Michael Wincott cast in 24: Live Another Day

Michael Wincott
Michael Wincott

Jack Bauer’s big day is getting a little more interesting: Fox has filled a role for an infamous hacker character in its much-anticipated 24 reboot Live Another Day.

The character is called Adrian, and he’s described as a charismatic hacker and a leader of the free information movement. The part naturally brings to mind Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Veteran feature film actor Michael Wincott (The Count of Monte Cristo, Alien: Resurrection) has been cast. This marks the first confirmed new casting for Live Another Day apart from the returning characters.

Wincott and Sutherland recently worked together in the movie Forsaken directed by 24‘s Jon Cassar.

Source Entertainment Weekly

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I’m gonna try and hold myself together here… nope, it’s no use, might as well go nuts… WHO-HOO!!!

Michael Wincott is one of the absolute BEST and most memorable character actors – not to mention one of my very favorite to boot – you could pick for any film or television series, much less ’24’. I remember seeing him in Ridley Scott’s vastly underrated ‘1492: Conquest of Paradise’ as well as in ‘The Crow’ and I was hooked with that guy… he was the ONLY good thing (well, the always great Dan Hedaya too, who would’ve made a great Charles Logan if Greg Itzin had been unavailable) about the execrable ‘Alien Resurrection’ and that film died for me the moment his character did!

So I guess the threat in ‘Live Another Day’ is going to be a hacker/cyber-terrrorism one, how very timely! Okay, I’m now one excited puppy for this series, Ozgur may not think this going to be good, but I say right here, right now that this is gonna be GREAT!!!

Oh wow. Never heard of him.

From Toronto and starred in the Threee Musketeers with Kief? He must have suggested him.

i have no clue who he is but I as Gerry said above, the threat will likely be cyber terrorism. A real, fresh idea is what that is. Cant wait until May!

Very exciting, I don’t know the actor (but I trust Gerry !)but I like the idea of an hacker, a kind of Julian Assange, against Jack Bauer ? That may lead to an interesting, new and complex storyline.

Gee, who was that guy who posted messages months ago when the reboot series news first came out that a cyber-terrorist plot would be effective (and original) for ’24’, given the role of technology in today’s world and how well it worked in the fourth “Die Hard movie? Oh, yeah – it was me! To all of those who poo-pooed the notion as one that wouldn’t/couldn’t work in an action series because there can’t be any gunfights or car chases when computers are the medium, guess the writers (and I) disagree. Heck, even back in the mid-90s with the Sandra Bullock movie “The Net”, it was a great storyline then for how much of society’s life is tied into computerized systems. S4 with Marwan’s capture of the nuclear reactors via computer was a small glimpse of the same.

As for Wincott, he’s always played that creepy kind of role suited as a villain.

P.S. With the role that identity theft has in today’s computer world, maybe the angle for the upcoming season is one where the cyber-terrorists draw Jack out from hiding by hacking in as his identity and framing him for events that impact Heller / Kim / Chloe….

Kudos and congrats on being ahead of the curve, TJ dude, but don’t take a lap of honor on it, no-one likes a gloater!

I seem to remember my saying that the ’24’ writing team did the cyber-terrorism angle right with Season 7’s CIP device plot, but I wouldn’t cite ‘Die Hard 4.0’ (as it was called outside of North America) as an example of cyber-terrorism done correctly; that film (and it’s recent successor) completely forgot what made the character of John McClane what he was… a reluctant and flawed hero in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone who would rather do anything BUT tackle the bad guys single-handedly but had no choice to because of circumstance thrust upon him! They turned him into a veritable indestructible superhero without the cape and cowl, something those first three glorious ‘Die Hard’ movies did not do… plus they upped the ante to the point of absurdity (jumping off an exploding jet fighter onto solid concrete and coming away unscathed indeed!), and that’s why it isn’t a good example, at least I don’t think so!

Because of the cyber-crime angle on this one, and because we know that computer whiz Chloe was arrested by the feds for her part in Jack’s getaway from New York, I’m thinking we may see a very, very different Ms O’Brien next year… and not necessarily an altogether willing accomplice to Jack like before, but I could be wrong!

TJ dude, when I said above about not taking a lap of honor, I didn’t mean it in any perjorative way… please don’t take it as such, there was no ill feelings meant, having read it back, it could be seen that way and I just want to make sure you don’t think I was taking a swipe at you, ’cause nothing could be further from the truth!

Hacking?! *sigh* Yeah whatever. Just spare us the spectacle of a hack-off or a snarky exchange between him and Chloe. Just don’t do it!

I don’t know the actor but he seems ok and looks like we going to get another cyber plot like in season 4.

Overall it’s good we getting some casting news! Just hope Tony makes a return but reading past news, it seems he is not returning for this limited series. Glad Chloe and Audrey are returning though and Can’t wait to see Jack Bauer back in action again. looking forward to the new series of 24, can’t wait.

This is great news. Wincott performed Comte de Rochefort in The Three Musketeers (1993) and he was a great antagonist.

I think that with this kind of characters, in London, there will be an interesting history. I think that they will bring back Theo Stoller.

How do you know for sure that Wincott will play an antagonist to Jack? Possibly Wincott’s character has stolen some govt secrets that could be used to clear Jack’s name or that Jack could hold over the govt’s head to get them off his back.

You bring up a good point 24 marathonman. I honestly don’t know if he is going to help jack or go against him. It can go either way. I guess the automatic thought is Chloe is Jack’s computer person. Why would he need another one. But who knows what Chloe’s storyline will be.

@24marathonman, read again, I didn’t say that. What I think is that his character will have a more “agressive” personality than a simple (silly?) hacker like Andrew Paige (Lukas Haas) in season 4.

Another question for anyone to answer: if there is one character you could bring back (dead or alive) who would it be?
My dead list
1. David Palmer
2. Bill Buchanan
3. Teri Bauer
4. George Mason
5. Renee Walker

Definitely either David Palmer or Bill Buchanan.

^What Jack said. David Palmer or Bill Buchanan

Mason…such a great sense of humour :)

Definitely Mason. He and Jack had a tense relationship during Season 1 and most of Season 2 until the end.

Maybe Palmer a close second.

Whilst fully understanding the nostalgia people have for past ’24’ characters, I’ve never really looked at it that way myself… although I didn’t get into ’24’ until half-way through Season 5 in June 2006, and thus watched the first four-and-a-half seasons retroactively, meaning I don’t have the same emotional attachemnt to Mason, Nina, David Palmer, etc, the way long-time viewers have!

Once a character is killed off, I never want to see them return or lament the fact they won’t, ’24’ has always been about forward momentum, and whether the ’24’ saga ends with the upcoming new series (as I’m inclined to think it maybe should) or continues on after, it should ALWAYS be about looking forward and to the future not backward and to what’s passed… and the ’24’ producers agree with that, which is why they have consistently shot down any notion of a prequel, and rightly so!

If you had a Twitter account and could tweet a question to JonCassar or TheDavidFury, what would you ask? Questions should be indirect because they could not nor would not answer any direct questions about the plot.

I would ask:

1. In LAD, will Audrey Raines use a firearm?
2. Are any of David Palmer’s family or offspring involved in LAD?
3. In LAD, are the antagonists familiar to 24 fans or all new or a mixture of both?
4. In LAD, are any former Presidents mentioned in the dialog.

Will LAD be shot on 35mm film or on digital? Hopefully the former…

^Were all seasons shot on 35mm film? Or were seasons 7&8 done in digital. I hope they do it in 35…

All ’24’ seasons – plus ‘Redemption’ – were shot on 35mm film.

Seasons 6 and 7 plus the aforementioned ‘Redemption’ were all shot on Super 35, a higher grade (and therefore more expensive) stock mostly used for feature films, but after the credit crunch in 2008, FOX like every other studio had to tighten their belts monetarily, hence why Season 8 returned to a less expensive film stock… although one that I thought looked just as good as Super 35 (which I’ve always found overtly grainy at times), especially in daylight exteriors, and one better suited to the much quicker schedule of television!

Either way, I hope ‘Live Another Day’ is shot on film… higher resolution, richer colors, better image… and as television is a visual medium, shouldn’t that be what it’s all about when deciding?

When Peter Levy shot the pilot of 24 for season one director Stephen Hopkins, they were lookng to achieve a grainy image. It was Hopkins who said film was the only option (and rightly so). In fact the whole look of the first season stands out from the others. It was a shame they didn’t make use of more aerial shots in the later seasons. As a side note they shot on 3-perf 35mm stock, to save money essentially as you save on negative space. I always felt that Hopkins never received the recognition that he deserved. After all, he’s the man responsible for the handheld look of the show, the boxes/split screen (along with one of the editors) and casting all the main players in the first season (except for Carlos Bernard) including Kiefer. Maybe his decision to leave was the right one. His last episode, the season one finale, is television at its finest.

According to a tweet by Jon Cassar, 24: LAD begins filming on Jan 25th.

24marathonman, David fury basically all but confirmed on his Twitter feed that ‘Live Another Day’ will be shot on digital… which I’m fine with, I’d much rather they put the money onscreen than on what format they shoot it on.

Fury was also asked about a possible return for a certain former agent Almeida, and he said “not so far, but who knows where the arc will take us”… this is actually surprising in that I thought they would have had the complete story locked in at this point, but if not, there may still be a chance for Tony to return!

does anyone know if these 12 episodes will be aired for 12 weeks straight or if there will be a midseason break?

Teddy: I would also like to know if they are having a 2 episode premier on the same day and a 2 episode season finale on the same day. That would be a 10 week run.

Gerry Mander: I have not noticed the difference in the film vs digital – I must not have that good of a home theater system to notice the difference. I have all 8 seasons on DVD (half I purchased new on sale at Wal Mart/Target) and half I bought used at Half-Priced Books. I recently bought season 8 on blue-ray at Best Buy and played the same episode on DVD and blue ray back to back and could not notice a quality difference. My blue-ray player must do a great job at up-converting. I did not like the blue-ray menus.

24marathonman, it has little to do with how good a home set-up you have (I just have a standard LED widescreen telly with no added bells or whistles), the fact is that digital capture images are substantially better than a decade ago and getting better year upon year, to the point that most untrained eyes would not and indeed do not even notice the difference between 35mm and digital formats.

‘Person of Interest’ for example is shot digitally but you wouldn’t know it to look at it, it’s a very clean, crisp, and natural image that doesn’t show any of the usual cold, sterile, and artificial traits that digital often has in the past, both distant and recent (the first ‘Hobbit’ movie last year for example, which had a distractingly sharp and unnaturally high-contrast image).

Whilst I prefer the warmth, richness, and overall texture of a 35mm image (depending on what film stock is used), the fact that ‘Live Another Day’ will be shot digitally doesn’t bother me in the slightest, it won’t have any bearing on how good the actual series will be… and the majority of people won’t even know or notice the difference between the film-shot past series’ and the digitally-shot new series!!!

I can’t speak for Blu Ray vs DVD image quality, I have a DVD player and it suits me just fine and dandy, although I have heard complaints from some about those pesky BR menus… which has put me off upgrading to the new format, at least with DVD you know you’ll get great image quality with none of the technical issues that come with new formats, plus DVD’s will be around for a LONG time to come, I’m not sure if that will be the case with BR!

BREAKING NEWS

Carlos Bernard had dinner yesterday with high ranking officials of 24. The return of Almeida maybe?

Some people are going to love it if he comes back. Some people will hate it. I would love to see a return from Tony Almedia. Fingers crossed.