do have to do quite a lot of running. [laughs] No, I was really interested in Tim Kring's idea of human connectivity. We spend so much time focusing on the things that are divisive that I found it refreshing to read something that talked about the things that we universally have in common. For example, I've never heard of a culture that doesn't value their children, that doesn't honour their elders, that doesn't want to protect family. Those things transcend linguistic, social and spiritual boundaries. Normally if anyone tries to get too flowery on me, I'll stick my finger in their eye - but I found Tim's idea surprisingly moving.

What's the strangest way that 24 fans have tried to connect with you?

There was one couple I remember speaking to who had just got married and had gone to Paris for their honeymoon. The lady looked at me and said: "You ruined our honeymoon! We watched the first twelve hours of 24 on the way there, got into our honeymoon suite and watched the next twelve hours on TV." I reminded her that was their fault, not mine and we had a good laugh. I've been doing this long enough and had enough projects that nobody saw, that when that happens I think "this is why we do it." The reality of our industry is we're not curing cancer, we're not building roads, we're not the nurses and doctors that are going to discover this or that or the politician that breaks new grounds for civil rights. We're making movies. So it's nice to hear that it does matter on some level for somebody.

When you started working with Danny Glover on Touch, how tempted were you to quote him lines from Lethal Weapon?

I wouldn't dare. Danny Glover will always be "Sir" to me. I have a huge amount of respect for him and it was an honour to work with him this season

You used to run your own record label Ironworks. What new bands are you listening to at the moment?

At the height of it we had five artists: HoneyHoney, Billy Boy On Poison, Rocca DeLuca & The Burden and a couple of others. I'm not involved in the label as much anymore but as a by-product of that I still get sent a lot of music from unsigned bands and I listen to it. Every once in a while those CDs end up staying in my car for a long time. There's a band called the Black Keys, who are not really new anymore but I loved them ten, eleven years ago when they first got started. Outside of that I don't listen as much: radio in America is pretty much dead and I'm kind of a luddite so I don't go online. Gosh, I'm starting to sound like that parent that loved Glenn Miller and who still says that in their day, Elvis Presley was the thing.

You once introduced Queen at a VH1 gig. Did you ever get to jam with them?

No, although Brian May is one of my favourite guitar players of all time. He didn't give it to me but I bought one of his guitars. I had looked for it for a very long time. But no, I love music but I'm more of a fan. I play my guitars late at night when everybody else goes to bed.

You used to work in a rodeo. Is that the hardest job you've ever done?

I roped - but no, that wasn't the hardest. The toughest was when I had to play a character in a film called Eye For An Eye, who was just an evil, evil man. There was a scene where Sally Fields' daughter is attacked and raped. The actress, Olivia Burnette, was about 18 years old. I had talked with her at length: we had gone through every single physical move and rehearsed it: "I'm going to pick you up, I'm going to push you through the ice sculpture, we're going to go through the table, we're going to land, then I'm going to grab you here..." We did the scene and she was amazing. Then the director called cut and she just broke down crying hysterically. She was terrified, I really scared her. Afterwards I picked her up and I carried her off the sound stage and we spent the longest time on the curb just talking. I would say that's the worst I've ever felt about what I do for a living. The rodeo was fun because I wasn't doing it for the money: I was doing it because it was competitive and it was something that I wanted to be good at, so that was a blast.

What's the best piece of advice that you've ever received?

It was given to me by my father, which is weird because it's the only time he's ever talked to me about acting. I was quite young and I had asked him: what lesson can you tell me about what you do for a living? I half expected him to talk about how to deal with being successful or something like that. But he said "Don't ever let them catch you lie. Everything leads to a point where somebody is going to have to cry. And if you get to that point and you're not feeling it, don't pretend to cry. Figure out another way to play pain or anguish or fear, because if you lie, they'll catch you." He meant the audience. Of course like any child I didn't listen. I was doing this scene on a film and I forced it and I got nailed for it. I had to get it wrong before I really got it.

Kiefer Sutherland and David Mazouz - Photo credit - FOX

Fox puts 24 movie on hold for 2012
By Tom Cole
Radio Times
March 15, 2012

Execs say there isn't time to make the film around Kiefer Sutherland's other commitments

The upcoming movie version of 24 has been hit by delays and will not now begin shooting in 2012.

Star Kiefer Sutherland recently said that he hoped to revive character Jack Bauer for the big screen in April, during a break from shooting his new TV drama, Touch.

But the film’s backers, Fox, have refused to green-light the 24 movie because of fears that Sutherland will not have enough time to complete work on the picture between seasons of Touch.

Adding to their worries is the fact that there is no director in place to helm the project, despite the proposed production date being mere weeks away.

Budgetary concerns are also cited as another reason for the delay, with Deadline reporting that Fox hopes to make the film for $30m instead of the $45-60m the film-makers have asked for. Additionally, Sutherland is said to be unhappy with their offer of $1m for him to play Bauer in the film.

A 20th Century Fox spokesperson said: ''We're still working on a script, and hope to make [it] when Kiefer next has time. But this all came down to timing, and seven weeks is not enough time to prep a movie like this.''

While plot details for the film are scarce, Sutherland previously said of the movie: ''I see it as a continuation. The script that we've got right now, which I'm very, very excited about, is relatively a direct continuation. It's within six months from the end of the last episode. We'll see where it goes from there.''

24, a high-concept TV drama following the work of counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer, ran for eight seasons on Fox from 2001 to 2010 and has been syndicated all over the world.

'24' Movie Delayed -- 20th Century Fox Puts Jack Bauer Feature Film On Hold
By Mike Fleming
Deadline.com
March 14, 2012

UPDATE, 11:16 PM: The 24 movie postponement broken by Deadline this morning is getting interesting. Word is racing around agency circles that Kiefer Sutherland was not only unhappy about the pic’s postponement, but also what I’d heard was a $1 million offer to play Jack Bauer in a deal that was heavily back-loaded to reward success. Insiders said that Sutherland would have gotten at least $2 million, though that was below his original $5 million and then $3 million ask. Fox wanted a budget around $30 million, while the filmmakers wanted $45 million to $60 million. Fox’s idea was always to make the film at a cost, and reward in the upside. The studio’s proposal, made a couple weeks ago, wasn’t addressed until this week, and when the crap hit the fan yesterday, the studio felt there wasn’t enough time to pull the picture off in seven weeks of prep. The studio was following its experience with X-Files, a TV property turned into a hit film, but made at a cautious budget. I’m told that Fuqua’s deal hadn’t been made yet. Sutherland, Imagine and Fuqua stood to reap up to about 25% of the proceeds after breakeven, to make up for the low upfront payments. I reached out for comment to Sutherland and Imagine this morning, but no one returned yet.

EARLIER EXCLUSIVE, 7:40 AM: I’m hearing that fans of the Fox series 24 are going to have to continue waiting for the long-awaited 24 feature film. 20th Century Fox isn’t going forward with the film this year. It hadn’t been greenlit, but it was scheduled to get going in late March, with Kiefer Sutherland jumping into Jack Bauer mode when his new series Touch goes on hiatus in April. The studio was zeroing in on a director — Antoine Fuqua was the most recent conversation I’d heard of — when the decision was made this week to not go forward, at least this year.

There are rumors this came down to budget and that Sutherland is upset because he was sparked up to resume his role as the rough-and-tumble government operative, who over eight seasons prevented numerous apocalyptic terror attacks. Studio insiders tell me Fox wasn’t convinced it had enough time to complete the film before Sutherland has to go back to work on Touch‘s second season, and didn’t want to rush and neither did Sutherland. The picture is being produced by Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer and Sutherland and they have a script written by Billy Ray, and polished by Mark Bomback. It’s ready to go.

The big question is whether Fox will continue working on the film and readying it for Sutherland’s next hiatus. Having been a big fan of the series, I am disappointed. I’ve heard that Ray constructed the script to play out in a three-picture arc. Maybe it was the real-time format, or perhaps the writing and endless cliffhangers, but the twists and turns and intensity created a blood pressure-spiking viewer experience that was unmatched — at least until AMC unveiled The Walking Dead. It seems a natural transition to features, with the potential to turn into a Die Hard-type action franchise.

Giving the picture some hope is Grazer’s inability to take no for an answer. American Gangster was scrapped and then came back together and turned into a memorable crime drama. And Grazer, Ron Howard, Akiva Goldsman and Stephen King are now firming up a deal for The Dark Tower at Warner Bros, which will put the picture on course to begin production in the first quarter of 2013 after Universal last year rejected the ambitious plan to make three movies and two limited-run TV series that could land at HBO.

Sutherland talks up new show 'Touch'
By Zara Younis
Associated Press
March 14, 2012

LONDON (AP) - Kiefer Sutherland admits he had no intention of going back to television after the action-packed "24" ended — but that all changed when he read the script for "Touch."

The U.S. actor was starring on Broadway in a play called "That Championship Season" when he was approached with the script for the science fiction drama.

He was ready to dismiss "Touch" until he found out "Heroes" writer Tim Kring was behind it and Peter Chernin, the head of 20th Century Fox when Sutherland started "24," was producing it.

"I felt I should read it, kind of out of respect to both of those gentlemen. And I did, and I was around page 32 when I went, 'Oh no! Oh no!'" says Sutherland.

The 45-year-old was lured back to TV because, like "24," the show gives audiences something fresh and unique: An international outlook. The first episode alone has scenes set in New York, London, Dublin, Tokyo and Baghdad and features actors from several countries.

"We spend so much time talking and making films and television and our news about the divisive things between human beings, what makes us different," Sutherland told The Associated Press. "It's been a long time since I saw someone approach something from the perspective of, 'What are the things that we have in common?'"

So Sutherland is going from gun-wielding Jack Bauer in "24" to struggling single dad Martin Bohm in "Touch," which centers on Martin's relationship with his 11-year-old son, Jake, played by David Mazouz.

Wrongly diagnosed as autistic, Jake has never spoken, but has an obsessive connection to patterns and an ability to predict events around the world before they happen.

Mazouz was the first of over 30 children to audition but Sutherland says he knew instantly he was perfect for the part.

"They're both stuck together, but because of this lack of ability to communicate, they might as well be a thousand miles away. When I look in his eyes, I would feel that," he says. "What I thought was going to be really difficult and challenging (working with a child) is actually the thing I look forward to the most."

Unusually for a U.S. series, "Touch" will launch simultaneously in many countries around the world.

Sutherland is currently traveling around Europe promoting the program, a trip that has seen him visit London, Berlin and Madrid. The actor might be on a tight schedule but he did have time for a spot of shopping in London.

"I went down to the Westminster Abbey gift shop. I promised David, who plays Jake, that I would get him something from every country we visit and I have to do the same thing for my grandsons," says Sutherland.

Once things settle in with the new TV show, Sutherland will also be squeezing in "24: The Movie." He's hoping to shoot the film later this year but there's still the small task of finding a director.

"I'm still very, very optimistic that we are going to be able to do that, and I've got my fingers, my toes, my legs, everything crossed," he laughed.

"Touch" premieres March 22 in the U.S. on Fox and in the U.K. on Sky1 HD.

Tim Burton’s Batman almost had Kiefer Sutherland Robin
fansshare.com
March 9, 2012

24 actor Kiefer Sutherland has revealed how he missed out on the chance to play Robin in the Tim Burton directed 1989 movie Batman. Robin ended up being written out of that movie but Kiefer has admitted that, if he had have known how good a movie it was going to be, he definitely would have accepted the role.

Sutherland explained, "I'd just finished Stand by Me and Young Guns about the time that Warner Bros were making the first Batman film with Michael Keaton and I got a call which asked me if I would be interested in playing Robin.”

He added, "I was like, 'As in Robin with tights? No!' I didn't realise they were going to make the coolest movie ever! They didn't have a Robin in the end, but I was only 19 so my agent could have helped me out a bit on that one."

Robin did not appear in a Batman movie after that until the Joel Schumacher directed movie Batman Forever, with Chris O’Donnell as the trusty sidekick. The previous two Batman movie, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, have both been without Robin and the third instalment of the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, will also have no Robin. The Dark Knight Rises is set to be released on July 20.

Kiefer Sutherland recalls reluctant TV return
March 8, 2012

(Cover) - EN Movies - Kiefer Sutherland hoped the script for his new show Touch was terrible because he didn’t want to return to television.

The actor admits he was done with television after playing federal agent Jack Bauer in the hit series 24 for eight seasons.

But when a friend showed him the script for new series Touch, he couldn’t put it down.

“I was up to page 32 and thought, ‘Oh no’. I was thinking there are 42 pages left maybe it will fall apart and it just got better and better,” he said during an interview for BBC Radio 1.

The 45-year-old almost didn’t even read the script as he wanted a break from the small screen. However, he later changed his mind.

“The reality is you have to work on opportunities,” he added. “I said I’m not interested I just finished ten years and I had an amazing experience but I had just got my freedom back.”

In Touch, Kiefer plays a widower and single father who discovers his emotionally challenged 11-year-old son can predict events.

Touch will be the first show to ever launch globally later this month.

Kiefer also revealed he is optimistic that filming on the 24 movie will begin after shooting on the first series of Touch wraps in April. He says there is a script and movies bosses are in the process of looking for directors.

“We’ve been in talks for a 24 movie for a very long time. Hopefully we’re going to be able to do it,” he added.

24 movie to shoot in May, but still no director?
By Simon Brew
Den of Geek
March 7, 2012

Jack Bauer has two months to find a director, as Kiefer Sutherland suggests that shooting on the 24 movie may commence in May

Well, it looks like one project is leaving the land of development, and actually heading before the cameras in the next couple of months. The proposed big screen adventures of Jack Bauer, in a standalone 24 movie, had been mooted before, and at one point looked like it might happen after the television show drew to a close.

Yet the end of 24’s eighth and final season came and went in May 2010, with little sign that the film was pressing forward. In fact, worse than that: it seemed that the moment may have been lost altogether.

That was until earlier this year, anyway, when there was finally a suggestion that 24 may go before the cameras in 2012. And now? Kiefer Sutherland has revealed that shooting may well be starting in May.

"We've got a script that we're very excited about, we're looking for directors right now”, he said, noting that he’s got a small schedule gap between the end of shooting on Touch season one, and when a second season would need to ramp up. “We’re trying to do this as quickly as possible so we’re ready to shoot in May, because there’s a very small window”, he added.

He declared himself “cautiously optimistic” that the film would press ahead.

Might we suggest, though, that it’s a little bit of a worry to not have a director for a fairly sizeable action production, two months before the cameras are due to roll? Appreciating we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, and that directors have turned such projects around quickly in the past, it still sounds like a less-than-ideal situation to be in.

We're still looking forward to the film of course, and we'll keep you posted on it.

Photograph by Brian Bowen Smith

On the Set: Kiefer Sutherland Returns to TV in Touch
By David Hochman
TVGuide.com
March 1, 2012

Inside his trailer on the set of his new Fox series Touch, Kiefer Sutherland can't stop thinking about numbers: 12,000,000... 318... 100...

"It boggles the mind," he says. "It's become a huge part of my life."

No, Sutherland hasn't become obsessed with patterns like his son on the show. Touch tells the story of Martin Bohm (Sutherland), a once promising journalist who's now a widower unloading baggage at JFK. His 11-year-old special-needs son, Jake (David Mazouz), scribbles strangely prescient numbers into notebooks but has never uttered a word. In each episode of the drama, Jake connects those numbers to seemingly unrelated people and situations all over the world in ways that totally freak out his dad and his social worker. Meanwhile, Jake loses it if anyone touches him or his book of numbers.

In real life, Sutherland has a better grip on the digits at hand: 12 million viewers watched the Touch preview that aired in January. The series, created by Tim Kring, the writer and producer behind Heroes, launches for real with a global media event on March 18 — a date that figures prominently in Touch's opening episode. The premiere re-airs that week in more than 100 countries around the globe and on March 22 in the United States. The wait-and-see preview combined with a worldwide rollout makes it an unprecedented launch for TV. "I'm feeling nervous," Sutherland says, lighting a cigarette. "There's a lot riding on this, and I know what it means to have a hit show, certainly."

Which brings us to the most important number of all: 24. The actor's eight-season run as counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer transformed Sutherland from semi-reliable film-acting Hollywood offspring to one of the biggest TV stars of his time. 24 perfectly captured the insecurity and paranoia of the post-9/11 era, one ticking-time-bomb plot after another, and Sutherland became the face of American resilience across the planet.

Wrapping that series was "a mixture of mourning and 'thank God,'" Sutherland says now. He's wearing blue work clothes with a long-sleeve white shirt underneath and still looks as fit as he did back in his CTU days. "I don't believe we ever jumped the shark with 24. It ended really well and I went, 'Whew.'"

Now he's back to holding his breath. Previewing Touch to impressive numbers got people talking, but not all that talk has been positive. The pilot got high marks for its gorgeous look and ingenious plot twists, like the fact that the seemingly autistic mute at the center of the drama is also the show's articulate narrator. "It's an awesome part for me," laughs Mazouz, the 11-year-old newcomer chosen from more than 30 young actors to play Jake. "I don't have to memorize any lines."

But viewers must take a few leaps to buy what Jake and the other characters are saying. When we first meet him, the kid is obsessing over the number 318, and soon 3-1-8 pops up everywhere — on clocks, winning lottery tickets, significant street addresses (enter guest star Danny Glover as the shut-in professor who explains Jake's role as highly evolved humanoid). As Jake climbs atop a telephone tower every day at 3:18, a wayward cellphone gets passed around the world, touching the lives of an Irish songstress, a British couple grieving for their dead daughter, an earnest kid in Baghdad. All those moving parts come together in ways so miraculous, you'd swear the script was touched by an iPhone-wielding angel.

Actually, it's trademark Kring. Just as the comic-book-inspired Heroes imbued seemingly ordinary people with extraordinary "gifts," Touch leans on cosmic conceits like interconnectivity and synchro-destiny. Even Touch's actors find meaning where others might just see coincidence. "It's spooky — my best friend's birthday is on 3/18," says Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Child Protective Services worker Clea Hopkins. "On set we call that a 'Touch moment.'"

Kring clearly has a big-picture plan for putting these themes on the air. "If we consider the ripple effect our lives have, it makes an impact on how we treat people, and that makes the world a better place," he says, sitting in his editing suite at Culver Studios in Los Angeles. He looks stressed for someone given to New Age musings, but that's because he has five episodes to lock. Plus, he's read the early reviews, which were decidedly mixed. One critic called the preview "likable but dumb." Kring is tweaking the show.

"We may not always tie up each episode as neatly as we did in the pilot," he says, adding that not all the stories will be uplifting or positive, and that "minor characters may emerge in one episode and then reappear down the line four or five episodes later."

Ultimately, says Sutherland, "Touch is a show about fate. And you never know what fate will deal you. It's sometimes scary, sometimes funny, sometimes dangerous, sometimes poignant. I guess you can say it's like making a television show."

Sutherland and Mbatha-Raw are on a hospital set, trying to figure out why the number 975 keeps coming up.

"I saw it this morning," Martin tells Clea. "It's part of a sequence Jake is building."

The format for each episode is similar to the pilot. Jake homes in on a numbers pattern, scribbles is his book and, soon enough, a bush pilot in Alaska, let's say, and a homeless guy in Londonare somehow drawn together. Early on, the focuw is on Martin figuring out what Jake is trying to tell him. A few episodes in, it's clear that others want to get inside Jakes' head , too. "We don't want if it's military or what, but someone wants this kid," Sutherland says.

Sutherland admits he had reservations about working with a child. "I did not like doint it on 24," he says. "It got to the point where I would say (producers), 'You bring another child into my story line, I'll kill you and the kid.'" He's joking. Mostly. But he and Mazouz hit it off immediately . "David's unbelievably mature and composed. I call him the youngest, shortest old man in the world."

The kid is also controversial. Touch has come under fire for portraying autism as a kind of mystic superpower. And though Sutherland, in early interviews, suggested that was Jake's condition, he now says, "This is not autism. It's often misdiagnosed, which we reiterate through five episodes."

Jack Bauer makes waves, too. Martin takes a punch to the gut in the opener without fighting back, which gave 24 fans serious conniptions. Even Sutherland finds the moment amusing. "That's so not Jack Bauer," he says. Though Martin smacks the guy later in the episode, Sutherland calls it "the ugliest girl fight you'll ever see," adding, "One fan Tweeted, 'I bet Jack Bauer could make that kid talk,' which I thought was the funniest line ever. I almost fell off my chair."

It would have been worse falling off a telephone tower trying to get to Jake. That almost happened, too. "I was climbing up a metal ladder in the rain," Sutherland says, his head suddenly swirling with numbers. "I'm up 30 rungs and I slip down two. My immediate thought was, it would be so ironic after doing eight seasons of 24 to end up falling 40 feet to my death chasing after an 11-year old boy."

JACK'S BIG SCREEN COMEBACK

Even Hollywood can't keep Jack Bauer down. The long-awaited 24 movie may start production as early as April. "I love the script," Sutherland says. "If I had to do the poster, I's say, 'For eight days Jack Bauer had to save his country. Today, Jack Bauer has to save himself.' Instead of a big global threat unfolding in real time, the movie compacts one day into two hours as JB fights for survival. The script opens with Jack in Eastern Europe before traveling west. His years of service created a lot of enemies and he's estranged from the U.S.,;he's been in hiding a while," Sutherland says. "Jack is in a kind of purgatory and he's running as oppposed to chasing, which is a huge shift." Will Chloe and other familiar faces show up? "It's mostly Jack on his own, but he does network out to some of his old team," Sutherland reveals. "And if I said more than that, someone more powerful than Jack Bauer will have my ass kicked."

Kiefer Sutherland Talks Touch
By Gabriella Ribeiro Truman, Contributor
The Morton Report.com
February 2, 2012

The diverse star heads in a new direction in his latest dramatic series.

After going through the time-lapsed roller coaster of famed character Jack Bauer on the hit series 24, it's difficult to imagine anything that Jack, or by extension, Kiefer Sutherland can't do. It's equally as challenging for an actor like Sutherland who's enjoyed such tremendous success for years in one persona, to emerge as a new person viewers must get to know all over again.

Kiefer Sutherland took a few minutes to chat about his latest endeavor as he stars in Fox's new highly acclaimed series Touch, and his outlook on his new alter ego.

At what point did you connect with your character and just know that this was a story that you wanted to tell and be a part of?

It was funny. I was doing a play in New York on Broadway. I had a film that I knew I was going to go do and so I read Touch almost reluctantly. I don’t think I was completely ready to go back to television yet. I was enjoying some of the different opportunities that I had had. I think it was around page 30, I remember going, “Oh...,” or I guess something you could print, and I just knew I would be so remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity that Touch was.

I identified with him out of the gate. There was something interesting because obviously this is very different than 24. Yet there is a real similar through line in the kind of character of the man. Jack Bauer would be faced with unbelievable circumstances in the course of a day and he would never win completely. He’s never going to have the quintessential relationship of a father and a son.

And yet he perseveres and that’s a great kind of character statement and so I identified with him greatly on that and I think as a parent as well just the sense of responsibility combined with not knowing what to do all the time. Even though this is a heightened experience, I think every parent feels that.

I certainly can speak for myself and say that I have during Camelia’s pregnancy when Sara was-for nine months I’d have these great fantasies of how I was going to be the greatest dad on the planet. And then she was born and a kind of fear came over me like none other that I’ve ever had in my life. I was confronted with the fact that I really didn’t know what I was doing and it was something that I was going to have to figure out as I went.

Do you like to think that the world maybe does work this way, that everything is connected and maybe we’re just not clever enough or observant enough to see all the working pieces?

Well, I absolutely think it does. Can one focus on every single moment of their life in this way? No, of course not, but anything as simple as someone who is late for a bus one day, all of a sudden they’re not on the bus. They’re taking up other space. They either had to get a taxi and that affects the taxi driver’s life. So yes, I do believe that there is a cause and effect and a ripple effect upon everything everybody does and they have positive consequences and negative consequences.

If you start to focus on the kind of minutiae of that, it’s really quite extraordinary, or should I get on the elevator now or should I wait, and obviously we can’t live our lives like that. But I do believe very strongly that all of us and all of the other things in the context of our planet with Mother Nature, all of these things absolutely have a profound effect. Some of the effects that can be felt are small and some of them are very large and it was really interesting to do a show that focused on that.

One of the things is that in the history of television when somebody has a great, even groundbreaking, series like 24, they rarely come back to television and now it’s just been two years since 24 ended. Was it just the script that made you come back or what was it? What prompted you to come back to TV?

Well, it was a combination of things. I had an unbelievable experience on 24. We shot 198 episodes and I was as excited about shooting the 198th as I was the first. So that experience, and I had a great relationship with Fox, both the studio and the network. And so that combined with this script, it wasn’t even really a choice anymore. It was something that I knew I had to do. And I remember thinking about it really strongly when I was crossing the street in New York and the person who I work with, Susan, I remember saying to her if we don’t do this, how are we going to feel in September watching it, knowing all of its potential and how great we both think it can be. And that answered my question for me. I didn’t want to be sitting there watching this fantastic show in September if I had had the opportunity to be a part of it.

But you’re right, it certainly is a daunting thing having 24 be not only the great experience on a personal level for me, but it was an incredible success. It’s nice to have that in your pocket and let it be, but this was certainly something I just couldn’t say no to, so I think it’s been a little longer than two years, but it feels a lot shorter than that now, I have to say.

For people out there that are used to seeing you on 24 as Jack Bauer in sort of that action star sort of role, how do you convince them to give the show a look?

I don’t know if there is convincing. I think that ultimately almost in the way that 24 started, people that are initially interested, whether they’re a fan of Tim Kring or a fan of mine or like the trailer, they’ll watch it and then if they feel strongly about it, they’ll tell friends and we have to rely on that.

For me personally I feel that there is a great deal of suspense within the context of the show, even in the not knowing what the numbers are and the narrative where the audience actually knows more than the lead character. So I think that even though we’re not blowing things up, I think that there is enough excitement around the drama of this show, that people will not be that thrown by it who enjoyed 24. And we really do rely on you guys telling people about it and hopefully it will be something that grows.

How would you categorize the show: science fiction or paranormal fiction or something like that?

No, I’ve always felt that this was a drama. This, we’re embarking on the journey of a father trying to connect with his son and trying to have as normal a relationship as he can under the circumstances. That will always be at the heart of the show and certainly from my perspective it would be, but it has all of those elements. I think there is an element of science fiction. I think certainly as the show has developed, you guys have seen the first episode, which has a lot of requirements to kind of explain where the show is going. But for us in the subsequent episodes that follow, this really does have a great deal of energy, so there’s an aspect of it that I would categorize as a thriller or suspense and certainly the science fiction component as well. But at its heart it’s a drama.

Could you talk a little bit about working with David Mazouz, who plays your son, and forming that on-screen bond with him when he doesn't talk back to you?

He’s an amazing young actor and he’s an amazing young man. He does something that I think it would be impossible to try and teach an actor to do. He has very limited physical response to anything that I do. He doesn’t talk and yet I can feel his presence even if he’s not looking at me. I can always sense that he’s listening and I think that comes across to the viewer as well. That’s a real gift.

He was the first boy out of about 25 young people that I read with and I remember thinking because I was doing the play at the same time, so I could only do five or six or seven kids a day. I remember thinking wow, this kid is amazing. If the other kids are going to be like this, we’re going to find an amazing kid. And I remember it was around the tenth kid, I was still thinking-and all of the kids I have to say were fantastic, but there was something really special with … and then obviously we should just hire the first kid and I’m thinking around 20, I say no, the first kid was still better. And then I read with close to 30 kids and I was finally like, "Would you guys just please hire the first kid?" He was just amazing and so that bond kind of started right away.

He works a lot of hours with us, and I’ve just been completely amazed by how focused and attentive he is and interested in it. I think that’s a big thing. He’s not being made to do this. I think he actually really does enjoy it and he’s very curious about how to get better and it’s been a phenomenal experience. I really, really do love working with him.

What can you tell us about Martin and his journey in this first season?

I could tell you a lot. But I think at the beginning of the story we discover Martin who has a son named Jake who in the course or our story we realize has been misdiagnosed with severe autism and in fact is actually just a truly, truly evolved human being that is years and years beyond where my character is and our society is at. And in an effort to communicate with my son, I discover that he has this unbelievable skill set that allows him to interpret numbers and symbols in a way that kind of explain our past and to some degree predict our future and that’s where we start the show off.

My journey is very much like the Chinese fable that the story is based on, which was called “The Red Thread,” and this thread is loosely looped around the ankles of all the people that are supposed to come in contact with each other over the course of a lifetime. This thread can stretch and it can bend, but it cannot break, and somehow in our society we have broken this and my son is taking me on a journey to try and put the thread back together.

How do you feel that Martin allows you to mature in new ways as an actor, given what the material calls for emotionally?

I think again I kind of referred to his loneliness earlier. That’s a tricky thing to play because I don’t want people feeling sorry for Martin, yet I want them to understand that the further he is able to communicate with his son, the more enlightened and enriched his life will be; and he might be able to move past some of the pain that he’s experienced from the loss of his wife and his son’s condition. Those are all real subtle narratives to play. They’re not actually written. They’re tonal qualities and that’s something that I’m trying to focus on a lot with Martin and it’s also something that I felt I really learned at least how to do better through my experience on 24. I think a lot of the things that I learned were trying to focus on little small changes within Jack Bauer, whether it was from season to season or even over the course of one of those days.

What I learned in that process is something that I am trying to bring to Martin; and so that there’s a lot going on, or a lot more going on than what is simply written on the page or what one scene might simply require. That there are through lines within the context of the character that are going from episode to episode. And if we are lucky enough to do multiple seasons, that we’d connect those as well. So that’s really an extension of a technique that I really hadn’t focused on or thought of before my experience on 24 and Touch is a perfect kind of show and Martin is a perfect character to try and weave those things in.

Touch airs Wednesdays, 9 PM EST on FOX.

Kiefer Sutherland finds right Touch in new TV drama
By Alex Strachan, Postmedia News
January 24, 2012

From the beginning it was clear that Touch - a complex human drama starring Kiefer Sutherland as a widowed father struggling to raise an autistic son on his own - needed a delicate balance.

Writer Tim Kring's tale of science, spirituality and redemption tells the seemingly unconnected stories of a group of people all over the world whose lives are linked by a series of random numbers. The 11-year-old boy alone seems to understand the numbers' meaning, but he's not communicating: He's silent, unresponsive and refuses to be touched, despite the best efforts of his father to make a human connection.

Touch will debut in March, but the pilot episode will be sneak previewed Wednesday, following American Idol on Fox and following Bomb Girls on Global.

When the series resumes later this spring, each weekly episode will focus on the life of someone who comes into the boy's life, from a social worker, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who believes the boy's needs are becoming too serious for a single father to manage, to a university professor, played by Danny Glover, with an affinity for numbers and a unique ability to reach children who've closed themselves off to the outside world.

It was that quiet, unusual tone that drew Sutherland back to TV after eight years of chasing terrorists on 24. Touch has filmed four episodes so far, and Sutherland admitted he has settled back into the rhythm of making a weekly TV series.

"The commitment to a television show, certainly, in the case of 24, was eight years," Sutherland recalled earlier this month in Los Angeles. "So, if you are going to do something potentially for another eight years, you want it to be something that you can really sink your teeth into, something that's different and that's going to challenge you in a different way for this next period of time.

"The other day, Tim (Kring) and I were talking about getting older, and he said, 'At some point, you start to realize you have to be responsible for what you're going to say.' And if there was anything I wanted to be a part of saying, it was this beautiful idea of universal interconnectivity and this responsibility that we have to each other, as a people, as a race, to this planet.

"For all those reasons, that's why I chose to do this show."

Touch's pilot episode was directed by Francis Lawrence, a feature filmmaker who shepherded Water for Elephants, Constantine and I Am Legend, among others. Lawrence made his name in music videos, directing videos for Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Britney Spears and, in 2002, Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi.

Touch required a different touch, though. In style, and structure, it resembles Paul Haggis's Crash - a tale about different personalities with different backgrounds whose lives unexpectedly collide.

Touch is an odd fit for broadcast TV, with its commercial interruptions and frantic pacing, but Lawrence and Kring were determined to find a way.

They succeeded, from Sutherland's point of view.

Sutherland said Touch's tale of family connection held special resonance for him.

"I've been really fortunate," Sutherland said quietly. "I grew up with my mother, and I have a very, very close relationship with my father now."

Sutherland also shares a close emotional bond with his late grandfather, former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas.

"Tommy Douglas was someone I was very, very close to," he said. "I have a twin sister who has helped me through a lot of stuff. My youngest daughter is 24. My oldest daughter is in her 30s. They have come around the other side and been unbelievable support systems, too. So I've been very fortunate that way.

"I have two grandsons. I have a daughter with two children. I don't think anybody who has a child doesn't want the best they can possibly get for that child. I think the great pain and frustration of parenthood comes when we feel we aren't doing that," Sutherland said.

"I think that's the constant reality surrounding my character: His sense of failure as a parent, the feeling he's somehow responsible for where his own son's at. That is certainly something I responded to as a parent myself. I think the show does that well.

"I think it's always a great thing for a parent to be able to see and realize that they're not alone. Certainly, (Touch) spoke to me on that level."

Kiefer Sutherland’s 'Touch' coming to Sky 1
By Lisa McGarry
Unreality TV.co.uk
January 13, 2012

Sky today announced a deal with Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution to become the UK home of Kiefer Sutherland’s highly anticipated new drama Touch, from Heroes’ creator Tim Kring. Touch has already been given a series order of 13 episodes on the US network, Fox, home to Sutherland’s previous series 24.

At the centre of TOUCH is Martin Bohm (Sutherland), a widower and single father, haunted by an inability to connect to his mute 11-year-old son, Jake, played by David Mazouz (Criminal Minds). Everything changes when Martin discovers that Jake possesses the gift of staggering genius – the ability to see things that no one else can in the patterns that connect seemingly unrelated events. Jake is indeed communicating, but it’s not with words, it’s with numbers. Now, it’s up to Martin to decipher the meaning and connect the numbers to the cast of characters whose lives they affect.

TOUCH co-stars veteran Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon)as a professor and expert on gifted children who works alongside Martin in deciphering the meaning of Jake’s visions; and British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw (JJ Abrams’ Undercovers) as a social worker who works with Martin as they learn that Jake can see things and patterns that connect unrelated events. The series marks Tim Kring’s first television series following his Emmy-nomination for the sci-fi drama Heroes, which ended in 2010.

Stuart Murphy, Director, Sky 1 HD said: ““It’s great to have Kiefer back on Sky 1 HD – it feels like his natural home after the phenomenal success of 24. As the face and force behind this new series, we’re confident it will resonate with our customers. TOUCH is right up there in terms of creative ambition and really delivers on our promise of new, unmissable and exclusive content.”

Wright commented: “Emotionally compelling and highly charged, TOUCH is a brilliant new addition to Sky1 HD’s slate of hit dramas including Terra Nova, Spartacus and Hawaii Five-O.”

Sutherland added: “It’s great for TOUCH to have found a home on Sky. Sky was always supportive of 24 and built some truly innovative promotions for the show. I’m thrilled that UK audiences will get to see the show so soon after the US launch.”

TOUCH is produced by Chernin Entertainment, in association with Twentieth Century Fox Television. Kring penned the pilot and will executive produce alongside Sutherland, Francis Lawrence, Peter Chernin, Katherine Pope, Suzan Bymel and Carol Barbee. Lawrence (Water for Elephants), directed the pilot.

TOUCH will launch on Sky 1 HD and Sky 1 this Spring.

Kiefer Sutherland, left, and David Mazouz in "Touch"
Photo: Richard Foreman/Fox

Kiefer Sutherland in Tim Kring’s ‘Touch’ on Fox
A Lot Going On Behind the Eyes
By Neil Genzlinger - New York Times.com
January 11, 2012

WHEN, exactly, did Kiefer Sutherland gain access to my head?

Mr. Sutherland is returning to television this month in a Fox drama called “Touch” in which he plays the father of a 10-year-old boy who has never spoken and doesn’t communicate in any traditional way. That’s a world I know something about, since I too have such a child.

It’s a frustrating, anguishing place to live, full of challenges and conflicting emotions that are difficult to convey to an outsider. Yet in the “Touch” pilot, which will be broadcast Jan. 25, Mr. Sutherland and his young co-star, David Mazouz, did a pretty good job of convincing me that they know something about it too.

“Touch” was created by Tim Kring, whose previous shows include the much-loved “Heroes,” about ordinary people who discover they have superpowers. That lineage is clear in “Touch” because the mute boy, Jake, has a superpower of sorts: He has a relentless fascination with numbers and finds patterns that, if deciphered properly by his father, lead to connections among disparate people all over the globe. The pilot involves a British man’s lost cellphone, a broken oven in Baghdad, a lottery jackpot in New York, a sex worker in Tokyo and more.

Mr. Kring said that finding the right actor to play Jake wasn’t easy; the role requires an ability to affect the blank, isolated look often seen in autistic children, yet also to suggest there is a lot going on behind the eyes.

“David is an extraordinary child,” Mr. Kring said. “He is extremely focused, and you can see the internal life in him. He’s also very still. Most kids we auditioned, you’d catch moments here and there between their general fidgetiness.”

The casting was made all the more difficult by the fact that Jake is silent to the other characters but not to viewers: his thoughts are heard in voice-over, and are fairly complex for a 10-year-old.

“Because we hear his internal voice, we have an understanding of just how intelligent he is, so we had to cast someone who fit that,” Mr. Kring said. “Some of the kids, they had wonderful-looking faces, but you just could not imagine the very bright kid inside.”

Mr. Sutherland said David was the first of about two dozen children he read with during auditions. “There was just something really natural between the two of us,” he said, something that wasn’t there with those who came after. “Around the 25th kid I was like, ‘Would you guys just hire the first kid, please?’ ”

What makes his co-star right for the part? “David does an amazing thing where he is completely physically disconnected from you, but I always felt I could feel him listening,” Mr. Sutherland said.

The role of Jake presented one sort of acting challenge, but Mr. Sutherland, of course, has a lot to convey as well. Raising a child like Jake - or like my own, who has a disability called Rett syndrome - requires letting go of a lot of traditional parental goals and peak experiences.

“There was a book that I got for Kiefer about parenting children with these kinds of disabilities,” Mr. Kring said. “I remember there was one chapter on something called chronic sorrow. Both Kiefer and I kind of focused on that.”

It’s a term coined in the 1960s by the sociologist Simon Olshansky to refer to the day-to-day grief parents of severely disabled children experience over the challenges they and their children face, the lost opportunities, the unforgiving future. Mr. Sutherland seems to find the essence of it in his character, Martin Bohm. This struggling father is a long way from Jack Bauer, the tough terrorism fighter of Mr. Sutherland’s best-known series, “24.” As Mr. Kring put it, when Martin is punched in the stomach in the pilot, “he reacts very much the way you or I would: he doubles over in pain.”

Being the parent of an uncommunicative child may entail sorrow, but it also requires not giving up on him, even if others do. The pilot introduces what Mr. Kring said would be a season-long struggle for Martin, a widower, to retain custody of the boy - institutionalization, for Martin, being something like throwing in the towel and acknowledging that there is no potential behind Jake’s intense gaze.

“Have you ever truly communicated with him?” a child services worker barks at Martin. “Does he even know who you are?” Maybe not, but a parent in Martin’s position constantly has to tell himself that those questions are irrelevant.

The problem with making a series about a family dealing with disability is not unlike the problem with making a medical drama or a police procedural: What actually goes on in these worlds doesn’t make very good television. Just as most real police work is drudgery, raising a child with a profound disability is mostly a daily slog in which simple things like feeding or bathing can take hours.

Kiefer Sutherland and Tim Kring, the creator of "Touch," at the Television Critics Association press tour in January 2012
Photo: Danny Moloshok/Associated Press

That’s why Mr. Kring and his team try to establish early on that, though Jake may look autistic, “Touch” is not about autism, and Jake’s condition is something else entirely.

“In the pilot we were pretty set on trying to state that as early as possible,” Mr. Kring said. “Clearly the autism community deserves to have champions out there, but by the same token we wanted to have the ability as storytellers to float above reality a little bit. There’s something special going on with this child, something metaphysical, almost supernatural.”

Carol Barbee, an executive producer of the show, added, “We also wanted to be sure not to be coming from a place of saying your autistic child is also a magical child.” To real-life parents that approach would be dismissive, like the old “special gift from God” line that well-meaning strangers often use because they don’t know what else to say.

In the premiere Martin finds his way to a cryptic fellow played by Danny Glover who tells him that Jake and others like him have psychic powers of sorts.

“Your son sees everything,” Mr. Glover’s character says. “The past, the present, the future. He sees how it’s all connected.” Then he adds, “It’s a road map, and your job now, your purpose, is to follow it for him.”

That paranormal-sounding assignment actually mimics the role that a parent of such a child assumes in real life. Though you try to provide tools that might let the child use language the way other people do - my daughter is currently working with a MyTobii, a keyboardless, mouseless computer that reads the gaze of her eyes in order to speak for her - you come to realize that the real task is to meet the child where she lives and decode what you can. For Martin, Mr. Sutherland said, that realization brings a breakthrough.

“That’s the first kind of real empowering moment that Martin has as a father,” he said. “One of the things that’s so fantastic in the first five episodes is you really see their ability to communicate take leaps and bounds.”

For Mr. Kring, Jake and his father are a means into a subject that has long interested him. “I’ve been really exploring this theme of interconnectivity between people,” he said. “With ‘Heroes’ I sort of buried the interconnectivity under the theme of superheroes. Here I wanted to put it front and center.”

Why make the linchpin a child without words? “How I arrived at him being mute was really just by trying to create a character who had this extraordinary gift but was possibly the most disenfranchised person on the planet.” Mr. Kring said. “If the theme was about interconnectivity, the microcosm of it was about a father who couldn’t really connect with his own son.”

The “haiku storytelling,” as Mr. Kring called it, will stretch all over the globe. Future episodes will include plotlines set in Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Australia. “Anything that we can make Southern California look like,” Ms. Barbee said, “that’s where we’re going.”

Wherever it goes “Touch” seems as if it has a chance to do what many shows that use characters with disabilities don’t: go beyond the superficial and avoid easy, feel-good solutions. Jake’s disability may be a fantastical construct, but the communication challenges are real.

David Mazouz and Kiefer Sutherland at the Television Critics Association Press Tour

'24' fans rejoice! Kiefer Sutherland confirms a follow up film will begin shooting in April
By Iona Kirby
Daily Mail.co.uk
January 10, 2012

It has been a long wait, but fans of hit TV series 24 will be pleased to learn that filming for the movie sequel to the show will begin in a few short months.

Kiefer Sutherland, 45, told press on Saturday: 'Hopefully we will be shooting the end of April, beginning of May.'

And the actor, who plays Jack Bauer in the 24 saga, also said that the movie will be a 'continuation' of the show's eight seasons.

He added: 'Then, we'll see where we go from there.'

After a long process to find a suitable script for the film, the team has finally settled on something they are happy with.

Sutherland said: 'We have a script that we're really, really excited about finally and it's a question of trying to get it put together that quickly now.'

He was speaking at a press event to promote his new TV series Touch, which airs in March.

In the show, Sutherland plays the father of an autistic and mute boy who can predict future events.

He was joined at the event by David Mazouz, who plays his son, and creator Tim Kring, whose past projects include Heroes.

Sutherland will finish filming the first series of the show in April and intends to immediately begin working on the 24 movie.

Despite moving onto new projects, the actor has not forgotten his roots and is hugely grateful for his time working on the thriller show.

He said: 'I was fortunate enough to be a part of something that had an effect on people like that.'

And playing a relatable hero like Jack Bauer was a particularly interesting task for the star.

He said: 'I think that the one thing I've always associated with him about was he was never going to fully win.

'I think there's something very realistic about that, and I admire the character for that and think other people did too.'

The eighth and final series of 24 finished in May 2010 and producers were already in talks about making a movie to follow on from its ending.

The original script by State of Play writer Billy Ray was turned down but despite many bumps along the road, Sutherland always had faith in the project.

He has affectionately called the movie 'the little engine that could'.

Kiefer Sutherland's Got the Touch
TV Preview at IGN
January 8, 2012

The actor, and Heroes creator Tim Kring, talk about their new FOX series and how Sutherland's character differs from 24's Jack Bauer.

24-star Kiefer Sutherland is back on FOX with a new TV series, playing a very different character than Jack Bauer. In Touch, Sutherland plays Martin Bohm, a dedicated single father to a 10-year-old "mutistic" boy, Jake, who has never spoken a word in his life. Jake, however, in a very Fringe/Alphas manner can see the "numbers" and universal math in every aspect of life and, much like the surveillance tech used on the CBS series Person of Interest, can predict things to come.

At the Television Critics Association Press Tour this morning, Sutherland, along with series creator Tim Kring (Heroes), answered many questions and spoke a bit about why he returned to FOX for this new, far-reaching optimistic series about humanity's inter-connectedness. "I was doing a play on Broadway and I got a call from a great friend and partner of mine who I've worked with for many years and she said I have a great script for you to read," Sutherland revealed. "I said 'I'm not really ready to do that yet.' I wanted to set some time apart from this amazing experience I had doing 24 and I remember when I was on page 35 and I was like 's***, I'm in real trouble here.' Because it was so beautifully written."

"The character was so vastly different [from Jack Bauer] and the tone of the piece was so vastly different that it became was part of its appeal," Sutherland said. "It was unbelievably appealing because it was so different, but then I also emotionally responded to the piece." Sutherland then went on to say that he had to read the pilot script a second time to make sure that we wasn't just responding to the story because it was such a "180" from Jack. But, as an actor, Sutherland admits that Martin and Jack do have something in common; which is that "neither of them were ever going to completely win." "The real driving force for my character [in Touch] is to communicate with his son," the actor said. "He wants to have a normal relationship with his son. The one parallel that I can actually bring from the two characters was that Jack Bauer was asked to save the day but we knew there would be casualties. And my character in Touch is never going to have the perfect, ideal relationship with his son."

With themes of global personal connectivity echoing back to Heroes, Kring talked a little about his ongoing interest in the topic. "I've been interested in this theme of interconnectivity for a long time," he admitted. "Both Heroes and this show have these themes. This was really a chance to continue "socially beneficial" storytelling. Trying to use an archetypal narrative to create positive energy for the world." Kring went on compare Jake's abilities to some of his old characters on Heroes. "We probably had some characters that had various abilities that would kind of be in that category," he said, "but this is not a super power idea. It's more of a mystical or spiritual idea."

"Each week will have enough of a stand-alone feel because we'll get a beginning, middle and end from these stories," Kring added. "The Martin and Jake characters will be following an 'A' story that will provide a breadcrumb trail that Jake's character is leading his father on, and then centered around all that will be these satellite stories that will interconnect."

Touch premieres Weds, January 25th at 9/8c on FOX.

Kiefer Sutherland 24 Movie News
By Christina Radish
Collider.com
January 8, 2012

Today, at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, actor/executive producer Kiefer Sutherland was in attendance to talk about his upcoming Fox drama series Touch, which debuts with a series preview on January 25th, prior to its March 19th premiere date. While we will later run what he had to say about his new TV project, illustrating the ways that science and spirituality intersect and showing that we are all interconnected and tied in invisible ways to those whose lives we are destined to alter and impact, we wanted to make sure to share his comments about the status of the 24 movie, which he hopes will shoot this Spring. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

Question: Now that you’re doing this series, what is the status of the 24 movie?

KIEFER SUTHERLAND: The status on the movie is that, hopefully, we will be shooting the end of April, beginning of May.

Do you see the movie as a conclusion to the story in the series?

SUTHERLAND: I see it as a continuation. The script that we’ve got right now, which I’m very, very excited about, is relatively a direct continuation. It’s within six months from the end of the last episode. We’ll see where it goes from there.

The plan for the movie is still two hours, and not in real time?

SUTHERLAND: It’s two hours, representing 24 hours. The movie is not in real time. It’s a two-hour representation of a 24-hour day.

Is everybody from the cast back?

SUTHERLAND: I can’t say that.

Sutherland branches out from Jack Bauer with emotional role
By Alex Strachan
Postmedia News
January 9, 2012

No longer saving the world, actor plays single father trying to reconnect with son

Kiefer Sutherland is no longer running around on TV with a gun and cellphone, saving the world from swarthy Middle Easterners, tin-pot dictators and rightwing conspirators. In the quiet, change-of-life drama Touch, Sutherland plays a single father trying to reconnect with his mute 11-year-old son.

The story is a concentric tale of hurt souls - a firefighter tormented by his inability to save a dying woman, a teenager desperate to help his ailing family, a talented singer whose songs have a mysterious healing ability - none of whom know each other, but are connected in some mysterious way.

Sutherland appeared visibly relaxed as he appeared before reporters Sunday, in a dark grey pullover, well-worn jeans and his trademark cowboy boots.

Sutherland quietly explained how he got a call out of the blue while performing That Championship Season on Broadway.

"The character was so vastly different, and the tone was so vastly different, that was part of its appeal. I just emotionally responded to what was on the page. The past thing I wanted, after doing 200 episodes of 24, was another TV series. But the moment I started reading this, I just went. . . my character in 24 was always repressing himself; this character is all about having an emotional reaction in the moment. This character will grow, and that's another thing that appealed to me."

A sneak preview of Touch's opening hour will air Jan. 25, on Fox and Global TV. The series' official premiere is slated for March.

"I had to read it a second time to make sure that all the things that affected me affected me on a personal level, and it wasn't just out of a need to manage my career and get away from Jack Bauer. Is it a nice diversion from 24? Yes. But I honestly feel it was something deeper in the material, in the story, that affected me.

"The one parallel I can see between the two characters is that they're never going to have a perfect relationship with their children. That's appealing to me, exploring the idea that something as intim-ate as a personal relationship can be preordained."

Also, Sutherland added, with a wan smile, "In this show, I get to sit down."

"I haven't been very articulate about this," Sutherland said, moments later, startling his audience. "It's not about 24, or wanting to distance myself from 24. I see this show as a way of showing how we all get old, and how things change as we get older."