Source: www.thestar.com/news  October - 29, 2001   (Thanks to Danny for sending me this article)

Life's an adventure in real time for teen 
Gemini nomination icing on birthday cake for star of `24' 
Rob Salem
TELEVISION 


BUSY ACTOR: Elisha Cuthbert's character leads a dangerous life on espionage drama 24. 

The weeks leading up to her 19th birthday are an exciting and emotional time for any young woman. Imagine then what it must be like for Elisha Cuthbert, who turns 19 on Nov. 30, and starts that birthday countdown tonight with a Gemini nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie, for her work on the CTV teen gambling drama, Lucky Girl.

Win or lose, Cuthbert has only a few days to schmooze before reporting back for work in L.A., on the set of the most talked-about new show of the TV season, the real-time espionage drama 24, an American series that coincidentally co-stars fellow Canadians Kiefer Sutherland, Leslie Hope and Mia Kirshner.

On the following Tuesday, Nov. 6, the hotly anticipated 24 will make its belated debut on Fox and CH at 9 p.m., repeating at the same time Friday on Fox and Global.

The Gemini ceremonies are broadcast tonight on CBC at 8.

"It's an exciting time right now," she allows. "A lot of things are going on. I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited too. Eight years of work in Canada, I get this nomination ... and now moving down to the States. I mean, I'll always come back to work in Canada. But this is still a nice going-away gift."

Her 24 schedule has not allowed her a lot of time to visit. "I haven't been back in a while," she says. "I've been going through withdrawal. I won't get back to Montreal this trip, but I'll get to see my friends in Toronto. And my parents are coming in."

The series' revolutionary "real time" approach has Cuthbert and her castmates - Sutherland as her spy guy dad, Hope as her mom - enacting every waking moment of their characters' lives, an hour at a time, over one entire, action-packed day. Twenty-four hours, 24 episodes - shot in 15-day, two-episode blocks. 

They are just about to start work on the 10th episode of the 13 the network has so far ordered. They'll be told shortly after the debut airs whether they'll get to complete the remaining 11.

"We have high hopes," she says. "We're just kind of taking it one step at a time, really, just letting it go and see how far we can take it. Just having a good time with it. That's what it's all about."

The work presents some unique challenges for an actor. "You really get to know these people," Cuthbert explains. "I mean, you're with them every hour, every minute, every second of this one entire day. It's very intense. After each episode you're going, `Damn! Can that much happen in one hour?' There's a lot of stuff going on."

She is prohibited from being any more specific, though if promos for the show are any indication, her character is going to be placed in some sort of dire jeopardy, and will likely remain there for some time. She claims not to know much more herself. 

"The crew gets their scripts a little bit in advance, so they can prep for the next show. But as far as the actors go, I don't get my scripts until a couple of days before we actually start shooting them. So I don't know that far in advance, either. 

"But that's good acting-wise, because if we knew what was going to happen to our characters next, maybe we would deal with the situations differently. Since we don't, what you see is really what you get.

"There's lots in store, let's put it that way." 

There is, she admits, one small drawback to playing a single day in the life: Wardrobe. Here she is, a female teen on a major American network show, and while the Dawson's Creekers and their ilk get to parade around in an endless array of designer duds, Cuthbert is stuck wearing the exact same outfit. Every single show.

"I tell my friends it's like being in The Simpsons," she laughs. "You wear the same thing every day. Which is kind of gross, when you think about it. 

"We do try to be creative with that one outfit. As the show progresses, certain things do happen, and the wardrobe does get `altered' in certain ways. It's actually kinda nice, getting to sit down with the director, `So, what can we do to it today?' How can we mess up my hair this episode?' That's pretty cool." 

Source: Calgary Sun (www.canoe.ca) - Friday, November 2, 2001 

On a long day's journey
Calgary's Elisha Cuthbert joins Kiefer Sutherland in the gripping drama 24
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON, CALGARY SUN

The clock is ticking for Elisha Cuthbert. 

With the real-time thriller 24 debuting Tuesday on Fox, the Calgary-born actress is already feeling the life-altering glare of fame. 

"I'd like to think I can handle it, but that's something I'm going to have to deal with when it happens," says Cuthbert, 18, on the phone from Los Angeles after finishing breakfast. 

"A lot of this stuff is new to me." 

Like when she is interrupted by a call from her manager. He wants to tell her he's just seen a proof of the latest TV Guide, featuring Cuthbert and her fellow actors. 

"It's crazy," she says. "It's wild. It's hard to cope with all this stuff. Sometimes there's just too much going on. It's overwhelming." 

RAVE REVIEWS 

Much of the attention 24 is generating is largely due to its groundbreaking premise. 

Each episode comprises a single hour in the lives of the characters. The entire 24-episode season adds up to one very eventful day. 

Cuthbert plays Kiefer Sutherland's daughter, whose late-night fun in Tuesday's premiere threatens to turn into something much more ominous in coming episodes. 

To make matters much worse, Sutherland's character is the head of an anti-terrorist unit who learns he only has a few hours to halt a presidential candidate's assassination. 

Despite the rave reviews, not all the press 24 has received has been positive. 

The drama was one of those scrutinized after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, due to a scene in the original pilot in which a passenger airliner is blown out of the sky by an assassin. 

In the version to air, the scene remained, with a shot of the exploding jet excised. 

"There was a lot of gossip about it," Cuthbert admits. 

"I think they've made just a couple changes to keep it appropriate for viewers. They're doing the best to make sure it's entertaining and not hurtful in any way." 

Cuthbert had been living in Los Angeles for a few months when she was cast in the pilot this past spring. 

Born in Calgary and raised in Vancouver, Cuthbert began her career at the age of seven as a model. At 13, she began acting and eventually got a gig as a globe-trotting correspondent on Popular Mechanics For Kids. 

With it came fans who created various unofficial Web sites in her name. 

When she moved to L.A. nearly a year ago, Cuthbert admits: "It was a little rough because I was really new. But the longer you're here, the more people you meet. 

"It's easier now." 

Easier in part because she's found herself working alongside a largely Canadian cast that includes Sutherland, Mia Kershner and Leslie Hope, who plays Cuthbert's mom. 

"There are more Canadian actors here than in Montreal," Cuthbert laughs. 

"We're not supposed to brag about it, but since you're a Canadian paper, yeah, there's a real camaraderie," says Hope, who hails from Vancouver. "There's a common frame of reference. It's like a family unit. 

"I walk around feeling grateful and lucky, and I wonder if (Elisha) really knows how amazing it is to have everybody you're working with be nice and on time and professional and respectful. 

"We don't have any of those episodes, with so-and-so not coming out of their trailer." 

Sutherland, Hope reports, "rocks." 

"I'm always surprised when someone who was famous young isn't a complete (jerk) from getting so much smoke blown up their butts." 

Cuthbert was already cast when Sutherland signed on. 

"They told me we've got Kiefer attached and I thought, 'Oh my God, it's going to be fantastic.' 

"When we met initially, he made it very easy. He was very down-to-earth." 

Given its premise, critics have been hard-pressed to compare 24 to other shows. 

Cuthbert has no such problem. Because the show occurs during a 24-hour period, all the actors have to wear the same clothes for the entire season: "It definitely feels like we're The Simpsons." 

Source: www.eonline.com

Elisha Cuthbert: Her Day Has Come

She sure knows how to play the good girl. A role as a host on Popular Mechanics for Kids landed Elisha Cuthbert an invite to the White House and praise from Hillary Clinton. Then came another wholesome kid's show, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, a popular Canadian series that launched the careers of Jay Baruchel (Undeclared) Hayden Christensen (Star Wars) and Rachel Blanchard (Clueless the series).

So, it's about time the 18-year-old had some low-down, dirty fun. Enter bad girl Kimberly Bauer, Cuthbert's newest character and Kiefer Sutherland's onscreen daughter in the Fox drama 24. As Sutherland falls into G-man mode to thwart an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate, Kimberly sneaks out the window for a late-night booty call that ends up going horribly awry. And that's just the first hour in a series that makes a whole season out of one very busy day.

Which got us wondering...

Is she a bad girl in real life? "You know what, I'm not. I'm really different. I'm very focused and career oriented. And in high school, I really didn't have time to do bad things. But that's the great thing about playing Kimberly Bauer, because now I get to do all that stuff."

What's the worst thing she ever put her parents through? "I'm afraid to tell you...if they read this, they're going to be like, 'What?!' I think I went to clubs before I was supposed to. It was around my cousin's wedding, and they were all going to a club afterward, and they somehow got me in."

Was she ever worried that the show might be canceled because everyone's so sensitive after the September 11 attacks? "It wasn't talk about being canceled, but we had some meetings. We wanted to make sure we weren't putting in anything that would be wrong at this time. We got rid of a couple of things in the pilot. A plane exploding was removed, even though it was somewhat different [than the attacks]. It was done by this chick, a very Charlie's Angels type."

She and Kiefer both come from the same hometown--Montreal. Had she met him before the show started? "No, I didn't. I had met his younger brothers, because they live in Montreal. I was out with one of my friends in Montreal who knows them, and we happened to run into them. And now, I'm working with Kiefer, which is fabulous because he's such a wonderful guy and really, really good at what he does. He does such a fantastic job at it that it makes our jobs extremely easy."

Is it a coincidence that four out of five characters on the show are Canadian? "It's strange. The show is done by Americans, and Kiefer has been in the United States for a very long time. We joke about it all the time, but it's just a funny thing that happened, and now we kind of play off that."

Are Molson and Labatt served at the craft-services table? "No, but we talk about hockey a lot. It's an ongoing subject for all of us. I'm a huge fan. I have a lot of friends who are really close to getting into the NHL, and I'm so excited for them and can't wait."

Does that mean she'll get rinkside seats at hockey games? "I'd better. Our ongoing thing is, 'You have to take me to a movie premiere.' And I'm like, 'You better get me really good box seats.' "

And we hope she scores 'em.
--Lia Haberman