24 star Kiefer Sutherland talks revisiting the series and comparisons with new show Rabbit Hole

24’s Kiefer Sutherland is back on TV in another taut, fast-paced thriller, but this time around he’s not the good guy foiling terrorists – instead he’s a corporate spy who finds himself framed for murder.

In the eight part series Rabbit Hole, 56-year-old Sutherland plays John Weir, a man who plans elaborate espionage plots to help businesses get the upper hand in negotiations. However, he finds himself embroiled in a deadly conspiracy that leads to friends dying and John on the run, determined to clear his name.

Sutherland was first drawn to the new TV project when he spoke to series creators John Requa and Glenn Ficara, before a script had even been written.

“They started referencing seventies thrillers like Three Days Of The Condor, The Parallax View, All The President’s Men and Marathon Man,” Sutherland says in an exclusive interview with Digital Spy.

“All of these were movies that I grew up watching, and they were the kinds of movies that I thought if I was lucky enough to work as an actor in film one day, these are the kind of movies that I wanted to make.”

Requa and Ficara presented Sutherland with a script just six weeks after their initial meeting – “I was kind of floored by that” – and he signed up as soon as he read it.

“The thing that stood out the most to me, which is just because I wasn’t expecting it in the context of a thriller, was that there was a real sense of humour, that they had managed to incorporate a wonderful kind of sarcastic sense of humour with my character,” he explains.

The humour kicks off early on when Sutherland’s character, John Weir, reluctantly kidnaps a woman named Hailey (Meta Golding) who is accidentally caught up in the proceedings. “Patty Hearst had to be easier than this,” he mutters as Hailey turns out to be a particularly feisty hostage, but their relationship develops into a less fractious one as the series goes on.

“There’s a really kind of wonderful, reluctant love story between mine and Meta Golding’s character,” Sutherland says. “So I felt that the piece was incredibly layered and complex for what is normally a very straight ahead genre piece, like a thriller.”

After serious roles in 24, Designated Survivor and movies like Flatliners and Melancholia, it’s great to see Sutherland having fun with both the potential romance and the series’ sarcastic humour.

“I’ll be absolutely honest with you, no one was knocking down my door to do a comedy,” he says. “So it was really nice to have been given the opportunity, and then to be able to do it with writing like that was just a real privilege.”

While he’s as good at the fun moments as the dramatic ones in Rabbit Hole – there is a running joke that at every safe house John owns, he has a hammer hidden in the fridge which he uses to smash a hole in the wall to reveal his stash of money and computer gadgets – the comic touches don’t mean that Sutherland will be tackling a sitcom any time soon.

“I don’t think my interests lie in broad comedy,” he says. “As much as I might like watching them, it’s not my forte – but this was perfect for me.”

“You know it’s hard to get through the day without finding a lot of things funny. And no matter how serious they might be, I think we have a natural defence mechanism inside of us that we use humour to kind of deflect a lot of things. That’s a very normal part of life. And so to have it as part of this content in the context of this genre, I think it was really important.”

As well as comedy, romance, and a conspiracy plot at its centre, Rabbit Hole does have action sequences, but Kiefer’s character John is nothing like the action man he is famous for, 24’s Jack Bauer.

“It’s an interesting challenge on a technical level,” he says about being more likely to be punched than swinging the first punch in the new series. “Jack Bauer would initiate a lot of the physical contact that he would have. John Weir does not – in many cases in the fight sequences that I would do for this show, I wouldn’t ever see the first punch coming.”

“So that means as an actor, you’re in much greater danger of actually getting hit. Because you’re taking it from a blind side. I think for the first couple of fights that I lost, I maybe took it a little personally. And I had to let that go. I phoned up a couple of stunt guys that I did 24 with and I told them I just finally realised how hard it was to take the first punch – and I thanked them for their work!”

While the twisty plot and sharp script and performances could definitely lead to more seasons of Rabbit Hole – “definitely, yes,” Sutherland says when asked if he would do a second season – he’s not averse to returning to the role of Jack Bauer that he last played back in 2014.

“I’ve learned not to say no,” he says when asked if he’d play Jack again. “There’s a lot of things that would have to happen before we would actually be shooting something, but I love the character.”

He reveals there is also the chance that 24 could come back with him behind the scenes, and with a different character in the lead. “I’ve always said that I thought that the show was something that could and should continue on, certainly past me. You know, if someone were to come up with a great idea, and it made sense, then we would all go do it. I would not be the person standing in the way.”

“Having said that, there are fantastic and kind of exciting other opportunities, Rabbit Hole being one of them. I had such a great time making this show – I’m hoping that people enjoy it and so we get to make more.”

Rabbit Hole is available to watch now on Paramount+ in the US and in the UK.

24​ is available to download and keep via Prime Video and is also streaming on Disney+.