Kiefer Sutherland Quotes & Sayings

I had never gone to college, I left school at a really early age, and all of a sudden I've got six really great friends hanging out with me every night. And we were a really tight group, and we just had an absolute blast. — Kiefer Sutherland

When I was younger, my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working, which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old, so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked, anyway - and I started to do other things. — Kiefer Sutherland

Youth is an amazing thing: I think back on when we did The Lost Boys, and I didn't think I could do anything wrong. — Kiefer Sutherland

When I started, with films like 'The Bay Boy' and 'Stand by Me', I look back on those interviews and I'm amazed; there's no mention of my father; it's not even 'son of Donald Sutherland.' I caught a bit of a break in that it never felt like a weight to me. — Kiefer Sutherland

You can't ask the press to service you with everything that they have and not expect some of the other stuff in return if you're going to live your life like I have. — Kiefer Sutherland

I have a very strong political outlook, and that is something I'd like to take more responsibility for in my life. I don't believe in utilising certain aspects of the power I have with celebrity to push that forward, but I would like to make some films that address some of those political issues. — Kiefer Sutherland

Yes, I do believe that there is a cause and effect and a ripple effect upon everything everybody does, and they have positive consequences and negative consequences. If you start to focus on the kind of minutia of that, it's really quite extraordinary. — Kiefer Sutherland

I'm not that complicated as an actor. I have a formula in which I work, yeah. But not like Sean Penn does. Sean is one of the few actors I know who can work like that, actually becoming the character he is playing, and get consistent results. I don't believe you can ever be someone else. You manifest different levels of your own personality to come up with a character. — Kiefer Sutherland

I didn't grow up with my dad, so it was always very funny to me, and always has been, what an important part DNA plays in one's life. — Kiefer Sutherland

There's a confidence that comes from youth and not knowing better. But there comes a point, as an actor, when you do know better, and that is when the fear starts. — Kiefer Sutherland

I like chatting with people. If people ask me a direct question, I give them a direct answer and I feel I've always done that with the press. — Kiefer Sutherland

My whole mood or sense can change by virtue of the music that I'm listening to. It really does affect me on a visceral and emotional level. — Kiefer Sutherland

Some days I'm in better control and can navigate my way through stuff, and other days, not so much. — Kiefer Sutherland

My focus on 9/11 was on the victims - in the towers, in the planes - and all that loss. — Kiefer Sutherland

I think just in general there's a bunch of films that mattered to me that didn't reach their potential, and on some level you have to assume responsibility for that. And I think over the years that gets difficult. — Kiefer Sutherland

I liked the ceremony, the ritual of preparing cocaine, as much as doing it. I did it for a year, loved it, then stopped. Now I feel the same way about cooking. — Kiefer Sutherland

My mother's five-foot-two, and I'll be honest with you - she's the only person I'm scared of. — Kiefer Sutherland

I think the father-son dynamic is interesting. I don't have a male friend who hasn't had some kind of conflict with their dad, and I don't have a male friend who hasn't had some kind of conflict with their son. — Kiefer Sutherland

One of the big draws of the show is here's a guy who is ordinary in a lot of ways but, due to his profession, he's placed in extraordinary situations that he has to make right with action and with thought. That's what is appealing about Jack - he takes charge. — Kiefer Sutherland

You know, I wish I wasn't so young when I made some of my movies, because I thought that's what the rest of my life was going to be like and I'd have all the time in the world to enjoy it. It wasn't and I didn't. — Kiefer Sutherland

The writers keep managing to turn the show in on itself, coming up with something that's well thought-out and miraculous. — Kiefer Sutherland

I've always traveled with a picture of my daughter from 1989, her kindergarten school picture, that has 'I love you, Daddy' written on it. She's always made fun of me because I never changed that picture out. It's like my resistance to her getting older. It was the first thing she'd ever written to me and it means the world to me. — Kiefer Sutherland

I couldn't see my father's films because they were restricted and we didn't have videos or DVDs back then. — Kiefer Sutherland

There are certain moments that you have to hit in a film, like when a character cries. — Kiefer Sutherland

I am a bit obsessive about tidiness. I need to make my bed in the morning and leave it perfectly made up. — Kiefer Sutherland

When we shoot 24, there are so many things I have to worry about, from the script to technical things to my performance, that I don't have a second to be bored or take anything for granted. We produce 24 hours of film a season, which is like making 12 movies. — Kiefer Sutherland

I was 20 when my daughter was born, and making all these plans during my wife's pregnancy. I was going to be the perfect father. Once she was born, it was suddenly, 'Oh, my God! I'm a parent!' — Kiefer Sutherland

Love is a self-manifested notion depending on how lonely you are - so if you're really attracted to someone, and you're really lonely, I think you can fall in love in an instant. It's all about where you're at. — Kiefer Sutherland

If your ethics in the military, in your training, is going to be counterminded by a one-hour weekly television show, we've got a really big problem. — Kiefer Sutherland

The biggest mistakes I made in my career were when I said, 'If I do this movie, I'll be able to do a couple more movies.' Those are the times I really got ugly. — Kiefer Sutherland

I consider myself to be a relatively helpful person, and there's an interesting line when hope starts to become the way you actually mask or hide from what's really happening. — Kiefer Sutherland

I loved '24', but I didn't think anyone else would. I had absolutely no idea. — Kiefer Sutherland

I just always liked the company. The people who hung around her were amazing storytellers, whether it was actors or crew. They were just exciting people. And I knew that they were different when I would go see a friend or stay at someone else's house. It just wasn't as cool. So I always loved the theater, and that's where I started: at a theater up in Canada. — Kiefer Sutherland

I love collecting guitars, even though I can't play well. My favourite guitarists are Richie Blackmore, Jimmy Paige, and John Mayer. — Kiefer Sutherland

If you are going to do something potentially for another eight years, you want it to be something that you can really sink your teeth in and that's going to be different and interesting for this next period of time. — Kiefer Sutherland

If you take a look at our natural history, there's always a moment where the young lion wants to challenge the older lion and, inherently, that's going to be problematic, and I don't think we're any different. — Kiefer Sutherland

My parents not only did it for a living, but they were really good at it. — Kiefer Sutherland

The father-son thing, that's a separate thing. This film [Forsaken] was not about that. This was a film about two actors wanting to try and tell a story ... and taking advantage of the fact that we looked like a father and son. — Kiefer Sutherland

I think the most attractive thing is a sense of humour. If someone can make you laugh, you've gotten a lot out of the way. — Kiefer Sutherland

There are three things we need to do for a band. We need to make a great record; we need to get the record played; and we need to find an audience for the live shows. — Kiefer Sutherland

Were kind of in our own cocoon making it. Every once in a while you stick your head up for a second, and you just cant believe how successful the show has become. — Kiefer Sutherland

I do believe very strongly that all of us and all of the other things in the context of our planet with Mother Nature, all of these things absolutely have a profound effect. — Kiefer Sutherland

When Julia and I broke up and I was really scared to go into a market or anywhere because I thought, 'Oh God, everyone must hate me. And that wasn't the case. People said, 'I'm sorry this happened, man. Are you alright?' — Kiefer Sutherland

Some people think it's because '24' was jump-started by what happened on 9/11. That was never why we made the show. We started production six months prior to 9/11, and we'd already done ten episodes. — Kiefer Sutherland

Westerns just thematically, as a genre, have kind of a few tent poles that I really admire, and one of them is this perception that life was simpler back then. And with that perception goes that people were good or people were bad. You survived by your strengths or you perished by your weaknesses. — Kiefer Sutherland

Isn't it funny? You hear a phone ring and it could be anybody. But, a ringing phone has to be answered doesn't it? — Kiefer Sutherland

My mother was an extraordinary theater actor in Canada, and when I would finish school, I would go to the theater. I would do my homework, we would have dinner there, she would do her play, and then me and my sister would go home. So I grew up in it that way. — Kiefer Sutherland

I've had some amazing people in my life. Look at my father - he came from a small fishing village of five hundred people and at six foot four with giant ears and a kind of very odd expression, thought he could be a movie star. So go figure, you know? — Kiefer Sutherland

There are a lot of movies I'd like to throw away. That's not to say that I went in with that attitude. Any film I ever started, I went in with all the hope and best intentions in the world, but some films just don't work. — Kiefer Sutherland

I wasn't trying to do a play or do what Kevin Spacey did. I was trying to do my own thing. — Kiefer Sutherland

If you're going to break cinema, film, and movies apart, very rarely to you get the opportunity to even think that you've been a part of cinema. — Kiefer Sutherland

I did a play called Throne of Straw when I was 11, at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. It became really clear to me at that point that I enjoyed acting more than any other experience I was having. — Kiefer Sutherland

When I wasn't the flavor of the week or month or day, those were hard times. — Kiefer Sutherland

I've always been shocked that people that I'm actually flying with say, 'Oh, I feel safer on the plane with you.' I'm thinking, 'You must not watch the show because everybody around me gets killed.' — Kiefer Sutherland

I had an unbelievable experience on '24'. We shot 198 episodes, and I was as excited about shooting the 198th as I was the first. — Kiefer Sutherland

I'm a huge fan of Canadian rock-and-roll. When I was growing up, Rush came out with a record called Hemispheres, and I must have listened to that record for two years straight. Even when I was asleep I had it on. So, yeah, whenever I hear a Rush tune, the first thing I think of is Toronto. — Kiefer Sutherland

There are two things that Jack Bauer never does. Show mercy, and go to the bathroom. — Kiefer Sutherland

I remember being really grateful that David Lynch had actually even thought of casting me, because I was a huge fan of his. — Kiefer Sutherland

I've made films that I've given all I had to, that no one has seen. The bottom line is I want to work and I want someone to enjoy it. — Kiefer Sutherland

I've wanted to work with my father for 30 years, and I'm really grateful that I finally had the opportunity, and it ended up - the experience and, I believe, the film - better than I could ever have hoped for. — Kiefer Sutherland

'24' and 20th Century Fox and Sky TV are not responsible for training the U.S. military. It is not our job to do. To me, this is almost as absurd as saying, 'The Sopranos' supports the mafia, and by virtue of that, HBO supports the mafia.' — Kiefer Sutherland

I think one of the things I was most interested in finding out was how differently we approached our work. And my reality was that we didn't approach it very differently at all, which was funny. — Kiefer Sutherland

What I ended up doing was kind of crafting an idea for a story, presenting it to a writer - a dear friend of mine, Brad Mirman - and he ended up writing a beautiful script. I should've done that a lot earlier. — Kiefer Sutherland

When I saw Virginia Woolf, somewhere between the first and second acts, someone I had known as my mother became somebody else. — Kiefer Sutherland

People respond to a guy who is trapped and succeeds on some level and fails on another. — Kiefer Sutherland

I didn't realize that television has gone through immense changes and has become very progressive. — Kiefer Sutherland

I've always thought of the western as American storytelling at its best. — Kiefer Sutherland

Commander I believe in God and his son Jesus Christ and because I do I can say this. Private Santiago is dead and that is a tragedy. But he is dead because he had no code. He is dead because he had no honor. And God was watching. — Kiefer Sutherland

I'm always jumping in my seat or gasping during a good horror movie. — Kiefer Sutherland

When you're a young actor you like to go for characters with a bit of flair, so in many films I ended up playing the weirdos. I can assure you I'm not a psycho or a criminal or a bully. — Kiefer Sutherland

I feel extraordinarily peaceful when I'm watching the sun set. — Kiefer Sutherland

I would love to do '24' until I was 60, but I don't think anybody would accept it. — Kiefer Sutherland

There are aspects of '24' where I love its politics and aspects where I hate them. — Kiefer Sutherland

I've done some stupid things. You just have to take responsibility, go, That was embarrassing, and move forward as best you can. — Kiefer Sutherland

Most of my career I've spent really nervous. Just about work, getting work and having it in. — Kiefer Sutherland

I think that the day you've figured out the differences between women and men is the day that you're no longer attracted to women. It's the difference that is so fantastic and frustrating and angering, and really sexy. — Kiefer Sutherland

Romania is an interesting place because I think it has been abused, on so many different levels. — Kiefer Sutherland

The most significant piece of advice my father gave me early on about acting was, don't get caught acting. Really believe in what you're doing and then commit to it. Even if it feels uncomfortable, even if you feel that you're gonna look like an ass. It's all acting, but find the truth in a moment as opposed to just pretending you have and rather than trying to act your way out of it. — Kiefer Sutherland