Kiefer Sutherland

Kiefer Sutherland (born December 21, 1966, London, England) is a British-born Canadian actor who earned acclaim for his film work, especially his portrayal of sinister characters, but achieved perhaps his greatest success with the television show 24 (2001–10, 2014).

Sutherland was the son of Canadian actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas. After his parents’ divorce in 1971, he moved with his mother and twin sister to Canada, but he left school at age 15 to pursue an acting career. He made his big-screen debut, with his father, in Max Dugan Returns (1983). The following year he landed a leading role in The Bay Boy, for which the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television nominated him for a Genie Award as best actor. He appeared as a bully in the popular movie Stand by Me (1986). Sutherland’s menacing performance attracted much attention, and villains became his specialty, although he typically sought out diverse roles. He starred in a series of popular films, including The Lost Boys (1987) and Young Guns (1988), and established himself as one of Hollywood’s leading young actors.

In 1990 Sutherland costarred with Julia Roberts in the thriller Flatliners; the couple’s subsequent engagement and breakup became fodder for the tabloids. Sutherland directed the TV movie Last Night (1993) and the feature film Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997). Acting remained his primary work, however, and he made notable appearances in A Few Good Men (1992), Freeway (1996), and A Time to Kill (1996). He also performed with his mother onstage in The Glass Menagerie in 1996.

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Britannica Quiz

Pop Culture Quiz

After a brief sabbatical from acting to perform in rodeos, Sutherland returned to Hollywood. In 2001 he landed the role of American counterterrorist agent Jack Bauer in 24, the innovative television series that in each season of 24 episodes covered a single day in Bauer’s life. Each hour-long episode aired in real time and featured nonstop action. The series debuted in November 2001 and was a critical and commercial success. In 2002 Sutherland won a Golden Globe Award for outstanding lead actor in a television drama. While working on 24, he continued to act in films, including Taking Lives (2004) and The Sentinel (2006). As a voice actor, he performed the roles of a general in the animated comedy Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), a dog in the comic-strip adaptation Marmaduke (2010), and the narrator of the thriller Twelve (2010).

In 2011 Sutherland appeared in Lars von Trier’s emotional drama Melancholia and starred opposite John Hurt in The Confession, an episodic series broadcast on the Web site Hulu. Also that year, he made his Broadway debut in a revival of Jason Miller’s That Championship Season, a drama about a high-school basketball coach and his players reuniting after some 20 years. Sutherland returned to network television with the series Touch (2012–13), in which he portrayed the father of a boy with supernatural powers. In the film The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012), directed by Mira Nair, he appeared as a Wall Street businessman.

Sutherland reprised the role of Jack Bauer in the TV movie 24: Redemption (2008) and the single-season 24: Live Another Day (2014), and he later returned to his character from Flatliners for the sequel of the same name (2017). He also starred in the TV series Designated Survivor (2016–19), in which he was cast as a low-ranking cabinet member who becomes president after many in the U.S. government are killed in an attack on the U.S. Capitol during the State of the Union address; ABC canceled the show in 2018, but a third season aired on Netflix the following year. Sutherland later starred in Rabbit Hole (2023– ), a series about corporate espionage. He also continued to appear in movies, including the drama Where Is Kyra? (2017), in which he portrayed the lover of a divorcée (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) suffering from financial hardships.