The actor repeated the enthusiasm for the series he’d expressed on stage at the upfronts, saying he wasn’t looking to do another TV show after his starring run on “24”, but was drawn to the script once he started reading it.
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The former 24 star returns to TV as Tom Kirkman, a low-level Cabinet official thrust into the presidency when the entire government is wiped out in an attack during the State of the Union address.
The show will not only tackle the mystery of who masterminded the terrorist plot, but track the journey of a man who goes from being an everyday citizen to the leader of the free world. The Capitol blows up, taking everyone with it.
DESIGNATED SURVIVOR – ABC’s “Designated Survivor” stars Kiefer Sutherland as Tom Kirkman.
So what would Jack think of Tom?
“Our catastrophic event happens in the first episode”.
“This guy doesn’t even want this job”, said Sutherland. “They know that. But they feel a sense of patriotism that he should do it”. One interesting thing is when he makes an attempt to be political; he might not do it well at first. The first voice he hears is a general who has already ordered aircraft carriers to charge into the Persian Gulf, showing anyone who thinks the U.S.is weakened and vulnerable that this supposition would be a mistake. “He has a strong sensibility about what he believes is right and wrong”. Producers Jon Harmon Feldman and David Guggenheim described how the show draws from several dramas and thrillers.
You can see the new photos below.
“Designated Survivor” premieres on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 10pm on ABC.
“[The pilot] also allowed itself in the format, on a political level, to have discussions that I think we need to have in this country in a rational way and not [be] so divisive”, he said. “I was very busy but I felt that I needed to give the script a cursory read so I could at least respond with some intelligence and explain why I couldn’t do it”. “I remember getting to the end and realizing I was potentially holding the next 10 years of my life in my hands”.
Sutherland and the producers were asked by television writers Thursday whether a plotline involving potential terrorism might be uncomfortable in the current real-life climate. “Television has the responsibility to confront what is happening in the world instead of tell it in post-tense”. He added that the cause of the explosion “won’t necessarily be what everyone is jumping to”. “I felt the script was so beautifully structured, it had the thriller aspect, it had a family drama”.
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More than any TV creator could have dreamed, the series arrives at a cultural moment when “there’s a hunger for outsider candidates”, noted producer Simon Kinberg. “Even in 24, there would be very few circumstances, even after the awful days of 9/11, we did not push the show back”, he said. Kinberg then stated that there was a Frank Capra element to the show.
