Sarah Clarke interviewed about Nina Myers in 24 Season 3

Here’s a new interview with Sarah Clarke talking about 24. She reveals that Nina Myers was originally intended to appear in ten more episodes of the third season (bringing the character all the way to the season finale rather than being killed by Jack in episode 14). But both she and Kiefer agreed that it would feel unrealistic if Nina was able to escape again.

I want to ask you about your past role in the hugely popular show 24. As the feisty bad girl Nina Myers, you were infamously knocked off by agent Jack Bauer. Do the 24 fans still react to you as that character?
They absolutely do. People were really taken by her. I’m very flattered and it’s funny because that role really took shape as the series went on. They certainly didn’t plan for her to be the way she was, so for me it was a wild ride and it was one of the first bigger TV jobs that I’d done, so I was very green. It was a very exciting time to be involved in something like that. But I have to say it’s also a character that by the third season, they really had to turn her into a bad guy. They just kept ramping it up every season to a point where I was like, “OK, I’m exhausted.” Originally they were going to keep me on for another ten episodes and I said, “Just don’t keep me on to torture me.” It was before kids, so I didn’t even have that resonating through me, but after a while it takes it’s toll and in the end, I think they realized that if I did get away that last time it just would start to feel false. So they gave me a great arc and I was very appreciative of it. And what I did like about it is that because we didn’t know that she was who she was, you kind of saw someone falling apart, and that’s real to me.

To me, there’s always a reason why people do things. They’re not just inherently bad. And you have to make them real in some way. That’s why when she started getting cartoon-ish, I never wanted it to go there. It was crazy some of the stuff they planned for the third season and I just said, “No we can’t!” {laughs}. And luckily Kiefer Sutherland agreed with me.

So given the choice, would you want your daughter to be involved with Jack Bauer, Edward Cullen or Jacob Black?
Oh, that’s a funny question {laughs}. Good God! They’re all pretty lethal. I don’t know. I might just ask her to go be a nun. {laughs}.