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Kiefer Sutherland actually hung up on William Friedkin when the Oscar winning legendary director phoned him to ask if he might be interested in playing Lt. Commander Phillip Queeg (the role immortalized by Humphrey Bogart) in his television adaptation of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. Being a huge fan of Friedkin he thought this must be a joke played on him by one of his friends. He soon learned it wasn’t and called back immediately. It turned out to be a high point for Sutherland in his career, and sadly as fate would have it, the final film in the late director’s storied career.
Sutherland joins me this week for the latest episode of my Deadline video series, The Actor’s Side where he talks about the experience of playing the iconic role, working with Friedkin, shooting one of his courtroom testimonies in a 28 minute single take with seven cameras, why the story still has relevance all these decades later, and how it compares to another famous courtroom movie he made, A Few Good Men with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. The actor also talks about his long running and Emmy winning turn as Jack Bauer in 24, and also coming to prominence in a series of 80’s classics like Stand By Me, The Lost Boys, Young Guns, and Flatliners. And he recounts reading about Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial effort, Juror #2 and why he impulsively decided to write him a letter asking about the possibility of playing any kind of role in it. He got the part.
To watch our conversation about all of this and to get the ‘actor’s side’ of it all and so much more from Kiefer Sutherland, just click on the link above.
Join me every Wednesday this Emmy season for another edition of The Actor’s Side.
