LOS ANGELES, Nov. 26 (UPI) — Kiefer Sutherland’s Christmas movie Tinsel Town, in theaters and video-on-demand Friday, pays homage to the viral video that shows the actor jumping into a Christmas tree. The clip from the 2006 documentary I Trust You to Kill Me was shared on YouTube.
In Tinsel Town, Sutherland plays action star Brad Mac. In response to her client’s unreasonable demands, Brad’s agent books him in a Christmas pantomime of Cinderella in a small English village.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Sutherland, 58, said both times he jumped into a Christmas tree were painful. Brad takes the leap after a public spectacle in the town square.
“It hurt the first time I did it and it hurt this time too,” Sutherland said. “That’s just me jumping into a Christmas tree and that’s what it is.”
To clarify the context of the viral video, Sutherland said he and the band Rocco De Luca and the Burden were at a hotel that was taking its tree down in January.
Kiefer Sutherland stars in “Tinsel Town,” in theaters and video-on-demand Friday. Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media
“Honestly, it was not something that I expected to become as widely viewed as it has,” Sutherland said. “I had asked earlier because it was quite far after Christmas. The hotel we were staying in, they were taking that tree down. I just tried to make my friends laugh and I just helped them take it down a couple of hours early.”
More Christmas firsts in ‘Tinsel Town’
Kiefer Sutherland and Rebel Wilson play co-stars in a Christmas pantomime in “Tinsel Town,” in theaters and video-on-demand Friday. Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media
Though it is his second Christmas tree jump, Tinsel Town boasts several firsts for the veteran actor. Sutherland performs musical numbers in the pantomime and another backstage.
Sutherland has appeared on stage in 2011’s Broadway production of That Championship Season and 1997 Canadian production of The Glass Menagerie. He said despite growing up in Toronto theater, the pantomime in Tinsel Town was new territory.
Kiefer Sutherland and Rebel Wilson star in “Tinsel Town,” in theaters and video-on-demand Friday. Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media
“The fact that I’m comfortable on stage is obviously a benefit in the context of performing this play,” he said. “Having said that, I’m not a song and dance guy.”
Music has become an added aspect of Sutherland’s career recently. He released his first album in 2016, followed by two more in 2019 and 2022. Those albums prepared him to sing “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” in Tinsel Town.
Rebel Wilson and Kiefer Sutherland star in “Tinsel Town,” in theaters and video-on-demand Friday. Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media
“Growing up, I just played guitar, and I wasn’t really comfortable as a singer,” he said. “Then, as I started writing things, I started singing those. For a number of years, I worked with voice coaches in trying to become a better singer.”
Comedy was also new territory for Sutherland, who may be best known for playing stoic 24 hero Jack Bauer or the everyman President in Designated Survivor. In film, he has often played villains, from The Lost Boys to A Time to Kill, or haunted heroes in horror films Flatliners and Mirrors.
“I don’t think the people that I work with, whether it’s the agents or managers, thought in a million years that I would want to do it, but I absolutely loved it,” he said. “It really showed me that even after doing something for 43 years, you can still find something that’s a completely new experience.”
As part of that comedy, Brad gets pied in the face backstage during rehearsals. Sutherland was game to do multiple takes.
“It was pretty disgusting because we used real whipped cream and that goes bad pretty quickly,” he said. “I’ve managed to go 43 years without getting a pie in the face and I’ve managed to go 43 years without doing a song and dance number in a film and managed to accomplish both of them in Tinsel Town.”
The truth about Brad Mac
Sutherland said some of the comedy fun came from portraying Brad as the stereotypical spoiled actor. Sutherland has been acting since he was 15 and could be self-critical about his younger days.
“I really thought about myself at some times where I think I could have behaved better,” he said. “It’s such a classic stereotype as well that it’s just fun to play and lean into.”
One of Brad’s diva demands is a stunt double for even the simplest of scenes. In real life, Sutherland said he has been open to doing his own stunts when they are deemed safe enough for him to perform.
“Over the course of 24, which was kind of the most action-driven thing that I’ve ever done, I did whatever they would allow me to do,” he said. “I certainly have had stunt people do really dangerous stuff on my behalf and I’m grateful for that too.”
Brad is the Scrooge character of Tinsel Town. Being forced to work in a theater company, and be more present for his daughter, gives him the Christmas spirit.
“He starts off as really not a nice person but he has all of the things that we could all possibly dream of having,” Sutherland said. “The worse his life gets, the better human being he becomes until he hits rock bottom. His daughter, the adult in the relationship, kind of leads him back to being a better dad and a better person.”
Reflecting on ’24’
24 ran from 2001 to 2010 and had a 2014 revival, 24: Live Another Day. The concept of the series was that each episode covered one hour of real time as Jack Bauer (Sutherland) tried to prevent a terrorist attack.
In 2016, producers launched 24: Legacy with a new cast, but it only lasted one season. Sutherland still thinks audiences would watch 24 without him, but they want to resolve Jack’s story.
“I think not so much that they only wanted to see it with Jack Bauer,” he said. “They wanted that story to have a conclusion.”
Writer and executive producer Howard Gordon has discussed a 24 revival with Sutherland, so that conclusion may come to be.
“Howard Gordon took note of that and has recently put something together that I thought was really fascinating and interesting,” he said. “It has a lot of steps still to go through before it could possibly become something, but it’s a start and we’ll see what happens.”
Even though it has been 11 years since he played Jack Bauer, Sutherland is not worried about resuming the role. After 252 episodes and a standalone TV movie, Jack Bauer has become instinctive.
“You do something for as long as we did it, there’s something about a character like that that becomes kind of ingrained in you,” Sutherland said. “The real danger of it is that you wouldn’t do something that lived up to the quality of the show some 15 years ago. I feel he’s written something that would possibly be really, really special and fantastic.”
