大象传媒

After iconic film roles in the likes of Stand By Me and The Lost Boys, Kiefer Sutherland spent a decade as counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer in TV drama 24. He has since turned to music, releasing his second album of country songs, Reckless and Me, this year. Here are some of the revelations from his Loose Ends interview with Nikki Bedi.

1. In the 1990s he took time out to become a rodeo rider

Music is not the first unexpected turn in Sutherland’s career: “I professionally rodeoed through the ‘90s," explains the actor who played a cowboy in 1980s brat pack classic Young Guns. “One of my favourite times was loading up my horse and my tack and going from one rodeo to the next. It was one of the quietest times of my life.”

2. He’s done time in jail but doesn’t think he’ll go back

As a youthful hell-raiser he was jailed for drink driving-related offences, although he says he’s “done better crimes than that”. The experience of incarceration straightened him out and is not one he would want to repeat: “It’s designed to make you not want to go back,” he says. “It’s not pleasant at all, so God willing I’ll never go back and I’ll be able to talk about it in the past tense.”

3. He’s been a performer all his life but being himself on stage was a massive challenge

A life on the screen didn’t prepare him to go on stage as Kiefer Sutherland the musician. “One of the most awkward moments I ever had as a performer was the first show I ever played, realising that I didn’t have a character that was separating me from the audience,” he explains. “Once I got comfortable enough to lean into that it became the most freeing experience as a performer that I’ve ever had.”

4. He doesn’t worry about any stigma around actors becoming singers

Lots of actors have released frankly awful music as vanity projects, but Sutherland has been delighted by the reaction of his fans to his new direction. “I was fully aware that people were coming to shows because they were a fan of 24 or something, hadn’t heard the music, but they gave us two hours or so to turn them on to it and for that I will be forever grateful,” he admits. “Stigma aside, it took me to this point in my life where I thought, ‘Oh my gosh: if someone’s gonna make fun of you, if you can’t take that then give it all up!’”

5. As a stage actor he has an unusual way of coping with interruptions

Sutherland's most recent stage role suffered from the curse of mobile phones in the theatre. “We were doing [Jason Miller play] That Championship Season on Broadway and you’d hear a phone go off,” he says. “I marked that person for the rest of the play and I would start doing that play just for them. An unfair reward…”

6. The son of a film star, he was a natural-born entertainer

Kiefer’s dad is legendary actor Donald Sutherland, who has regaled Kiefer with stories of the lengths he’d go to to make him laugh when he was a child: “When I was three years old I was running and I was trying to get through a doorway and I missed it, and I ran into the wall and my father laughed, so I did it again and again. My father said he had to finally stop laughing because he was worried I was going to hurt myself. But I love the fact that, clearly as a child, if I could make someone laugh I would certainly do damage to myself to do that.”

7. His daughter is a successful actress, but he doesn’t think he has taught her much

Sutherland’s daughter Sarah has continued the acting dynasty, and has a major role in HBO comedy Veep. He was in his early twenties when she was born and, as he tells it, he grew up as she did: “One night when she was 15 we were holding hands and I said, ‘I’m sorry we had to raise each other,’ and she smiled and looked back at me and said, ‘I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.’”

Loose Ends is on 大象传媒 Radio 4 on Saturdays at 6.15pm, Mondays at 11.30am and is available as a podcast on 大象传媒 Sounds