Kiefer Sutherland Quotes

Isn't it funny? You hear a phone ring and it could be anybody. But, a ringing phone has to be answered doesn't it?

I like chatting with people. If people ask me a direct question, I give them a direct answer and I feel I've always done that with the press.

I've always traveled with a picture of my daughter from 1989, her kindergarten school picture, that has 'I love you, Daddy' written on it. She's always made fun of me because I never changed that picture out. It's like my resistance to her getting older. It was the first thing she'd ever written to me and it means the world to me.

There's a confidence that comes from youth and not knowing better.

My whole mood or sense can change by virtue of the music that I'm listening to. It really does affect me on a visceral and emotional level.

I've had some amazing people in my life. Look at my father - he came from a small fishing village of five hundred people and at six foot four with giant ears and a kind of very odd expression, thought he could be a movie star. So go figure, you know?

I think the most attractive thing is a sense of humour. If someone can make you laugh, you've gotten a lot out of the way.

The most significant piece of advice my father gave me early on about acting was, don't get caught acting. Really believe in what you're doing and then commit to it. Even if it feels uncomfortable, even if you feel that you're gonna look like an ass. It's all acting, but find the truth in a moment as opposed to just pretending you have and rather than trying to act your way out of it.

Love is a self-manifested notion depending on how lonely you are - so if you're really attracted to someone, and you're really lonely, I think you can fall in love in an instant. It's all about where you're at.

Were kind of in our own cocoon making it. Every once in a while you stick your head up for a second, and you just cant believe how successful the show has become.

I feel extraordinarily peaceful when I'm watching the sun set.

Some days I'm in better control and can navigate my way through stuff, and other days, not so much.

I didn't realize that television has gone through immense changes and has become very progressive.

I've made films that I've given all I had to, that no one has seen. The bottom line is I want to work and I want someone to enjoy it.

Romania is an interesting place because I think it has been abused, on so many different levels.

The writers keep managing to turn the show in on itself, coming up with something that's well thought-out and miraculous.

I couldn't see my father's films because they were restricted and we didn't have videos or DVDs back then.

When you're a young actor you like to go for characters with a bit of flair, so in many films I ended up playing the weirdos. But I can assure you I'm not a psycho or a criminal or a bully.

I wasn't trying to do a play or do what Kevin Spacey did. I was trying to do my own thing with it.

I had never gone to college, I left school at a really early age, and all of a sudden I've got six really great friends hanging out with me every night. And we were a really tight group, and we just had an absolute blast.

One of the big draws of the show is here's a guy who is ordinary in a lot of ways but, due to his profession, he's placed in extraordinary situations that he has to make right with action and with thought. That's what is appealing about Jack - he takes charge.

I consider myself to be a relatively helpful person, and there's an interesting line when hope starts to become the way you actually mask or hide from what's really happening.

There are very few films that I've ever seen in my life that would be as silent or vacant as something like Jeremiah Johnson, and that to me was unbelievably captivating. You can see the same about [The Outlaw] Josey Wales: there's very little dialogue, and yet it contains such a deep, rich story. I've always thought of the western as American storytelling at its best.

When Julia and I broke up and I was really scared to go into a market or anywhere because I thought, Oh God, everyone must hate me. And that wasn't the case. People said, I'm sorry this happened, man. Are you alright?

I think one of the things I was most interested in finding out was how differently we approached our work. And my reality was that we didn't approach it very differently at all, which was funny.

I've always been shocked that people that I'm actually flying with say, 'Oh, I feel safer on the plane with you.' I'm thinking, 'You must not watch the show because everybody around me gets killed.'

There are two things that Jack Bauer never does. Show mercy, and go to the bathroom.

If your ethics in the military, in your training, is going to be counterminded by a one-hour weekly television show we've got a really big problem.

When I wasn't the flavor of the week or month or day, those were hard times.

When I saw Virginia Woolf, somewhere between the first and second acts, someone I had known as my mother became somebody else.

My mother's five foot two and, I'll be honest with you, she's the only person I'm scared of.

I think when you get the opportunity to work with someone like Lars Von Trier... I mean, Alexander Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, just to work with those actors, you take that opportunity when you get it.

There are a lot of movies I'd like to throw away. That's not to say that I went in with that attitude. Any film I ever started, I went in with all the hope and best intentions in the world, but some films just don't work.

I'm a huge fan of Canadian rock-and-roll. When I was growing up, Rush came out with a record called Hemispheres, and I must have listened to that record for two years straight. Even when I was asleep I had it on. So, yeah, whenever I hear a Rush tune, the first thing I think of is Toronto.

I love collecting guitars, even though I can't play well. My favourite guitarists are Richie Blackmore, Jimmy Paige, and John Mayer.

What I ended up doing was kind of crafting an idea for a story, presenting it to a writer - a dear friend of mine, Brad Mirman - and he ended up writing a beautiful script. I should've done that a lot earlier.

Commander I believe in God and his son Jesus Christ and because I do I can say this. Private Santiago is dead and that is a tragedy. But he is dead because he had no code. He is dead because he had no honor. And God was watching.

When we shoot 24, there are so many things I have to worry about, from the script to technical things to my performance, that I dont have a second to be bored or take anything for granted. We produce 24 hours of film a season, which is like making 12 movies.

I'm not that complicated as an actor. I have a formula in which I work, yeah. But not like Sean Penn does. Sean is one of the few actors I know who can work like that, actually becoming the character he is playing, and get consistent results. I don't believe you can ever be someone else. You manifest different levels of your own personality to come up with a character.

I think that the day you've figured out the differences between women and men is the day that you're no longer attracted to women. It's the difference that is so fantastic and frustrating and angering, and really sexy.

When I started, with films like 'The Bay Boy' and 'Stand by Me', I look back on those interviews and I'm amazed; there's no mention of my father; it's not even 'son of Donald Sutherland.' I caught a bit of a break in that it never felt like a weight to me.

I didn't grow up with my dad, so it was always very funny to me, and always has been, what an important part DNA plays in one's life.

If you're going to break cinema, film, and movies apart, very rarely to you get the opportunity to even think that you've been a part of cinema.

The father-son thing, that's a separate thing. This film [Forsaken] was not about that. This was a film about two actors wanting to try and tell a story... and taking advantage of the fact that we looked like a father and son.

I had an unbelievable experience on '24'. We shot 198 episodes, and I was as excited about shooting the 198th as I was the first.

Some people think it's because '24' was jump-started by what happened on 9/11. That was never why we made the show. We started production six months prior to 9/11, and we'd already done ten episodes.

I did a play called Throne of Straw when I was 11, at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. It became really clear to me at that point that I enjoyed acting more than any other experience I was having.

People respond to a guy who is trapped and succeeds on some level and fails on another.

There are certain moments that you have to hit in a film, like when a character cries.

Most of my career I've spent really nervous. Just about work, getting work and having it in.