Kiefer Sutherland names his all-time favourite movie role
It’s easy to see Kiefer Sutherland in his most prominent role as Jack Bauer in the Fox drama series 24. However, the truth is that the son of Hollywood icon Donald Sutherland has provided his fair share of contributions to the cinematic medium throughout his career.
Early into his professional life, Sutherland announced himself as someone who would carry on his father’s legacy in the likes of Stand by Me, The Lost Boys and Young Guns. From there, the London-born Canadian actor has given further efforts in A Few Good Men, A Time to Kill, Melancholia and has also voice Venom Snake in Metal Gear Solid V.
However, even despite the many acclaimed performances that Sutherland has given throughout his career, there is one that seems to be the actor’s most cherished. In 1998, Sutherland appeared in the neo-noir science fiction movie Dark City, which actually went down as his favourite ever effort.
“Dark City, which was directed by Alex Proyas, was one of my most favourite experiences that I’ve ever had, as a person and as an actor,” Sutherland once told GQ. Also starring Rufus Sewell, William Hurt and Jennifer Connelly, Dark City tells of an amnesiac man who tries to discover his true identity whilst being hunted down by the police and a strange group of people amid his accusation of being a murderer.
According to Sutherland, director Alex Proyas, who previously directed The Crow and would later release I, Robot, “is a real visionary”. The actor went on to admit that at the time he made Dark City, he wasn’t “the hottest ticket on the street and that his career was in a questionable state, at best.”
Sutherland met Proyas in a hotel lobby and acted out a part of Dark City for the director because he knew that he really wanted to take on the role of Dr. Daniel Schreber, a man who initially seems to want to help the film’s protagonist. “He just wanted to have a drink with me, but I wasn’t going to let it go; I was walking out of there with that job because I really, really wanted it,” Sutherland had admitted.
Schreber is an admittedly complex character to play. He has some seemingly conflicted interests and equally some further physical specifications that Sutherland had to do his all to portray accurately. “All I wanted to do in creating the voice was a stutter of someone who is so scared t-t-t-that couldn’t get everything out because they were scared because they were terribly beaten and terribly abused and yet somehow still have a spark and a wit,” the actor explained.
Of course, throw into the fact that Sutherland was trying to show Proyas his version of Schreber in a hotel lobby and bar, and the actor certainly had a job on his hands. However, Sutherland explained, “I think what he got from it was that I’d do anything. He added, “I loved that character. One of the worst hairstyles of all time and I wore that hairstyle for four months with pride for the right to do that part.”
Dark City was an admitted box office bomb, but it’s an incredibly solid science fiction movie with a mystery neo-noir edge to it. While the likes of 24 and Melancholia come to mind with Sutherland, the actor’s favourite role of all time is indeed Alex Proyas’ 1998 movie.
