Playboy Interview: Kiefer Sutherland

No one has worse days than Jack Bauer. For the lead character of 24—the hit Fox series told in real time, with each episode presenting 60 minutes from Bauer's day for 24 shows—every hour is a bad hour, full of more deaths, disasters and family problems than the Sopranos face in a year. Starring Kiefer Sutherland as a key member of the U.S. Counter Terrorist Unit, the show in its first season dealt with a plot to assassinate a presidential candidate, the kidnapping of Bauer's daughter and the murder of his wife. The second season included a nuclear bomb going off in the Mojave Desert. And those were among Bauer's less eventful hours. This season he tries to foil the release of a deadly virus on U.S. soil.

For Sutherland, 24 is the proverbial second chance. A leading man in the 1980s—an unofficial member of the Brat Pack, which included Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez and Sean Penn—he found heroic roles tougher to come by in the 1990s. His popularity took a major hit when girlfriend Julia Roberts dumped him just days before their highly publicized wedding, creating a media feeding frenzy not unlike that surrounding Ben and J. Lo. Sutherland's career seemed to peak in his 20s, and from there he was relegated to quirky in die flicks and standard-issue psychopath roles in films such as A Time to Kill. Now, with 24, he's a hero again, an actual TV star in an era when most shows bank on ensemble casts. The success of 24 hasn't hurt his movie career, either; Taking Lives, in which he stars with Angelina Jolie, comes out this month.

Born Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland (his father, actor Donald Sutherland, bestowed those navies on him and another seven on Kiefer's twin sister, Rachel) in London on December 21, 1966, he grew up in Toronto. Kiefer's mother, Shirley Douglas, is an actress and a political activist. His parents separated when he and his sister were four.

Sutherland was a spirited and defiant kid who decided to quit school before his 16th birthday. He lived like a fugitive, sleeping in the park or at different friends' homes until his father agreed to help him out on the promise that he would reenroll in school. He did, but Sutherland also auditioned for film parts and landed the lead in an acclaimed Canadian film, The Bay Boy. School suddenly became a dead issue.

Sutherland left Canada to do commercials in New York City. At the age of 18 he drove to Los Angeles, where he shared a house with four other young actors, including Robert Downey Jr. and Sarah Jessica Parker. He quickly made a name for himself in two 1986 films, At Close Range, with Sean Penn and Christopher Walken, and Stand By Me, as a small-town bully. Other notable films followed: The Lost Boys, Young Guns, Flatliners, A Few Good Men, The Cowboy Way and Dark City.

After learning to ride and to rope, Sutherland decided to take a break from acting to compete in rodeos; he won his first competition in Phoenix. He lived on a Montana ranch for six years and then owned a 500-head cattle ranch in central California for a while before returning to LA.

When he was 20 he married Camelia Kath. They have a daughter, Sarah, but the marriage didn't last. In 1991 Sutherland was engaged to Roberts, whom he'd met while filming Flatliners. Sutherland married again in 1996 and is currently separated.

Playboy sent Contributing Editor Lawrence Grobel to talk with Sutherland during the filming of 24 to see if his real days are as intense as his fictional ones.

[Q] Playboy: You're partway through the third season of 24. Any burnout?

[A] Sutherland: No, and I like that Jack is actually driving it this time. It's a significant shift in the nature of our show.

[Q] Playboy: Do you mean that your character is less of a victim?

[A] Sutherland: One of the main differences this year is that, before, all the secrets and moles were things for Jack to figure out; Jack is the secret this time. The show deals with a virus that is allegedly carried into the U.S. through Mexico in a bag of cocaine. Jack's the only one who knows what's going on. No one else does, not even the president. This operation is something that he elected to do. In the eighth or ninth episode he finally tells the president what's happening.

[Q] Playboy: He tells him about the virus?

[A] Sutherland: Yes, and how he plans to obtain it. Everything up to that pointwho really has it and what Jack's been doing—has been a lie.

[Q] Playboy: And what happens?

[A] Sutherland: Not a lot I can tell you, except that there are some serious surprises. We have only a general idea of where it's going for six episodes at a time. The last six, nobody yet knows.

[Q] Playboy: Is it a struggle to keep the show from going too far over the top?

[A] Sutherland: We're always flirting with that. It's like Dynasty on crack.

[Q] Playboy: Do you see Jack Bauer as a kind of superhero?

[A] Sutherland: No, the opposite. I like the fact that this is a guy who is obviously talented at what he does, yet he also struggled with a marriage that was not working. He's in charge of the security of a nation but has a hard time handling a 16-year-old daughter. I like that a lot.

[Q] Playboy: Were you against ending the first season on such a grim note, with the murder of your wife?

[A] Sutherland: Yes, vehemently. But I was wrong. It taught me that our show is not a democracy. There is a pecking order, and I'm third or fourth in line.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that you wanted Jack to die at the end of the second season?

[A] Sutherland: No, I'd like to do the show as long as possible. Do I think it's important to the show that Jack eventually dies and does so when you least expect it? Yeah. It will be very obvious when people start going, "Oh, please. How many bad days can one guy have?" The real star of the show is the time format. The only way the show can continue for a real long time, like Law & Order, is by changing the cast.

[Q] Playboy: Prior to 24, your movie career seemed based on playing psychos, creeps and outcasts.

Sutherland: It's a living.

[Q] Playboy: You've gone from that to a heroic leading man.

[A] Sutherland: It's one of the few opportunities I've had to do something like that. I don't look like your typical heroic leading man per se. It's not like I couldn't have done it five or 10 years ago; it just wasn't there.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a piece of the show so you'll get residuals forever?

[A] Sutherland: Not like Ray Romano has with his, but I'm doing fine.

[Q] Playboy: You're a second-generation actor. Is it true you didn't really become aware of your father as an actor until you were 18?

[A] Sutherland: I was staying with a friend of our family's who had most of my father's films on videotape. I watched Kelly's Heroes, MASH, Don't Look Now, The Eagle Has Landed, Fellini's Casanova and Start the Revolution Without Me. I'd seen Eye of the Needle, Ordinary People and The Dirty Dozen. I remember feeling really embarrassed as a son not to have known how good he was. I phoned him and told him that. Iwas sorry that I didn't know him better.

[Q] Playboy: What type of advice did your father give you about acting?

[A] Sutherland: Don't get caught lying.

[Q] Playboy: How do you know when you're lying during a performance?

[Q] Sutherland: You can feel it. If you're trying to squeeze too much out of something, you'll know when you're bullshitting. Or if you're being lazy, you'll know that as well.

[Q] Playboy: Has he ever given you any other advice?

[A] Sutherland: He gave me some horrible advice about getting married. It's such a sweet, funny story. I got married when I was very young, 20 years old. I loved that person, but I was nervous about it. We were in Quebec, where my dad has this fantastic farm, and we were taking a walk through the fields. I asked him what he thought. He said, "It will be great. Just approach marriage as if you were a butler. And then you can take pleasure in putting toothpaste on her toothbrush and in cooking for her. Just really enjoy that." I looked at him crosseyed and went, "What the fuck are you talking about?" Anyway, I got married, and we had a beautiful daughter, but we didn't stay married for longer than 18 months. About four years later I was working with someone who had worked for my father for years, and I told him this story. He said, "Yeah, your dad told me about that question and his response. I said, 'Why on earth would you tell him that?' And he said, 'I don't know. I didn't know what to say!'" I loved my father for that. You do your best, and sometimes you just have to wing it. To say the obvious—"Oh, sweetheart, I think you're making the worst decision of your life"—is very hard when you think someone's excited about something. But that story makes me laugh.

[Q] Playboy: Following that marriage was the public fiasco in 1991 when your engagement to Julia Roberts ended a few days before the wedding. When you read about Billy Bob and Angelina, or Ben and J. Lo, do you get a sense of "been there, done that"?

[A] Sutherland: I know what it's like to be in love with someone and have that trivialized. I also know that Julia and I unwittingly asked for it. You can't do all these interviews about how wonderful and fantastic you both are and dien when it falls apart six days before your wedding not expect people to have a shot at you. I could see the wave building behind our heads when we broke up. I knew we'd have to hold our breath, because it was going to hurt. And it felt like that. But, like when you get hit by a rather large wave, if you relax, it will spin you around and spit you back out. If you fight it, you'll drown. I feel very bad for any couple trying to deal with how complicated that can be.

[Q] Playboy: When you split up, were you the one who was in shock?

[A] Sutherland: I was a little more surprised than she was. She made the right decision. I spent two years with her because I loved her; she mattered more to me than anything at that time. We met when we were doing Flatliners; then Pretty Woman came out. It was just this amazing ascent for her. And she very cleverly said, "I don't think this marriage is the right thing." It was brave of her, knowing the expectations people had for that wedding.

[Q] Playboy: How dramatic was this breakup? Was there screaming, crying, broken pottery...?

[A] Sutherland: No, it was over really quick.

[Q] Playboy: Did you resent it?

[A] Sutherland: I don't know about "resent." We were both kind of hurt. I was sad. I'm not the easiest person to be with, and it made me look at myself that way, which no one ever really wants to do.

[Q] Playboy: She doesn't seem like the easiest person to be with, if you look at her life since then.

[A] Sutherland: During the time we had together, I'd have to say she was. She was one of the funniest people I've ever known—but I don't know her now. We don't talk. Our lives have gone different ways. But then, I thought she was the bee's knees.

[Q] Playboy: Do you follow her work?

[A] Sutherland: I thought she was fantastic in Erin Brockovich.

[Q] Playboy: You married Kelly Winn in 1996. Why marry instead of just living together?

[A] Sutherland: Kelly was who I wanted to be with. I wanted a nice wedding. I bought into that.

[Q] Playboy: What's the worst thing you ever did to someone you loved?

[A] Sutherland: Lied. Lied to my mother. In my second marriage, to my wife. She was my best friend, and that hurt her.

[Q] Playboy: Did that lie involve your being with another woman?

[A] Sutherland: Yes.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't that a kind of inevitable lie that most of us would tell because sometimes the truth can be more painful?

[A] Sutherland: I shouldn't have done it. The lie was that I said I was going to behave a certain way and I didn't. The lie was way at the beginning.

[Q] Playboy: You married young both times.

[A] Sutherland: I married when I was 20, and it lasted for a year and a half. I got married again when I was 27, and Kelly and I separated two and a half years ago. Then I had a girlfriend for a year but not another marriage. I've been married only twice. Only. How stupid is that?

[Q] Playboy: Are you embarrassed about that?

[A] Sutherland: Yes.

[Q] Playboy: What have you learned?

[Q] Sutherland: You have to be a little smarter going into it. I can understand making a poor choice about what you want to do with your entire life at the age of 20, but the second time, I screwed that up. We're still really good friends. I raised Kelly's two sons with her.

[Q] Playboy: What's your take on marriage now?

[A] Sutherland: Marriage is not something I want to do again. I took a couple of swings at it and struck out. I'm done.

[Q] Playboy: Is that why you took cooking lessons?

[A] Sutherland: Kelly got me those when I started living on my own. She said, "Trust me, sweetheart, you'd better start to learn how to cook." I went.

[Q] Playboy: So now you know how to prepare a meal?

[A] Sutherland: I did drugs when I was 18, before Sarah was born. I liked the ceremony, the ritual of preparing cocaine as much as doing it. I did it for a year, loved it and then stopped. I feel the same way about cooking. It's an amazing time to focus on something else. You work out a lot of stuff for your day. I run dialogue in my head. It's a nice, quiet time.

[Q] Playboy: What about dope?

[A] Sutherland: Not anymore. I could never really handle pot. This is a really embarrassing story. My main pot experience was in New York. I had a girlfriend, and she suggested that pot was good for sex. So I went running to Central Park and picked up a dime bag, came back, rolled a joint. We smoked it while watching TV. Before you knew it we were kissing and starting to make love. I got really stoned, and my mind started drifting off somewhere else—thinking about what I had to do the next day, when I had to be at work, wondering what my parents were doing, where my sister was. I thought about everything except sex. At one point I remembered to focus. I was moving very quickly, and I thought, Oh my god, I'm going to kill this person; I'd better come. And I did. I remember specifically that before we started kissing there was a very funny car salesman on the television, riding an elephant. When we ended I felt great and thought my girlfriend was right—this was fantastic. I rolled over, and the car salesman was just waving good-bye. All of this had taken place in the span of a two-minute commercial. I said, "Okay, that's it. Pot's not for me."

[Q] Playboy: You actually had a cattle ranch in central California for a while.

[A] Sutherland: I did, but no longer. I had 500 cows; we would birth about 450 calves a year. I had to make a decision: Did I want to raise cattle or be an actor? After about two years of that it was clear what I wanted to do. I would wake up each morning and ask myself, What am I going to find out that I don't know how to do already? I can ride well, handle cattle, castrate a calf—but I had to learn.

[Q] Playboy: How did your cowboy phase start?

[A] Sutherland: I'd been roping since I was 20, since Young Guns. I had learned enough to be on the cusp of knowing that if I pushed it a little further I could really do it. When I was practicing I would rope everything. I'd sit in my hotel and rope the chair by the desk. I once roped a girl on The Cowboy Way; she was bringing coffee to an actor, with a clipboard in her other hand, and I roped both her feet from behind a telephone pole. Before I could let go the knot went down, and she went down. I really didn't mean that. I felt so horrible.

[Q] Playboy: How do you compare learning to rope with other things you've done in your life?

[A] Sutherland: I never got to finish school or go to college, and I missed that. I missed the socialization. All of a sudden I'm 25, driving around the country with two funny guys in a truck with three horses—those were my college years.

[Q] Playboy: So your ranch is gone. What has replaced it?

[A] Sutherland: I built a recording studio and put everything I had in it. I have a phenomenal vintage guitar collection, more than 50 of them. Some are in the $20,000 range. I buy them for their playability.

[Q] Playboy: How many bands have you discovered and produced for your company, Ironworks?

[A] Sutherland: I've never produced a band—I finance them. My partner, Jude Cole, is the producer. He's a musical genius. On our label now we have four bands. We're in the process of making their records.

[Q] Playboy: Would you like to become a music mogul?

[A] Sutherland: It was never my intention. For 30 years you had white music rip off and absolutely dominate black music. Now African American urban music dominates everything. I want to try to help maintain a balance. A lot of artists aren't getting fair radio play.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel there's discrimination in the music business?

[A] Sutherland: Always has been. For years the discrimination was completely against black artists. Only recently has that turned. It turned because black artists took it upon themselves to basically do what I'm doing. They said, "Fuck this. I'll sell my stuff in my neighborhood out of the back of my car." And then suddenly big companies start making them offers of $140 million because they were the only thing selling.

[Q] Playboy: You currently live in a decidedly edgy part of Los Angeles. Do you ever feel you're in danger?

[A] Sutherland: In my neighborhood the two major gangs are Salvadoran and Ukrainian. I walk my dog at night, and when I go around the block there are these guys who you know are serious gangbangers. I have a border collie—you walk around Brentwood with a dog and kids will run up to it. In my neighborhood kids just freak out and run to their mothers, because everybody's got a pit bull trained to attack. I love that shift. There's a line somewhere between Western and Vermont avenues where dogs become mean.

[Q] Playboy: You get around L.A. by subway. Do you get recognized?

[A] Sutherland: Yes, but I've found in any situation—a bar, restaurant, hospital—when someone recognizes you, you go, "How you doing?" The second you do that, they go, "I'm good. How are you?" And you say, "Good, man. Talk to you later."

[Q] Playboy: What about the guy who wants to take a swing at you, for bragging rights?

[A] Sutherland: That happens. It depends on my mood. Catch me on a day when I feel I don't need this, and whack!

[Q] Playboy: How did you wind up with a piece of broken bottle in your elbow?

[A] Sutherland: I lived in Montana for about six years. I got in a fight with two Army guys. They were kicking my ass, and there was broken glass on the ground where we were rolling around. A couple of years ago I broke my wrist and went to get an X-ray, and they saw something in my elbow. It was glass. The doctor wanted to open my elbow to remove it, but I said, "No, it's fine. Leave it there."

[Q] Playboy: Have you gotten into many fights?

[A] Sutherland: A few. A lot when I was young, in school. The first one was because someone made fun of my sister, and I told him not to or I'd hurt him. I was 12, and when I walked away the kid jumped on my back—scared the life out of me. I reached over and grabbed him, got him in a headlock and kneed him. It was out of absolute panic and fear. I fractured his cheekbone. I knew I was in a lot of trouble. I felt sick about what I had done to him. I also could already sense that no one was going to treat me the same in that school—an incredible power had shifted. All of that was going on in my head.

I haven't been in a fight for 10 years. Fifty percent of my fights I've lost. My last one, I was 26, in Toronto. I hurt this guy. He touched my wife in an inappropriate way at the bar without realizing she was my wife. I was playing pool with him, and she was sitting with my brother. I said to him, "You had a bit to drink, I understand, but to save my face could you please apologize to my wife?" "No." So I said, "Dude, please, I'm begging you. You shouldn't have touched her." He said, "She asked me to." I hit him, and he went down, but I didn't stop there. I ended up having to pay for a pool table that he bled all over. An ambulance had to come. I remember crying later that night, and I don't cry a lot. I cried over why I did that to this guy. I've got 180 stitches in my head from fights (continued on page 147) Sutherland (continued from page 58) where I've gotten my ass kicked, and I've never felt bad about that. But when I've won a fight, I've felt that the other person didn't deserve what he got.

[Q] Playboy: Do you remember the first time you got your ass kicked?

[A] Sutherland: I was with a guy named Greg from Toronto. We were 15 and in downtown Toronto trying to buy pot—unsuccessfully, which is why it wasn't until I was 18 and in New York that I actually experienced it. We were in a mall. I had my first drink, and we tried to buy pot from this 20-year-old guy. My friend looked at it and said that it wasn't pot, it was catnip. I said to the guy, "This isn't real. I want my money back." The guy said, "Fuck off, kid." So I pulled out this switchblade that a friend of mine had given to me, flicked it open and said, "Don't fuck with me. Give me my money back!" And it worked. The guy went to give me the money, and I had never had that happen before, so I went, "Who the fuck do you think you are?" and kept talking until I slurred some words and the guy realized I'd had something to drink. I never saw him punch me. Next thing I know I'm waking up. I was knocked out, and my friend was stabbed in the leg with my knife. The guy kicked the shit out of both of us, and I don't remember a single thing. We had to ride home on the subway. My eye was five times its normal size. My friend was holding his leg; his pants were soaked in blood. We went to my place, stole one of my sister's maxi pads and some hockey tape and taped him up. We had gotten our asses kicked, and the only thing I could say was, "I've got to learn to punch like that! That was good." I've always had a very different reaction to such situations.

[Q] Playboy: How many tattoos do you have, and what do they mean?

[A] Sutherland: Tattoos are my map. I won't need anyone to speak at my funeral; you'll just have to look at my arms. I have six. The latest one—Our Lady of Guadalupe—represents my neighborhood; it's very Hispanic. It plays a prominent role in 24. The first one was a Japanese symbol that means strength. Another is a sword. One is a Maori band of life I got in New Zealand. Then I have my family's Scottish crest. And an ivy thistle.

[Q] Playboy: You're still doing movies. What was it like working with Angelina Jolie in Taking Lives?

[A] Sutherland: She was focused, committed, on time and knew her shit. I asked Angelina, "What on earth were you doing in Cambodia?" She said, "I was making a picture there. I stayed in this village after the film was done. I would wake up, and down the road someone needed to put in an irrigation pipe for a hut. The net day someone was building a retaining wall. The next, someone needed work on a roof. After a while I felt like I was useful." It was so beautifully put. I sat back, my jaw dropped, and I thought, I want to go to Cambodia. I felt so useless. What a beautiful person she was to have figured that out, to have thought about it and then to have done something about it.

[Q] Playboy: Does she remind you of your mother, who is a noted activist?

[A] Sutherland: My mother has spent the past seven years going back and forth across Canada showing Canadians how 12 years of conservative politics is stripping them of their health care system. She was instrumental in getting the first liberal Ontario government in a very long time. She's very smart, very committed and a very tough lady. She was recently awarded the Order of Canada, the highest honor you can receive, and I wore a kilt to that. My mother's five-foot-two, and I'll be honest with you—she's the only person I'm scared of.

[Q] Playboy: Her father, Thomas Clement Douglas, was a significant figure in Canadian politics.

[A] Sutherland: He was leader of the New Democratic Party. First he was premier of Saskatchewan, where he implemented a socialized health care system that was later adopted on a federal level.

[Q] Playboy: Did you grow up with an appreciation of his socialist point of view?

[A] Sutherland: I have a belief that we're responsible for helping each other.

[Q] Playboy: Have you maintained your Canadian citizenship?

[A] Sutherland: Yes.

[Q] Playboy: What's the difference between Canada and the U.S.?

[A] Sutherland: The simple answer is we have 10 percent of your population on almost a quarter more landmass. It takes all of us to make that country run. It doesn't take all of you to make your country run, so people are getting left out. That changes your whole sensibility about everything.

[Q] Playboy: And yet with all that room to roam, you couldn't find a high school that was compatible with your ideas. Were you kicked out of boarding school before your 16th birthday?

[A] Sutherland: I was asked to leave. I didn't maintain my grades. I went from one school to another with the hope of landing in a place where I would do well, in an environment that would help me. So I ended up in this place where I just did not want to go.

[Q] Playboy: Was that St. Andrews College?

[A] Sutherland: No, I liked St. Andrews, but I screwed up there. This was right after, which was the end of my scholastic career. A place called Venta, just outside Ottawa. It was a real last resort. My mother said that if I didn't go to that school they might as well send me to the penitentiary and save the taxpayers some dollars.

[Q] Playboy: But you didn't stay.

[A] Sutherland: Well, I knew that I wasn't going to stay there. I had plan B—to leave that school and make it via Montreal back to Toronto and try to enroll in a public school. Which I did.

[Q] Playboy: Were you old enough to do that without parental consent?

[A] Sutherland: I had to hang out for a while. I left when I was 15, around October, and then I had to disappear for two months until I turned 16, when I was emancipated. At 16 I could do whatever I wanted.

[Q] Playboy: So what was going on after you left Venta and disappeared? What were your parents doing about you?

[A] Sutherland: They were horrified. I knew that if I didn't call my mom I'd be dead. Within a couple of days I also called my dad, who was really cool. Both were cool, given the circumstances. If this had happened to me as a parent, I'd have throttled my child. My dad offered to fly me down to Los Angeles for a talk.

[Q] Playboy: And what did you tell your dad when you went to L.A.?

[A] Sutherland: I said I wanted to try acting. I had done Equity theater before. I had worked with my brother, who was an actor at the time. I said to my dad, "I will go to a regular school and treat it as a job if you let me try to get an agent and do auditions".

[Q] Playboy: Both your parents act. Did they start when they were in their mid-teens as well?

[A] Sutherland: No, much older. They both had university degrees—my father in engineering. My mother went to England to study. My father didn't start acting until he was in his 30s. What my father did was give me $400 a month. I went back to Toronto to go to school and to act. I got an agent thanks to my mother—though I didn't realize that at the time—and he started sending me out on auditions. Within a year Dan Petrie, who had directed Fort Apache, the Bronx and Raisin in the Sun, came back to Canada to make his story. He was from the Maritime Provinces and had written a script called The Bay Boy, about a young boy during the Depression who witnesses a murder in a very small Maritime town. It was a touching, simple story and a huge opportunity for any young actor in Canada. I got the lead.

[Q] Playboy: Were you paid enough to show that you could make a living?

[A] Sutherland: I got $30,000 Canadian, around $22,000 U.S. I thought I could retire on it. It was a lot of money. It lasted a year. It helped me get my girlfriend into Circle in the Square Theatre School and helped us support an apartment in New York for another year after that.

[Q] Playboy: How was the movie received?

[A] Sutherland: It won 11 out of 14 Academy Awards in Canada. I was nominated for best actor.

[Q] Playboy: Not long after that, you drove out to L.A. with your girlfriend and wound up living in your car for three weeks. Couldn't you afford a room?

[A] Sutherland: I had done a Levi's print ad in New York, and it allowed me to get that car and a cashier's check for $2,700, which my girlfriend lost. So we had no money. We stayed in the car by the beach so we could use the outdoor showers. I got a job really fast. Steven Spielberg hired me to do an episode of Amazing Stories that he directed.

[Q] Playboy: How big a deal was working for Spielberg?

[A] Sutherland: Huge. All you had to do was go into your next meeting and say you were doing something with Spielberg and you got the job. It was more valuable before the episode came out. Then Sean Penn hired me for At Close Range. Then I did Stand By Me. I never stopped working.

[Q] Playboy: When did you finally move out of the car?

[A] Sutherland: Around 1986 I ended up living with Robert Downey Jr. and Sarah Jessica Parker. We lived above Charlie Chaplin's coach house—very prophetic for Bobby, who went on to play Chaplin. There were five of us, with Billy Zane and another actor, Tom O'Brien. Billy Zane was how I met everybody; we had done a TV movie called Brotherhood of Justice, which wasn't very good. When we got back to L.A. I started hanging out at their place and finally ended up living there. It was like Melrose Place. We were 18, 19 years old, all doing stuff people told us we would never be able to do. Bobby was gone most of that time because he was doing Saturday Night Live. And Sarah was working too. I was there for two and a half years.

[Q] Playboy: Were you paying rent?

[A] Sutherland: They never asked.

[Q] Playboy: So you lived free for two and a half years?

[A] Sutherland: They had an extra bedroom, and I was gone so often it was really just a place for me to keep my stuff. Sarah had a cat, which we had to look after when she was gone.

[Q] Playboy: When Downey started having his problems later on, were you still in touch?

[A] Sutherland: We've drifted apart, but I care a lot about him. He's one of the most talented people I've ever known. The worst thing you can say about a few of us, myself included, is that we didn't fully grow up. There's a wonderful childlike quality about Bobby that I hope he still has, because it's part of his magic as an artist. I don't use that word lightly. I don't call myself an artist. Bobby is.

[Q] Playboy: Who else among your peers do you consider an artist?

[A] Sutherland: Sean Penn. He's the reason I came down here initially. Penn and Tim Hutton did some work in Taps that just opened the floodgates for the rest of us. Before that you had people who were older, like John Travolta, doing Grease. Then all of a sudden Sean Penn does Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It's got some great funny moments but serious ones, too; Jennifer Jason Leigh gets date-raped in the dugout. Penn was brilliant in that. About the same time, he does Taps, which is 180 degrees on the other side, and he's absolutely brilliant in that. That moment when he's carrying Tim Hutton out of the building is astonishing. As a young actor I wanted to be as good as those guys, Sean specifically, because I related to him so much on a physical level. I was impressed not only with his effort but with his consistency. When we did At Close Range, normally we would chat beforehand, but I noticed that he was really quiet one day. I asked him later about it, and he said he used to always be excited on a set, hanging out and talking to everybody, but by the time he did his scene he had no energy. He learned that on specific days he should stay by himself so every ounce of energy he had would be put into the work. I thought that was smart and learned from it.

[Q] Playboy: What about working with Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men?

[A] Sutherland: Nicholson did that courtroom scene in five takes and all in one pass. Every take was different. They were all outstanding. As a snotty young actor I thought, Jack Nicholson plays Jack Nicholson. Which is such a stupid thing to say. I watched how hard Jack Nicholson works to be Jack Nicholson. I loved the fact that he walked onto the set, sat in the chair, turned around, the camera started rolling, and he was all about business. When he finished and walked out, everybody went, "Holy shit, did you see that?" and talked about it for days.

[Q] Playboy: You said that you aren't an artist. Is there any art in being part of a show like 24?

[A] Sutherland: After September 11, when we were watching firefighters, cops, construction workers, doctors, emergency workers in the rescue effort, it seemed like they all had a purpose. And then what do I do? I act for a living. I walked around asking myself, What have I done with my life? I felt useless for a week, staying at a hotel because I was still living in Canada. We had aired four episodes, and I thought it was so stupid. A guy came up to me and said, "Hey, man, I saw your show. It looks awesome." I thought, How on earth can he talk about that at a time like this? And then it hit me: Anything that could get us out of the way we were feeling was helpful, even if it was just for an hour. Just to give our brains a break. I'm fine with that.

We had gotten our asses kicked, and the only thing I could say was, "I've got to learn to punch like that." I've always had a very different reaction to such situations.