Were you working on it while you were finishing up ’24′ or was this something that came after?
Yeah, I was working on it a lot and all of a sudden I’m just thinking I’d like to take a vacation. I wanted to transition off ’24′ but I didn’t want to jump on another show, I wanted it to be the right thing, and it’s hard to know what that is. But for me, I’ve always performed so it was an easy choice for me to jump right into that.

How tough was that to do when you have to do the normal stuff you do for ’24,’ learning lines, getting it shot, was there enough time?
Oh, it was intense, I mean definitely the live show went on hold sometimes, so we did it when we could. But working on the show towards the end of ’24,’ it was a really emotional time.

Because you didn’t know whether that would be the last time around for the series at that point?
Well we kind of knew, we all suspected it throughout the year, but we weren’t told until really late in the game. And creatively, it’s sad. The hardest part for me was leaving all the people. It’s scary too because that was an amazing job and one of the hugest milestones in my life.

Have you heard anything about the ’24′ movie, is it in the works?
I keep telling people that if they hear anything about it to let me know, because I’ve heard nothing.

Are you hoping that Chloe is part of the movie, if there is one?
Of course. I would be really sad if I went to go see the ’24′ movie and Chloe wasn’t in there.

Yeah, I guess that’s an obvious answer to that.
Yeah it would be a bummer (laughs).

When ’24′ started, the role of Chloe was a pretty small one at the time, what were your expectations of the role going into it? Did you ever see it expanding into what it expanded into by the time the show was over?
Absolutely not. I think as an actor, you go out for everything and anything and at that time I hadn’t had, barely any, drama auditions, my thing was always comedy. I hung out with comedians, I auditioned for sitcoms, and so to even have the audition was unusual for me.

The best thing about it was that Joel Surnow, the creator, had seen me in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie and liked me in that. He has one of my favorite ways to cast his show and have a vision, that he has a strong enough idea, of “I like that quality about you and I’m going to write a part for you.” And I didn’t even think it would happen but I thought, “What an amazing experience. I’m not going to necessarily count on this happening knowing the format of the show.”

And then when I first started, I thought it was going to be four shows, then six shows, I thought it was going to be over after five or six shows. Once they started writing me being loyal towards Jack and helping him, it got really interesting at that point and really fun, and then the rest is history. It’s been my second home, and a really great experience and character, what an amazing show to be a part of.

What was it about the role of Chloe that led the writers to make her that big of an ally to Jack? And did they use any of your personality and insert it into Chloe?
Absolutely, I think it was a 50-50 collaboration. I would come in wondering what they were going to write for me and they were good at writing things that they knew I could pull off. And I became this person that could get away with this odd behavior, this odd aggressive behavior and I think it was just an organic… what’s the word… when you go from these heart-thumping sequence to get a little break sometimes.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have some very dramatic moments, the whole show was very intense. Our acting job would be to start at intense and work in those levels of intensity but I had a really good time in that world, kind of still being that girl at the office who’s sort of blunt and annoying but who also happens to be a computer genius who’s maybe stopping a nuclear bomb, so all these factors kind of fed into this behavior that was really fun to play.

Was there anything that you wanted Chloe to do that you didn’t get to do?
I think to me, the ending was kind of bittersweet. I’m certainly so grateful that we got the run that we got, but towards the end the thing that was bittersweet was that my character really started evolving and I’m glad that that didn’t happen to me sooner, because I think she would always remain that annoying Chloe person, or however you want to put it, but the fact that towards the end I got all that responsibility after everybody already very familiar with my character, which was really exciting. I would’ve liked to have seen that go on a little bit longer.

And her loyalty to Jack was kind of in question through a lot of the finale.
And that was exciting. And that was the only point where in all the time that I was in the show where I really had a talk with Howard Gordon, we sat down and just discussed making sure that transition was believable because I think the head of CTU gets a lot of exposition lines and that automatically, all these pieces have to go into a show like ’24′ in order to make sense and I wanted to make sure it made sense for the character to be doing that because that was such a weird position for her to be in and I wanted to make sure it had a chance to play out properly. Because some of that character stuff sometimes goes by the wayside because of the plot.

If the writers approached you and said we’d like to spin-off Chloe into her own show, you would accept?
I’m more interested in doing a different character, that’s the type of actor I am. I definitely have the factor that… a quality that I”m going to bring to all my characters and I think that there’s a whole world to be explored within that.

And for me that’s going to be comedy, and as far as anything Chloe-like, it would have to be, that’s obviously… it would have to be the right team and the right show, I wouldn’t do it to spin-off that character, it would have to be a really special circumstance with people that I knew and trusted with a really groundbreaking interesting idea, like a show like ’24′ which comes along once in a blue moon

Read the full interview at TV Squad which talks more about being a parent and her stage show “‘Mary Lynn Spreads Her Legs” which runs through August at the Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles.

Remember last year when 24 had a panel at Comic-Con? Those were the good ol’ days. Anyway, here’s video of the Comic-Con panel Q&A session for NBC’s new TV series The Event which is getting a lot of buzz. 24 fans should keep an eye out on this show which seems to have a very similar vibe (and the same time slot – Mondays at 9PM starting on September 20th).

24 veteran Evan Katz (writer seasons 2-8) is the showrunner of The Event and several familiar faces appear in the first episode including Željko Ivanek (who played Andre Drazen on 24) and Tony Todd (General Juma). Here’s the brief Q&A which has one or two references to the show (Jason Ritter is called the new Jack Bauer, etc).

Video Link: The Event Panel Comic-Con 2010

Kiefer Sutherland has won E! Online’s “Star You’ll Miss the Most” award by an absolute landslide, gathering nearly 40% of the vote.

STAR YOU’LL MISS THE MOST

Winner: Kiefer Sutherland (39.7%)
Terry O’Quinn (15.3%)
Jonathan Groff (14.8%)
America Ferrera (12.0%)
Simon Cowell (10.9%)
Zachary Quinto (7.2%)

Source: Tater Top Awards 2010 Winners

Before the new TV season starts I plan to write a post detailing where all the 24 cast and crew have wound up and which projects they are attached to. For now, word comes that Greg Itzin has joined HBO’s Big Love series in a major role:

With casting coups like this, Big Love is well on its way to making up for a lackluster season 4: Legendary (and twice Emmy-nominated) 24 villain Gregory Itzin has signed up for a major recurring gig on season 5 of HBO’s Big Love, sources confirm to me exclusively.

Itzin will play Senator Richard Dwyer, the Republican Majority Leader of the Utah State Senate — of which Bill (Bill Paxton) is now a member.

Production on Big Love‘s fifth season is scheduled to get underway this week.

Itzin will also be guest-starring on USA Network’s Covert Affairs.

Source: EW.com Ausiello

24 has received five Emmy nominations for its final season, bringing it’s total nominations to 68 across the entire series run. Unfortunately no nominations were given to Kiefer Sutherland or Annie Wersching (both gave incredible performances), nor was 24 nominated for best drama.

Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series
24 • 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM (Episode 22)
Gregory Itzin as President Charles Logan

Outstanding Stunt Coordination
24 • 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM (Episode 3)
Jeff David Cadiente, Stunt Coordinator

Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Original Dramatic Score)
24 • 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Episode 24/Series Finale)
Sean P. Callery, Music by

Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One
Hour)
24 • 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Episode 24/Series Finale)
William F. Gocke, C.A.S., Production Mixer
Michael Olman, C.A.S., Supervising Re-Recording Mixer
Kenneth Kobett, C.A.S., Supervising Re-Recording Mixer
Larold Rebhun, Music Mixer

Outstanding Sound Editing For A Series
24 • 4:00 AM – 5:00 AM (Episode 13)
William D. Dotson, Supervising Sound Editor
Catherine M. Speakman, Supervising ADR/DX Editor
Pembrooke Andrews, Sound Editor
Jeffrey Whitcher, Sound Editor
Shawn Kennelly, Sound Editor
Daryl Fontenault, Sound Editor
Melissa Kennelly, Sound Editor
Jeffrey Charboneau, Music Editor
Laura Macias, Foley Artist
Vincent Nicastro, Foley Artist

One of my favorite scenes in the 24 series has made Entertainment Weekly’s “20 of the Most Disturbing TV Scenes Ever” list at number 18 of 21.

JACK KEEPS HIS HEAD AND TAKES SOMEONE ELSE’S
Jack Bauer has always espoused an ends-justify-the-means philosophy but we really didn’t start to get it until that second season when he executed lowlife Marshall Green and decapitated his corpse to help establish cred. Heroic? Not so much. Just disturbing. —Abby West

Source: Entertainment Weekly – 20 of the Most Disturbing TV Scenes Ever

For the first time in years, Howard Gordon has some time on his hands. Last month, the 49-year-old writer sat down with his family in Los Angeles to watch the very last episode of 24, the television drama he helped mould into one of America’s most successful exports.

Gordon was the driving force behind 24, both as writer and executive producer, for eight years. With its cast of nihilist terrorist networks hell bent on destruction, the show became a global phenomenon.

Kiefer Sutherland’s rugged, all-American hero Jack Bauer helped the show surpass both Mission Impossible and The Avengers as the longest spy-themed TV show, picking up 18 Emmys along the way and beaming into the homes of millions of viewers around the world.

Now Gordon hopes to weave the same sort of magic with a subtler take on America’s so-called “war on terror” with a new TV series based on a popular Israeli drama about prisoners of war.

Gordon has bought the rights to Hahatufim [The Kidnapped], which began broadcasting in Israel earlier this year and tells the story of three soldiers battling to adjust to family life after years in captivity in Lebanon.

“Our version is about a US soldier who is presumed missing in the [2003] Iraq invasion,” the 49-year-old writer told The Independent. “Ten years later he is found in the rubble of a drone strike in Afghanistan. It’s a bit of a Rip Van Winkle story but there’s a female CIA agent who was herself a field agent in Pakistan and Iraq. She comes to believe that this POW has actually been brainwashed and is now the tip of the spear of another big attack on US soil.”

Gordon is currently working on the script with Alex Gansa, an old friend who studied with him at Princeton and began his writing career on The X-Files. The show has a working title of “Homeland” and has yet to have a full pilot commissioned. Fox (which made 24) has, however, provided Gordon with the finance to buy up the rights to Hahatufim.

It was under Gordon’s leadership that 24 became the ultimate adrenaline shot for the post 9/11 generation and an alternate reality for a country terrified by the spectre of international terrorism. The series ran to eight seasons, with the final episode airing in the UK earlier this month. There are rumours of a film in the offing, but otherwise Jack Bauer will not be appearing on our screens again.

Bauer burst on to US screens two months after the al-Qa’ida’s attacks and for eight years served as America’s ultimate fantasy response to global terrorism – an impeccably loyal hero who would stop at nothing to defend his country, even if “nothing” means copious amounts of torture.

Gordon’s new project will tackle similar themes as 24 but will, he hopes, be a more nuanced product. He is keen to keep the war-on-terror theme, but combine it with a less frantic pace into something that might sit comfortably between 24 and more novelistic dramas such as HBO’s The Wire.

“24 was full of testosterone,” he said. “We often called it a soap opera on crack. Homeland will be different. It is very dense and very slow moving. We have qualified it as being very British when we pitched it.”

But will there still be explosions, 24-esque bomb plots and double- dealing agents? “The Israeli version is really a soft family drama about these guys coming home. Ours is more a thriller. But it is a little bit slower going than 24. It doesn’t have the same tensions and the suspension. It’s very much a post-24 treatment of some of the complex issues surrounding the war on terror.”

It was exactly those issues which made 24 such a runaway success but also contributed to its eventual shelving. Critics of the show – particularly on the American left – accused it of being an apology for the sort of gung-ho foreign policy that was adopted by the Bush administration.

Gordon – a self-described “left-leaning centrist” – has voiced his frustration at the politicisation of his show, which was, after all, meant to be an entertaining rip-roarer for an insecure nation struggling to understand terrorism. But the criticism hasn’t put him off tackling the same subject matter.

“I’m still fascinated by the ongoing debates about at what point do we draw the line between our security and some of the values that we cherish as democracies,” he explains. “These are issues that will be with us for a really long time and I think it’ll create fodder for dramatic material.”

And, in the meantime, there is also his book, The Obelisk, which seems to be almost as prophetic in its timing as 24 was. “It’s an airport thriller set on a deep-sea oil rig,” he said. Does the rig blow up? “It might,” he adds, breaking into a wide smile.

Source: The Independent

Looks like another show to watch – Jon Cassar is one of the best directors out there, and David Fury is a very strong writer. Nice little 24 reunion on this show which sounds pretty interesting. Congrats Jon!

EXCLUSIVE: It will be an even larger 24 reunion on Fox’s upcoming prehistoric drama Terra Nova, which is executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Peter Chernin. Long-time 24 director-executive producer Jon Cassar has joined the 13-episode midseason series as an executive producer and regular series director. He joins fellow 24 executive producers Brandon Braga and David Fury who are executive producing Terra Nova. (Braga also serves as the series’ showrunner). Cassar, who won an Emmy for his directing work on Fox/20th TV/Imagine’s 24 and shared the show’s 2006 best drama series Emmy, will direct multiple episodes of Terra Nova following the pilot episode, which is being helmed by Alex Graves. “This is a huge coup for us,” said Dana Walden, chairman of 20th TV, which is co-producing Terra Nova with DreamWorks TV, Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and Chernin Entertainment. “Jon is one of the best directors we have ever worked with, and this project is a huge priority for our company.”

Terra Nova, one of the highlights at the Fox upfront presentation, stars Jason O’Mara as a father from 2149 who, along with his family, is transported back 85 million years to prehistoric Earth where they join Terra Nova, a colony of humans with a second chance to build a civilization. For those keeping score, Cassar will be the 11th executive producer on Terra Nova, joining Spielberg, Chernin, Braga, Fury, Kaplan, the pilot’s writers Craig Silverstein and Kelly Marcel, Katherine Pope, Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank.

In addition to Braga and Fury, Cassar also has an existing relationship with with another Terra Nova executive producer, Spielberg, as he was once attached to direct the DreamWorks feature Motorcade but the project was eventually sidelined because of budgetary issues. Paradigm-repped Cassar is currently directing and executive producing all 8 hours of History’s miniseries The Kennedys, working with another 24 alum, Joel Surnow. The cast of the mini includes Greg Kinnear, Katie Holmes, Barry Pepper and Tom Wilkinson.

Source: Deadline.com

Probably the best acceptance speech I’ve ever seen. Kiefer Sutherland pokes fun at the weird-looking trophy saying it will come in handy at the bar later and then tells all the 24 fans that “You guys fuckin’ rock” while flipping the bird. We love you too, Kiefer!

Kiefer Sutherland will be on Spike TV’s Guy Choice Awards 10PM tonight – he won the “Biggest Ass Kicker” award. No competition there, Jack Bauer rocks!

Carlos Bernard’s (24‘s Tony Almeida) new comedy series Scoundrels premieres on ABC tonight at 9PM.

It’s followed by Marisol Nichols (24‘s Nadia Yassir, Season 6) new drama series The Gates at 10PM and also on ABC.

Here’s a great Jack Bauer & Kim Bauer fan video made by virginieb20 showing the relationship between Jack and his daughter.

YouTube Link: 24 Music Video: I Will Be (Jack & Kim)

The 2010 Teen Choice Award nominees were announced and 24 is up for 4 awards.

24 was nominated for “Choice TV Show: Action” (with Burn Notice, Chuck, Human Target, and NCIS: Los Angeles). Kiefer Sutherland was nominated for “Choice TV Actor: Action” (alongside Jeffrey Donovan of Burn Notice, Zachary Levi of Chuck, LL Cool J of NCIS: Los Angeles, and Mark Valley of Human Target).

Both Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe O’Brian) and Katee Sackhoff (Dana Walsh) were nominated for “Choice TV Actress: Action” (alongside Gabrielle Anwar of Burn Notice, Daniela Ruah of NCIS: Los Angeles, and Yvonne Strahovski of Chuck).

Aint It Cool News is reporting a juicy rumor on how the next Die Hard film got it’s name of Die Hard 24/7 – apparently FOX execs floated an idea of using their two properties in a crossover flick that would have Jack Bauer and John McClane appear in the same film.

The source says that Kiefer Sutherland was more interested in keeping the 24 franchise separate.

Source: AICN

24UK Podcast was granted an extensive tour of the 24 sets (both CTU and the United Nations) with production designer Carlos Barbosa, and they just posted the video which is in four parts.

Cherry Jones has sent LA Times an email to set the record straight and explain her decision not to submit herself for an Emmy this year. Unlike speculation, it’s not because of any drama with the writers or her storylines. Here’s her full email:

Hey Tom,

Cherry Jones here writing from balmy Manhattan. I wanted to clear up the mystery surrounding my not submitting myself for Emmy consideration.

I love and adore everyone I worked with on “24″ and am actively missing them.

I relished playing poor old Allison Taylor’s descent into Logan Hell. Like all actors on “24″ who realize their characters are being sent to the Dark Side, I resisted at first and then, of course, realized what a seductive playground the Dark Side presents for a dramatic actor.

This job has offered me time with my elderly parents, given me new lifelong friends, a bank account, and the memory of last year’s Emmy night which was one hell of a delicious ride. So honestly it never occurred to me (or my two agents who know me well) to submit me this year. One of the lessons in life is to know when to leave well enough alone and be grateful.

I will however be watching the Emmy’s from New York this year and rooting for all my “24″ team and the other actors I’ve had the pleasure to get to know in Hollywood during my West Coast baptism.

I genuinely appreciate your interest and hope you will find the space to clear up the assumption which was being made….which, as my old movement teacher used to say, was “exactly wrong.”

Thanks so much, Tom.

Warmly,
Cherry

Sent from my iPad

Source: LATimes