‘Mira’s the mother I always wanted’

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It’s 11 pm, India time, and I’m waiting for a chat with Hollywood actor Kiefer Sutherland, best known here for his turn as Agent Jack Bauer in the hit TV show 24. When he does come to the phone, he’s charming and apologetic and explains he’s in a rush because he has to catch a plane back to Toronto and is in the middle of rehearsals.

Kiefer’s on a promotional overdrive, just like the rest of the cast, of the Mira Nair film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The British-Canadian actor (and son of veteran actor Donald Sutherland) plays Jim Cross, the protagonist Changez Khan’s (played by Riz Ahmed) mentor at a Wall Street firm.
Says Kiefer of the dynamic between his character and Riz Ahmed’s, “Jim chooses Changez because it serves him — and when it doesn’t serve him, he cuts him loose. He’s a very hard guy, a hard character.”
Much before he turned “good”, Kiefer’s excelled at playing the bad guy — or at least the guy with plenty of shades of grey. He did it as local bully Ace Merrill in Stand By Me, as the stony Lieutenant Jonathan Kendrick in A Few Good Men, as the racist Freddie Lee Cobb in A Time To Kill.
Kiefer explains how he chooses projects — be it on stage, television, or the big screen. “As an actor I don’t do films because I like the role, I do films because I like the story,” he says.
And he liked the story of The Reluctant Fundamentalist so much, Kiefer jokes he’d have even agreed to be Mira’s driver! Sobering down, he says, “I never want to sound like I’m under-appreciating the reactions to 9/11, it was profoundly affecting. I believe we have spent most of our time — and rightfully so — focusing on the people who lost their lives. But I think we have not been as aware of the ripple effect of 9/11, the lives that were inexplicably changed as a result. So I really appreciated the point of view of this story. I think it examined the effects of 9/11 in a very responsible way.”
The great rapport Kiefer shared with Mira was a bonus. As a director and producer himself, he was able to appreciate Mira’s handling of her craft, and he describes her as having “the eye of an artist.”
“Mira is an unbelievably simple person and an unbelievably complex person — all at the same time. There’s a nurturing quality to Mira — she’s the mother I always wanted! — but she also has a very specific agenda and she will accomplish that. You want to please her and make sure she gets what she wants.”
Kiefer’s work has touched on the discussion about racism in very different ways, be it in A Time To Kill, in 24 or in this latest film. It is a problem the actor feels strongly about. “I believe racism is born out of two things: It is born out of ignorance and it is born out of fear. And, when those two things combine. This is not solely an American problem, it’s a worldwide problem. And, one of the powerful things about films is that we can enlighten people and help them understand other cultures, other religions, other ideas,” he says.
With a car arriving to take Kiefer to the airport, our conversation is nearly at end. Ever gallant, Kiefer allows me to squeeze in one last question. How does he manage to have such diverse interests? When he isn’t busy acting Kiefer loves playing the guitar (he was even presented a signature Gibson), rodeos (he pursued it professionally) and loves to cook. “Over the course of time, I’ve had the fortune to meet some very interesting people, and kind of as a product of spending time with them, I’ve become interested in what they were doing,” says Kiefer.