KIEFER SUTHERLAND COMES TO SCI FI AS PHENOMENON EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Released by Sci Fi
SCIFI.COM

NEW YORK, NY March 21, 2007 SCI FI has ordered a script for Phenomenon, a two-hour pilot executive produced by Kiefer Sutherland (24), it was announced today by Mark Stern, Executive Vice President, Programming, SCI FI Channel. Maggie Murphy, President of Sutherland's production company, East Side Entertainment, also serves as executive producer. A fast-moving and enigmatic thriller, Phenomenon follows a crack team of experts, lead by a mysterious young female prodigy, as they investigate bizarre and supernatural anomalies of nature.

SCI FI consistently pushes the envelope on the limits of human imagination with provocative and thought-provoking stories that explore the supernatural within the world around us. "In Phenomenon ordinary people have their assumptions about the natural world - their very belief systems - completely shattered when they are confronted by unsettling, unexplained phenomena," said Stern. "Kiefer and Maggie will lend their top-notch creative skills as executive producers to create a viewing experience as intriguing and surreal as the title would suggest."

In addition to starring as government agent Jack Bauer on the runaway hit series 24, Sutherland also serves as an executive producer. He has received a Golden Globe, an Emmy and two Screen Actor's Guild Awards for his spellbinding portrayal. A versatile talent, Kiefer has delivered a string of memorable screen performances in films such as A Time to Kill, A Few Good Men and The Sentinel. Executive producer Maggie Murphy has several network television projects currently in development. A seasoned production executive, she has been involved in the development of a string of high profile shows including Veronica Mars, Roswell, Ally McBeal, The X-Files and The Simpsons.

Brad Follmer and Lauren Iungerich serve as writers for the project. Both previously worked together on the feature films Superhero Summer Camp for Warner Bros. and The Book Club for The Weinstein Company. They have also previously collaborated on television pilots such as Conflict of Interest, Malpractice, and Dumb Girls for the CW.

Launched in 2004 and led by Jane Francis, Fox 21 is the innovative alternative boutique of Twentieth Century Fox Television. Fox 21 produces series spanning comedy, drama and reality for both network and cable television.

SCI FI Channel is a television network where "what if" is what's on. SCI FI fuels the imagination of viewers with original series and events, blockbuster movies and classic science fiction and fantasy programming, as well as a dynamic Web site (www.scifi.com) and magazine. Launched in 1992, and currently in 89 million homes, SCI FI Channel is a network of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies.

Sutherland's East Side, Sci Fi team
Follmer, Iungerich writing "Phenomenon"
By John Dempsey
Variety.com
March 21, 2007

Kiefer Sutherland's East Side Entertainment has landed a script-development deal with the Sci Fi Channel for the two-hour pilot of a proposed series called "Phenomenon."

The melodrama follows a team of scientists and medical experts, led by what Sci Fi calls "a young female prodigy with a mysterious past," as they try to find explanations for phenomena that appear to defy the laws of physics and biology."

Mark Stern, executive VP of programming for Sci Fi, said, "In 'Phenomenon,' ordinary people have their assumptions about the natural world -- their very belief systems -- completely shattered when they're confronted by unsettling, unexplained phenomena."

Twentieth Century Fox TV's Fox 21 arm is attached to "Phenomenon," and Sutherland's co-executive producer is Maggie Murphy, who's also president of East Side Entertainment.

The writers of the script are Brad Follmer and Lauren Iungerich.

Michael Shanks Joins Cast of 24
By Stephanie Sanchez
IESB.net - Independent Entertainment News
March 21, 2007

Stargate SG-1 fans everywhere are jumping foy joy, Dr. Daniel Jackson, Michael Shanks himself has joined the cast of 24 for a four episode storyarc.

His publicist made an annoucement regarding the hit Fox series that stars Kiefer Sutherland.

Michael has signed for a recurring role on the hit FOX Network series, 24. Michael starts shooting episodes for the current season this week. Further details on which episodes he will appear in and when they will air will be provided when they become available. (The remaining episodes of the series run from today, 12 March, to 21 May.) The series, starring Kiefer Sutherland, is currently in its sixth season, with a further two seasons and a feature film planned.

Shanks character name is Michael Bishop and he has a four story arc.

Fox's '24' is hitting the wall
By Nick Rogers - A&E Editor
SJ-R.COM
March 15, 2007

Whenever a nuke goes off on "24," the fallout is bad. I'm not talking about Jack Bauer navigating hellacious traffic on the 405, yanking his SUV out of the way of screaming people with flaking flesh.

But that would be more interesting than pretty much anything to happen on the Fox show this season since hour No. 4, in which terrorists triggered a nuclear explosion in the middle of Valencia, Calif. At the time, it seemed "24's" craziest game-changer yet - or at least, the end of Jack's 20-minute maximum on travel time, wading through a statewide wake of mass casualties, hysteria and panic.

Unexpectedly, where "24" could revel in such insanely raised stakes of fear, it's become insufferably dull. Swift, nasty twists long have defined the show, almost always keeping it brisk if not necessarily logical. Nuclear winter chilled "24's" heat in season two, when a desert detonation merely led to a poorly resolved foreign-oil conspiracy concocted by Evil White Guys.

This season, the brink of World War III seems like a fairly inert place to be. All we've had since the big bomb is more backroom wrangling, more presidential-assassination attempts, more consulate raids and - spoiler alert - the likelihood of more moles at the Counter Terrorism Unit.

It would be a nice nod toward fans next year if Jack kneecapped a CTU background checker. And yes, "24" will have at least two more "days," per star Kiefer Sutherland's recent contract. Take Jack out of California. Give him an explosive collar that will go off should he say his D-word curse. But if the creators even care anymore about "24's" momentum, they'll gladly juke on the nukes.

Ricky Schroder gets in the action for '24' role
By Carol Motsinger
USATODAY.com
March 12, 2007

Ricky Schroder, 36, has traded his silver spoons for heavier artillery to play CTU agent Mike Doyle on 24 (Fox, Mondays, 9 ET/PT). Schroder took a break from shooting the series to chat with USA TODAY's about goats, his favorite Jack Bauer torture scene and why he might start using his iPod.

Q: What lured you back to network TV?

A: 24 is a great action show. I've never really done such great action — running and jumping and explosions. I've done intense interrogations with NYPD Blue, but the action of 24 really appealed to me.

Q: We realize it should be shrouded in secrecy, but can you tell us anything about the role?

A: Doyle transfers in under sort of a bit of a mysterious circumstance to help Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) track down the remaining suitcase nukes. He … what can I tell you? He's pretty militant and straightforward. He's sort of got this darker side to him. He's introduced in a way that you're not sure about him or where he's going. In about eight shows now, we've really sort of made a nice character. It looks like I am going to be here through the season.

Q: You're clearly a 24 fan. Do you have any favorite torture scenes?

A: (Laughing) I just remember a scene where Bauer is interrogating a guy, and the guy won't give him the information and he shoots him in the knee. It was brutal. I have never seen anything quite so shocking. Kiefer (Sutherland) is a lot of fun to work with. He brings so many ideas to the set, and he elevates the material — his ideas and his intensity. After being in (the show) six years, it's really refreshing to see an actor so committed to working his butt off every day and not phoning it in.

Q: You recently switched your name back to Ricky. Why now?

A: (More laughing) It's something that I have wanted to do for years, but I never really got around to doing it. Rick never felt comfortable. It just felt like it wasn't me. It just felt like a guy who was too cool or something. I'm a little more nerdy. Ricky kind of encompasses all of me. It hasn't really caught on. I don't think anyone's even heard about it.

Q: Even when I was given this assignment and looked up your publicist, it's still under Rick, so...

A: You know, it has been 15 years in the press of people saying, "Don't call him Ricky, call him Rick." Since I was 18, people have been told that. And it was really never an issue for me. I actually never really cared whether it was Ricky or Rick. It sort of became one of these stories that perpetuated itself.

Q: You're known for your fairly conservative political views. What's your take on how the 2008 presidential race is shaping up?

A: Well, gosh. I think we are going to have an interesting next two years watching the candidates build their platforms, and I think that it's good for the country. It's good for the world to have a healthy debate. I think it's all good. The more we talk about it and debate about it, the better outcome we're going to have. I really have no idea who's going to be the nominees. It seems like, on the Republican side, there's a lot more question marks. I think on the Democratic side, it's more obvious that it's going to be Mrs. (Hillary Rodham) Clinton. But I don't know on the Republican; it seems like the playing field is full. It's going to be interesting to see who emerges.

Q: Is it true that you owned a big ranch in Colorado and recently downscaled to one in California?

A: Yeah. I had a beautiful mountain ranch in Colorado for 16 years that I enjoyed. We had a really wonderful cabin and lots of activities — great memories for my family. We recently parted with that, and I am looking for a new property, probably in the Utah or Idaho area. My career is keeping me busy right now, and I have a small farm in California in the Santa Monica mountains. We have lots of wildlife, and I've got a beautiful ocean view. We have chickens and goats and rabbits and dogs. We are talking about getting our first horse up here. So it's really a great place to live. I can be in the city in 15, 20 minutes.

Q: Has your ranch "gone green" in any way?

A: You know, I'm not sure what that means. I don't have solar panels. I don't have my own water well or whatever you say. I don't really know what "going green" means, and I think part of the challenge is trying to teach people how they can do their part to help conserve either electricity or water or the other things that we use. But, yeah, I think that if there's some innovative entrepreneurs out there who can help teach people how they can cost-effectively help themselves and their planet, I think everybody would be for it. That's going to be the challenge — figuring a way to get the marketplace and commerce to teach us consumers another way.

Q: What do your kids (four, ages 5 to 14) think of your work? Have they seen The Champ and Silver Spoons?

A: Yeah. I have been a huge nerd to my kids. I haven't done the cool movies that they like. With 24, I gained a lot of respect. 24 is now, it's hip, it's their generation.

Q: Do they watch 24?

A: Not regularly. But they just started to now that their dad got a job on it. All of their friends are like, "Your dad's on 24!" My kids think that's lame, because kids that never talked to them before, all of a sudden, the kids are like, "Can your dad get me this or get me that?" My kids are like, "Whatever."

Q: With two teenagers, how do you keep them in line?

A: Discipline and love. I think discipline's really important and lacking in some situations, some families and communities. I think they need to know you love them, they need to know what expectations you have, and the standards and values you keep. And they have to be corrected when they go off track.

Q: You and wife Andrea have been together 14 years, is that right?

A: Gosh. When did I get married?

Q: I'm putting you on the spot. It's going to be the hardest question all day.

A: I have to go look. Let me see. It's going to be 15 years. Yup, almost 15 years.

Q: So what's your secret to success?

A: What's my secret?

Q: Yes. If there is one.

A: Learning to say your sorry when you screw up. I don't know — choosing the right woman. That helps, big time. In my mind, I've never seen divorce as an option. My parents are together. Her parents are together. You know that old corny phrase, "the grass isn't greener on the other side." But really trying to believe that and live that. So there are going to be peaks and valleys in everything — in your marriage, in your job, in your life. So just enjoy the peaks and ride out the valleys. Just try not to do anything too rash.

A: Do have an iPod? What's on it?

Q: I don't have an iPod. I mean, I have a couple. Doesn't everyone? But I don't use it. I need to because I go to the gym now, and I'm tired of listening to morning radio. I want some music! I do have a video iPod, but I don't use it either.

A: If you do ever take your iPod to the gym, what might be playing?

Q: Yeah, I kind of mix it up. I like a lot of country music. So you might see some Tim McGraw, you might see Nickelback. You might see My Chemical Romance. You might see The Killers. You might see some Billy Joel or some Eagles. It's kind of a mix-it-up.

Q: Any other projects in the pipeline?

A: I wrote and directed my first movie last year, called Black Cloud. So I've got about another three movies in development. There's a lot of excitement and possibilities in my future with that. But right now I'm just enjoying 24. Hopefully they will enjoy me, and I can keep the world safe for a while longer.

Exclusive Interview: Roger Cross, former star of 24
BuddyTV.com
March 5, 2007

Roger Cross, who played Agent Curtis Manning for 2 full seasons on 24, wasn't always in the acting business. In fact, Cross actually had a career as a commercial pilot before he realized that acting couldn't just be his hobby.

Though Cross says that he knew about the plan to kill off Agent Manning this season, his death was a complete shock to fans. Cross took time from his busy schedule to talk to BuddyTV about kicking butt in the January cold, working with an amazing cast, and going out in style.

BuddyTV: Looking back at the start of your career, it looked like it was an interesting way into the acting business. Can you give us a rundown on how you broke into the business?

Roger: I did stunt work, actually, on 21 Jump Street, a long time ago. And it was just more out of curiosity and just for fun, I think. I did acting school for just for fun, enjoyed doing it but didn’t think of it as a career you know; no one’s an actor for real. That’s not how I thought of things. I was a commercial pilot and so for me, that was a real career and this was just a side thing while a flying job came along. And, slowly but surely, I went to China and did a movie and it just started taking over my life. It just felt like the right fit and I just kept doing it. That’s the thing, you go on making all these grand plans, you’re going to do this by this age and you’re going to that by that age and I don’t know if you did that, but a lot of people tend to do it. And then, you know life throws you a few wrinkles and I’ve just discovered you’ve got to go with it.

I never thought I’d be interviewing CTU Agent Curtis Manning so...

There you go!

Can you tell us how you got the role of Curtis Manning on 24?

Basically I got a phone call from my agency and they were like “Oh, have you heard of 24?” And I’m like, “Of course, I love the show.” And they were like, “Well, would you like to go in for a role on it?” I’m like, “Yeah, that’d be great.” So I went in and did the initial audition and I was just about to actually leave to go up to Vancouver, BC to go shoot a series called The Days, to do a guest spot on that and I thought okay and I got on a flight to go an do the show. While I was shooting it they were like, “Oh they really loved what you did and the producers, they need to see you, you need to get approval from the rest of the producers and things like that.” And I’m like, “Okay, well I only have one day off next week.” And they were like, “Okay great, we’ll put you on a plane!” So they put me on a plane, I flew back in and met with the rest of the group. The first time it was just with Joel Surnow and with the casting people, things like that, because when it came down to it he was the man who made the decision anyway. So then after that, I got back on the plane that evening and flew back up to Vancouver; the next day I started getting some phone calls going, “Hey, they really liked you, if you’d like to be a part of it they’d really like to have you.” And I’m like, “Heck yes!” So then, there we go.

How long were you originally slated to be on 24? Did you know?

Initially they said it was going to be a six-part arc, which is what they had envisioned for it. And then part way through the first episode they started talking, “Well, maybe we’ll do a little longer deal.” So I was like, “Okay, let’s do a longer deal.” So then they went ahead and did their thing and that’s how it worked out.

You know, you worked pretty closely with Kiefer Sutherland the whole time on 24. How was that experience? For viewers, it seems like he’d be a pretty intense dude to work with.

He’s an intense dude but he also knows how to, you know, let the hair down and have a good time when he can. He can be very intense but he’s also a lot of fun when he gets a chance. So it’s all good. I mean that’s the thing, people think that filming that show must be always intense. But it’s like, no, we love to crack up and have a good time just like anybody else. And think about it, if we were that intense all the time it’d be a pretty miserable place to work.

Shooting all that stuff in the field, it looks like it would be a whole lot of fun. Was it fun or was it also pretty demanding?

All the action stuff? It’s both. I mean anything in life worth doing is sometimes a little bit more challenging than others. And it was a lot of fun in that I like doing physical action. And then of course you get the great acting with it, you get the stories with it and so it’s just the best of all worlds. And it can be demanding because we shoot and because of the time restraints that we have. When we shoot exterior nights we have to actually shoot at night; exterior days we have to shoot during the day. So you know, in the middle of January, we’ll be shooting all night. So at five o’clock in the morning when all of a sudden you’ve got to be up and kicking but and doing your whole thing, it’s not so much fun. And then it’s freezing cold. You know we go from extreme summer heat in the middle of Chatsworth to the extreme cold of January in the middle of the night somewhere downtown with helicopters flying over you, the whole bit. It’s pretty wild but it can be challenging.

Shooting in CTU and shooting in the field must have really distinctly different vibes. Which did you prefer?

You know, there were days, like I said, in the middle of winter, where it’s freezing out there and you’re like, “God I want to be back in CTU.” But then there are day jobs and being out in the field is just a lot more fun. It’s a little bit of both. What it is more about, especially when I first started, we had a great group: myself, Louis Lombardi, Lana Parrilla, Alberta Watson, had all started at the same time. And we just had great chemistry. It was just one of those situations where we all came there together. You know this show had been going for three years but we were the new kids on the block and we really enjoyed each other's company and we hung out a lot. It was a nice transition because it wasn’t like I was the only one coming into an already established show; it was a group of us that came in together and hey, coincidentally that’s the year that the ratings really took off!

Do you have any favorite moments of any episodes you shot for 24?

I still love the fight sequences up in the office building when I make my escape. I still love that scene; that was a lot of fun for me.

Coming into this season, Season 6, did you have any sort of idea that you were going to be killed off?

laughs) You know at the end of last year, I asked them what the plans were for the character. Because there were times where you know my character wasn’t doing a whole lot and it was kind of like well, do we have greater plans for him and what’s going to happen? And we discussed it, my management discussed it with them to see what they were talking about, was going to happen, just sort of where to take the character and things like that. We kind of together said, well if you’re going to let him go out, what kind of death scene would it be? So I had a pretty good inkling that they were going to use it for a dramatic moment.

When did you find out for sure?

Before the season started they talked to me and said that we’re going to be definitely through the first four and that’s what they’d like to do and that they’re going to shoot him. He’s not going to definitely be dead but they want to shoot him. So I was like oh, okay, and that was it.

Were you happy with the way Curtis went out? It was a pretty dramatic scene.

It was very dramatic and I enjoyed the day shooting it. It was very nice and working with that group that we have there it just made it. It was hard because I’d worked with these guys for over two years and we all hang out. We’re all friends and so to be filming like the final scene was kind of a strange feeling. But it was also very well written. I enjoyed it. Yes, I’ve heard all the controversy that Curtis wouldn’t have done that but I’m like, “Yeah, but you know what, he did.” And it was a good run and it was a lot of fun.

When I watched that episode with a group of friends there were physical reactions to Curtis getting shot, it was just brutal. Everyone was like, “No! No!” What do you think it was about the character that made you get that sort of reaction out of fans?

I think you’d answer that better than I would. You know what I mean? I think you, the person watching it who has invested time in it, would probably answer it better than me. The thing about any character I would do, he’d have to have his strengths but he’d also have to have his vulnerabilities. And basically be real because everyone, you have your strengths, you have your weaknesses, you have your moments where you’re not going to be stellar but you also have your moments where you’re going to be strong. And he was able to do that, I believe, and so I think maybe the audience appreciated that and yes, he could kick some ass but he also had a softer side and he was also very loyal I think, so those are the traits I think people liked about him.

Can you talk a little bit about what you have coming up?

Man, I wish I could tell you that. There’s been some crazy things happening with some deals that we thought were signed and didn’t happen but there are some very promising things. I mean, now that I’m, I guess, stepping up to another level, the competition of course gets stiffer and now I’m up against some of the bigger names in the business for some of the same roles, which is what you work for. So right now we are waiting for a lead in a movie, that I can’t tell you right now, but hopefully within the next week I’ll be able to tell you exactly what I’ll be doing.

A sinister synergy threatens civility
Canada.com: Montreal Gazette
March 1, 2007

Last November,Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, dean of the U.S. army's West Point Academy, flew to California to tell the creators of the Fox television series 24 that their show was enticing soldiers in Iraq into torture and other illegal, unethical behaviour.

Actor Kiefer Sutherland's character Jack Bauer has become a role model for recruits, Finnegan warned. Here is a typical scene from the show, illustrating Finnegan's fears for the rule of law in the army: Bauer breaks into a room at a government agency and threatens a suspected terrorist with his gun, gives the man about one second to react, then shoots him in the thigh. In the background we hear Bauer's supervisor screaming over an intercom at Bauer to leave the room.

He ignores her and just as he is poised to shoot the suspect a second time, the man blurts out that the terrorists' target is the U.S. secretary of defence. The supervisor switches gears, giving orders to protect the secretary.

Moral: Torture works. And army recruits love Bauer: Young soldiers in Iraq are attempting similar methods.

For the record, the U.S. army's field manual on interrogation says torture "is a poor technique that yields unreliable results (and) may damage subsequent collection efforts." But who do you suppose the young soldiers will believe? A manual? Or an adrenaline-soaked TV drama?

Is this life imitating TV? Or, considering Abu Ghraib and other abuses in Iraq, should we say TV is imitating life? Or is it both? What if what we really have here is a sinister synergy?

This fuss over 24 fits into a long series of warnings, in recent decades, about the malign influence of ever-coarser pop culture on society. From Dirty Harry to Jackass, Girls Gone Wild, Grand Theft Auto and many rock videos, popular culture has increasingly glamourized violence, sexual licence, sexism and other behaviour that in real life often has distinctly unglamorous consequences.

We should look, in light of that, at findings reported last week by Canada's Vanier Institute of the Family: Compared with 30 years ago, Canadian and American youngsters are four times as likely to demonstrate severely problematic behaviour, such as intentionally hurting people.

The study's authors did not link this trend to popular culture alone. Rather, they said, this "erosion of civility" can be traced back to parents working longer hours, and to schools and neighbourhoods no longer providing social control, as well as to the amount of time young people spend watching TV, videos and the rest.

Pop culture is often the most visible part of the progressive decline in the nurturing in our children of the values of civility, restraint and community. But other significant causes of the problem, not so easily apparent, are closer to home. Of course, it's not as easy to blame ourselves.

From infancy to boot camp, young people, if left to their own devices, learn to imitate what they see around them. What they're not seeing - in the mass media - is how to set common-sense limits. It's a point to which we all need to pay more attention.

LMR comment: Hmmmm, an anti-torture speech. Would anyone be interested in a speech regarding anti-terrorism? The drama 24 is in it's sixth season. There have been torture scenes from the get-go. People have to remember that 24 is a television drama, not reality. Is Kiefer Sutherland the best person to teach the West Point cadets that torture techniques are wrong? Personally, I think it's pathetic if they need Kiefer to set them straight. West Point cadets, wise up! Whatever the case, good luck to Kiefer on giving his speech.

U.S. Army invites Sutherland to give anti-torture speech

24 star Kiefer Sutherland has accepted an invitation from the U.S. military to teach army cadets it is wrong to torture prisoners. Sutherland, who plays agent Jack Bauer in the show, has agreed to talk to cadets at the West Point military academy in New York state after army chiefs claimed the show's torture scenes are influencing its newest recruits. Earlier this month (Feb. 7), Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan visited the set of 24 to urge its makers to cut down on torture scenes. He told the show's producers, "I'd like them to stop. They should do a show where torture backfires. The kids see it and say, 'If torture is wrong, what about 24?' "The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do."

Chad Lowe, 24: "Reed Has Somewhat of an Ulterior Motive" | TVGuide.com
By by Margy Rochlin
February 26, 2007

In a TV Guide interview, Chad Lowe reflects on his new gig as 24's resident evildoer, sobriety, his new girlfriend and playing hockey with Kiefer.

TV Guide: What can you tell us about your character on 24, deputy chief of staff Reed Pollock?

Lowe: I don't want to give too much away, but Reed has somewhat of an ulterior motive. He does things to further his agenda and the agenda of an organiza­tion of people he represents. What's interesting is that I don't even know who they are.

TV Guide: Do you mean you, Chad Lowe? Or you, Reed Pollock?

Lowe: I, Chad Lowe, don't know. When I got the role, I went in and met with the producers and writers and all they gave me was a broad stroke of where they're going with him.

TV Guide: Did they use words like "evil" and "henchman"?

Lowe: God, no. I'm not sure that I would agree with Reed's point of view, but I can certainly see his perspective. I think he feels like a patriot and that he's doing the right thing for the country and is proud to be serv­ing Peter MacNicol's character, Tom Lennox. He's well intended, if maybe misdirected.

TV Guide: Misdirected? He does something truly horrible this week!

Lowe: It's a pretty big event that I'm in­volved in. But I think the jury is out about how people will respond to Reed Pollock. Today, somebody in the elevator of my condo looked at me side­ways and said, "I don't think I like you." [Laughs] Then he said, "... on 24."

TV Guide: Have you been made a regular?

Lowe: No. I'm going episode to episode. Every time I've read a script, I always read it know­ing that it may be my last. I'm not dead yet, I can tell you that much.

TV Guide: How does it feel to be on a hit show at the same time as your brother Rob?

Lowe: It's nice. There have also been many, many patches when we've both been unemployed.

TV Guide: You used to be on the same ice-hockey team as Kiefer Sutherland. Denis Leary once said he's one of the best celebrity players he's ever seen. True?

Lowe: Ah, um... I was surprised by how good Kiefer is, but I don't know if I would go that far. Maybe according to Denis he's the best. I think there are a few people I might put ahead — Matthew Perry is a very good hockey player. Most actors fancy themselves tough guys to some degree. But it's a great equalizer.

TV Guide: On a recent appearance on Larry King Live, you were asked about your new girlfriend, Kim Painter, and you said, "It's not serious." Was this news to her?

Lowe: Everything was fine. [Laughs] It's a new relationship, and I was trying to deflect — as awkwardly as possible. We met coincidentally. She produces Carrie Fisher's one-woman show. I'd called Carrie to ask her to participate in a function I was putting together, and I dealt with Kim. We clearly had a fancy for one another and decided that maybe we should go and have coffee. We're in the nice stages of an early relationship.

TV Guide: Last August your ex-wife, Hilary Swank, told Vanity Fair about your heretofore unpublicized substance-abuse problem. What's it like being unable to control how a personal issue becomes known to others?

Lowe: That was my ex-wife's press. She chose to speak out for whatever reason and say what she did. I didn't bring it on, and I didn't ask for it. I thought I'd address it in my own time.

TV Guide: Any unexpected big changes that come with nearly four years of sobriety?

Lowe: I don't spend my energy figuring out how I measure up. Humility really takes you out of the arena of where one fits in — in a marriage, in a career, in life. There's a saying, "I may not be much, but I'm all I think about." [Laughs] I'm glad I'm not all I think about anymore.

edmontonsun.com - Spotlight - What the stars said this week:

"They purposely lose so I get blown up." - Kiefer Sutherland, on his kids playing the 24 video game.

The human computer
Telegraph.co.uk
February 18, 2007

She's strange on screen; almost as strange off it. Mary Lynn Rajskub - Chloe in '24' - talks to William Leith about her dark line in stand-up comedy portrait

You might know Chloe. She's the character played by Mary Lynn Rajskub in the drama series 24, and she's very strange.

Like every character on 24, she might be about to save the world, but she might equally well be a dangerous lunatic. Chloe is the one who sits in the office, telling Jack Bauer, the secret agent played by Kiefer Sutherland, what to do.

Chloe knows everything. She is a strong, powerful woman. She is super-bright. She is a computer expert. But sometimes you think she might actually be a computer.

'I think she's caught up in her own head,' says Rajskub. 'She's very smart, but very smart in a particular way, so that she tends to miss a lot of things that come easy to other people. Like social skills.'

Mary Lynn Rajskub (pronounced rice-cub) is also pretty unusual. She's not what you'd expect from an actress in a slick, big-budget series.

That's because she's not exactly a slick television actress, but a comedian who did acting on the side until the acting took off. Before that, she was a performance artist who did comedy on the side, until the comedy took off.

And before that, she was a cutting-edge painter. And then she started to do performance art on the side - which, by the way, was strange stuff. Brilliant, but strange. And then the performance art took off.

Rajskub still thinks of herself as a comedian, and loves being on stage, even though it terrifies her. 'When you have a terrible time on stage, it's the worst feeling ever,' she says. 'You want to kill yourself.'

She is slightly over average height, with the slender, perfect figure of an actress, and the comedian's air of intensity and edginess.

Her face has the quality of looking different from every angle. She seems knowing, possibly cynical, rather dark - you can imagine her being into the punk scene or the grunge scene.

She once acted in a video for the arty band Weezer. She is 35, but looks much younger. She is unmarried, but when I ask about her boyfriends, she says, 'There's been a lot' - notably Jon Brion, the composer who wrote the music for the film Magnolia, and the ventriloquist Duncan Trussell.

Recently, the talk-show host Rush Limbaugh appeared to kiss her on camera, sparking tabloid rumours of a relationship. The rumours have now fizzled out.

'My ex-fiance's dad told him that he thought Rush Limbaugh and I made a better couple than he and I did,' says Rajskub.

What she loves about performing is the element of risk. 'I suppose it's a little bit addictive in a way - real highs and real lows,' she tells me.

'But there's something else. When I do comedy, I tend not to really know what I'm going to say, which is exciting. You're taking a chance. I tend to really enjoy the danger of being stuck out in front of a bunch of people, not knowing what's going to happen next.'

Her comedy is kooky and surreal; on stage, she plays at being dysfunctional. This, I'm sure, is Freudian. Sometimes, things go horribly wrong. Once, Rajskub thought it would be funny to pretend she didn't want to go on stage. When her name was announced, she yelled 'No! No!'

She had arranged for a friend to push her onto the stage as she squirmed and resisted. 'I thought it was funny,' she says, 'but people just felt bad because they thought I really didn't want to get on stage. I had a feeling that might happen. So my big rescue was to change the microphone cover, which was black, and replace it with a red one.' But the ploy didn't work. 'They were just like, oh, this is sad. Oh, poor girl.'

Rajskub grew up in Trenton, a suburb of Detroit, the third daughter of a pipe-fitter and a pharmacist. 'My dad was almost a cop, but then we moved to the suburbs instead,' she says. She is fond of non-sequiturs.

Her childhood, she explains, was: 'Pretty solid. Taken care of. Food, shelter, clothing.' She describes Trenton as 'very suburban - a lot of Kmarts, Dunkin' Donuts, White Castle hamburgers.'

She tells me about being an unusual child: 'I practised not having any expression. Because I didn't want people to know what I was thinking or feeling.

'It's pretty wise, because you can't trust people. Kindergarten is dangerous. All the people trying to get into your biz.Getting in your space, trying to poke things at you. You've got to keep a tight ship.' It's interesting that she did this, and equally interesting that she remembers it so clearly.

And school? 'Pretty OK, yeah, but not great.' Rajskub was clever, but her brand of cleverness was not quite the ticket. Frustrations developed, which she mostly suppressed.

'I kept to myself,' she says, 'and then I'd explode every once in a while. In a silly way, I guess. I just bottled up energy and then would let it out in a fit of, you know - dancing or talking.'

Rajskub speaks about herself with an ironic tone, and laughs a lot. When she moves her mouth, even a tiny bit, a dimple appears around her cheekbone.

This is the dimple you see during tense moments in 24; a great deal of her performance as Chloe is the act of thinking. When I ask her how she does it, she says: 'The challenge for me is to make sure there's always something internal going on.'

Sometimes, when she needs to act a highly charged scene, 'I really just think of my family members, like if they're being hurt.'

When she left school, she wanted to be a painter. 'The only reason is that I didn't want to get a job, and I didn't want to go to college.' So she went to art school at the Centre for Creative Studies in Detroit. 'It was incredibly eye-opening,' she says. 'I loved it. My favourite.'

Rajskub describes her life as 'a series of going along with things that seem interesting, following things that stimulate me, that I didn't plan for'.

At art school she loved the work of post-modernists such as Cy Twombly and Jean-Michel Basquiat. She painted flags, a la Jasper Johns, and created a structure that looked like a carnival ride.

'There was also one of a lot of fish,' she says, and then shrugs. 'Don't ask me. I had big ideas about it at the time.' The art she likes, she says, is 'modernism, when any sort of formality fell apart. I like imperfections. I like that in performers as well'.

The turning point, one of several over the next few years, came when she found herself explaining her work. 'It pissed me off because people were critiquing my painting,' she says.

'I didn't think they knew what they were talking about so I started getting up and explaining the paintings to them.' The seed had been sown. 'And then I started taking performance art classes. But I thought it was dumb just to sit in the classroom.'

And so began the years of performance. 'I didn't set out to be funny,' she says. 'And then somebody reviewed my show in the paper, and she said 'this is one of the strangest, funniest performances I've ever seen.' And then I went: 'Aha! Funny! So I started pointing in that direction a little bit more.'

She would rush on stage 'as if I had just got out of the shower'.There was a routine about a banana, and ditzy, brilliant monologues.

Superbly, she somehow explained the history of the world using a set of combs. Her stage persona was dumb-smart. Then she started attracting the attention of casting agents and got a part as the talent booker in The Larry Sanders Show.

Throughout this time, Rajskub wore her hair in a fringe - this was before she discovered the much more fetching look, with a parting, that she wears now.

In Dude, Where's My Car? she played 'an alien from outer space who wears a bubble suit'. Later, in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, she played the part of Adam Sandler's sister.

She was brilliant as a hassled, fretful, snippy woman. Joel Surnow, the producer of 24, liked something in this character, and asked Rajskub to audition.

'I hadn't watched 24, and I didn't really audition for dramas,' she says. In the end, there was no audition: Surnow simply offered her the part.

Now, 24 is a big part of her life, just as she is a big part of 24; she gives it texture. The show has also made her real life slightly more surreal, such as the day she spent sitting on a counter-terrorism panel in Washington called '24 and America's Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction or Does it Matter?'

Of Kiefer Sutherland, she says: 'I get nervous to do scenes with him, because he's very intense. I don't know how he does all the stuff he does. I don't actually see him that much; a lot of our scenes are on the phone. So far, we've done 15 or 16 episodes, and I've only done one-and-a-half scenes with him.'

Of Chloe, Rajskub says: 'She's very impatient, because her mind is doing other things. She is quicker than other people in lots of ways, and slower in others.'

Does she identify with Chloe? Rajskub ponders. Then she partly agrees. 'I can relate to sort of having tunnel vision. Being in my own world, feeling awkward.'

The thing is, Rajskub thrives on awkwardness. Recently, she tells me, she watched herself being interviewed by David Letterman. 'That was the smoothest I've ever been,' she says. 'That was the most comfortable I've ever felt on a talk show. And do you know how that felt? Really odd.'

Rescue Me
Jack saves pal from driller killers on 24
By Michael Starr - New York Post Online Edition
February 13, 2007

February 13, 2007 -- Last night's two-hour episode of "24" raised the bar on the show's trademark violence - drilling it home in a big way.

"24" upped the ante from knives, electrical wires and chemical torture to a power drill - which terrorist Fayed (Adoni Maropis) rammed repeatedly into the back of kidnapped CTU computer whiz Morris O'Brian (Carlo Rota).

Ouch.

"It was an incredibly intense couple of shooting days," Rota told The Post about last night's torture scene.

"Torture sequences on '24' are like good-looking women in L.A. - every time you turn around, there's another one.

"It's difficult to make it stand out, so . . . we augmented it with baseball bats and a bathtub full of water."

In last week's episode, Morris was kidnapped by Fayed, who needed a computer genius to re-arm the four remaining nuclear bombs in his possession (he already detonated one in an L.A. suburb, killing 12,000).

It was Morris' bad luck that he was the only one qualified for the job - and boy, did he pay the price last night.

"When Fayed put the drill in he didn't hit reverse when he took it out," Rota said.

But, unlike Graem Bauer - who "held his mud" while being tortured by kid brother Jack before being offed by dear old dad - Morris couldn't withstand the horrific abuse.

"Morris basically spilled the beans, hoping against hope that he could buy time," Rota said.

"Unfortunately Morris gave up the secret and Fayed escaped with the secret.

"Now Morris goes into episode 9 knowing he is perhaps personally responsible for future nuclear explosions - and the death of hundreds of thousands of people."

He also has to face an angry Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) who, as we know, never gives in to torture. Jack saved Morris' life at the last minute, but Fayed had already escaped.

That's not a good thing.

"Kiefer is such a great actor that it's hard not to feel a sense of contrition when [Jack] is around," Rota said. "It's like, 'I'll do the best I can, but I screwed up. I'm terribly sorry.'"

Group: TV Torture Influencing Real Life
By David Bauder - AP Television Writer
February 11, 2007

NEW YORK — Demanding information, Jack Bauer faces a terrified man tied to a chair in front of him. Through a window over Bauer's shoulder, the man sees his two children bound and gagged.

Tell me where the bomb is, Bauer orders, or we'll kill your family. Silence. The prisoner watches as a thug kicks down the chair his son is tied to and fires a gun at point-blank range. He screams but still doesn't relent - until the gun is pointed at his second son. Having gotten what he needed, Bauer whispers that the execution was staged.

The scene from Fox's "24" is haunting, but hardly unusual. The advocacy group Human Rights First says there's been a startling increase in the number of torture scenes depicted on prime-time television in the post-2001 world.

Even more chilling, there are indications that real-life American interrogators in Iraq are taking cues from what they see on television, said Jill Savitt, the group's director of public programs.

Human Rights First recently brought a West Point commander and retired military interrogators to Hollywood for meetings with producers of "24" and ABC's "Lost" to talk about their concerns about life imitating art.

One man in the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former U.S. Army specialist who questioned prisoners in Baghdad's infamous Abu Ghraib prison and several other facilities around Iraq. He said he saw instances of mock executions like that in "24." Once, some fellow interrogators asked an Iraqi translator to pretend he was being tortured to strike fear in a prisoner, after they had just watched a similar scene on a DVD.

Television is hardly the only factor at play; Lagouranis said many American interrogators are young, receive little training and are pressured by commanders to extract information from prisoners as quickly as they can.

But it's enough of a concern that one professor at a military academy told Savitt that Jack Bauer represented one of his biggest training challenges.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Stu Herrington, who learned interrogation techniques in Vietnam and is an expert asked by the Army to consult on conditions at Guantanimo Bay, said that if Bauer worked for him, he'd be headed for a court-martial.

"I am distressed by the fact that the good guys are depicted as successfully employing what I consider are illegal, immoral and stupid tactics, and they're succeeding," Herrington said. "When the good guys are doing something evil and win, that bothers me."

Prior to 2001, the few torture scenes on prime-time TV usually had the shows' villains as the instigators, Savitt said. In both 1996 and 1997, there were no prime-time TV scenes containing torture, according to the Parents Television Council, which keeps a programming database. In 2003, there were 228 such scenes, the PTC said. The count was over 100 in both 2004 and 2005.

They found examples on "Alias," "The Wire," "Law & Order," "The Shield" - even "Star Trek: Voyager."

In one "Lost" scene, Sayid Jarrah was depicted holding a knife to the face of one adversary, suggesting that "perhaps losing an eye will loosen your tongue."

Howard Gordon, an executive producer of "24," suggested that a helpless feeling in the nation because of terrorism and the Iraq war may be what creators are reflecting in their shows. There's been a surge in general in the level of violence tolerated in prime time.

"Perhaps at some level it's an expression of our anger and our helplessness," he said.

On "24," which a week ago depicted Bauer torturing his own brother by sticking a bag over his head and injecting him with a fictional drug that causes intense pain, producers say they try not to glamorize such scenes. Gordon said they try to show the acts take a toll on Bauer, too.

But Herrington said he's concerned that much of what's on TV is misleading.

Television interrogation frequently works to a ticking clock: someone needs to find out the location of a bomb from a prisoner within the hour or it will explode. That's so rare in real life that it's essentially mythology, he said.

Herrington called prisoners his "guests." When taken into custody, the "guest" would get medical treatment, a shower, a good meal. Herrington would tell him he'd be treated with respect. If it's a military officer, Herrington would salute. It built a relationship far more likely to yield solid information, as opposed to lies told simply to stop torture.

One German officer in World War II was so meticulous that he found out the birthdays of his prisoners, and wished them happy ones, as happy as they could get in prison. The officer was brought to the United States after the war and honored by a veterans group, even as many acknowledged they had spilled their guts to him.

"It seems to me dramatically much more powerful to actually use psychological approaches when you are interrogating," Lagouranis said. "It's really a test of wills. He has information and he doesn't want to give it to you. To me that's much more interesting than an electricity sensor."

Not necessarily to a television producer, though.

Television has a limited time and a need to keep viewers from changing the channel. As much as he learned from the interrogators and respects their point of view, "24's" Gordon said their desires and his are going to naturally be at odds sometimes.

"We're not a documentary or a manual on interrogation," he said. "We're not a primer on the war on terror. We're a television show."

Savitt said she understands. The goal is to educate people who are writing interrogation scenes without ever speaking to a real interrogator. She's seeking Hollywood's help in spreading that message, perhaps inviting Kiefer Sutherland to West Point to drive home the point that Jack Bauer is fiction.

Human Rights First's ultimate desire is to drive home the idea that torture by Americans should never be tolerated.

"We would never try to censor anybody," Savitt said. "We would never tell Hollywood what to do, but we are trying to tell them what legal interrogation looks like. If it makes them pause, that's a bonus."

There's a new Lowe
By Bruce R. Miller - Sious City Journal Staff Writer
February 9, 2007

CHATSWORTH, Calif. -- Directing changed Chad Lowe's outlook on acting.

"I understand how it works so, now, as an actor, I give the director four or five different readings and he can choose whatever one he wants," he says. "I try to pull my ego back and allow them to mold the character however best."

Considering he doesn't know if his "24" character is good or bad, that's a wise move.

Just added to the Emmy-winning series' cast, Lowe plays a deputy chief of staff, "a savvy politico inside the Beltway. He's using his access to help implement a plan that he feels will help save the world."

And he's aligned with? "I'm not sure," Lowe says with a shrug. "That's the challenge for an actor. Usually, I do as much backstory work as I can. That informs decisions and choices I make as an actor. But with this you only get so much information."

The result: Lowe has to respond "in the moment," making choices that a character might make given the circumstances.

"It's actually a great exercise for an actor," says Lowe, an Emmy winner for "Life Goes On." "It makes you kind of commit to everything you do and say. You just have to accept it as the truth no matter what it is you're saying. It's almost like improvisation. It's very invigorating...there are very few pauses."

Lowe actually took two years off to direct. He wasn't planning to leave acting. "It was just a natural progression."

When Lowe's brother Rob heard he was joining "24," "it was the one job he was actually jealous of me having."

Still, he wasn't quite sure what it was he was going to play. "I just was told they were adding a character and they were interested in me reading with them."

Since "I have a great resume of jobs I didn't get," Lowe decided to give it a shot. He compares "24" to a Woody Allen film. "The actors show up on a set and he hands you a scene. You play it without it being linked all together. There are so many talented people behind the scenes that you don't see. An editor can make a performance...and you've got to trust him."

Because Lowe is in the drama's White House scenes, he spend much of his time with co-star Peter MacNicol. MacNicol, he says, is one of the finest actors in the business. "Working with a good actor is like playing tennis with a player who's better than you. Somehow it elevates your game."

"24" star Kiefer Sutherland, meanwhile, is like the ultimate host, making newcomers feel at home.

While the two played hockey together years ago, "we talked hockey, we didn't talk acting. Now, he's like the father of a family. He welcomes everybody in."

Cobra squadron featured on ‘24’
Season premiere dedicated to 2 fallen Marines
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff Writer
Marine Corps Times
January 20, 2007

Helicopters crisscross the skies over Los Angeles with such regularity that the sight is a staple of city living. But a pair of Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters ready to decimate a terrorist group? Well, only in a movie. Or the season opener of “24.”

The Fox network show’s Season 6 sees the return of Jack Bauer, a counter-terrorist guru who single-handedly takes down evildoers as easily as he did last season’s slimy, weak U.S. president. Haggard and tortured from two years in a Chinese prison, Bauer steps off a Navy C-130 aircraft only to be traded by the U.S. government with a known terrorist in a deal to end a string of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

But little is what it seems. In a short time, Bauer, portrayed by actor Kiefer Sutherland, escapes assured death (yet again) after the terrorist, Abu Fayed, admits that he, not Hamri al-Assad, a bad guy who’s renouncing terrorism, is the bombing cell’s leader. The story lines twist and turn as Bauer and the Counter Terrorist Unit realize that al-Assad is good and Fayed is bad.

Bauer then has to rescue al-Assad when two Super Cobras, under presidential orders, scream over a neighborhood to fire Hellfire missiles into a house full of what is believed to be a nest of terrorist bombers.

A crew spent Sept. 6 filming Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 775 perform live-fire and aerial training at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

“The shoot coincided with some training that the squadron was actually doing,” said Gunnery Sgt. Chago Zapata, a Hollywood liaison. “It was a lot of fun.”

Flying the helicopters were Lt. Col. James Fox and Majs. Dave Gual, El LeBlanc and Ron Cannizzo, though none had a cameo.

“We’re famous, but not famous,” said Fox, the squadron’s operations officer.

But a tiny cockpit camera showed the back of LeBlanc’s helmeted head in scenes as the helicopters zipped over Los Angeles, a screenshot that’s caused relentless teasing from his squadron mates.

“It was fun. We always enjoy doing that sort of stuff,” Fox said.

While he admitted that he hadn’t been a huge fan of the show, “I think we all are now.”

Fox and Gual wanted to honor lost friends, Majs. Gerald Bloomfield and Michael Martino, the HMLA-369 flight crew known as Gunshot 66 killed in combat operations in Iraq on Nov. 2, 2005, so they asked producer Michael Click about dedicating the premiere to them.

“We said, ‘Look, we had some of our friends shot down in Iraq,’ ” Fox said. “He said, ‘Sure, that was easy to do.’”

“It was awfully nice of those guys,” he added.