Kiefer Sutherland Quotes

I’m always jumping in my seat or gasping during a good horror movie.

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.

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.

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.

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.

’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.’

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

When I wasn’t the flavor of the week or month or day, those were hard times.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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?’

My focus on 9/11 was on the victims – in the towers, in the planes – and all that loss.

I would love to do ’24’ until I was 60, but I don’t think anybody would accept it.

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.

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.

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.

I loved ’24’, but I didn’t think anyone else would. I had absolutely no idea.

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.

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.

My mother’s five-foot-two, and I’ll be honest with you – she’s the only person I’m scared of.