Kiefer Sutherland Says ’24’ Movie Will Be ‘Like Going Home’

Kiefer Sutherland smiles when he talks about anticipating the late-April/early-May start of production on the big-screen “24” movie. “That’s like going home,” he says of getting back into Jack Bauer’s skin.

It’s been more than five years since the “24” team first set its sights on making a feature. Sutherland acknowledges, “That process has taken us so long; it’s such a complicated script to write. Normally, we have 24 hours to tell a story. Trying to condense it into two hours involves a lot of hard choices: What kind of story do you want to tell? How political do you want to make it? How character-driven do you want to make it?”

The star was also was among the notables on hand at Fox’s party at the historic Castle Green Hotel in Pasadena, Calif., where he chatted away gamely and amiably even though a small group of reporters pretty much backed him into a small space behind a grand piano. He elaborated on some of what he talked about at the earlier press conference — including the “24” film.

As far as the answers to all those questions about how political and/or character-driven the big screen “24” will be, he laughed and said, “You’ll have to wait and see it.” He said that several “great actors have expressed interest in (acting in) it, either as an ally or villain.”