24 UK Podcast had a 40 minute sit down interview with Jon Cassar in London recently. Watch the video here and read his five most interesting responses below.
Time Jumps in 24: Live Another Day:
“Not that we do it a lot quite honestly. We’re not jumping [time] every ten minutes. It’s going to be very specific jumps that are important to the story, probably closer to the end.”
Leaving and Returning to “24”:
“I didn’t really want to leave, it was just circumstances that I can’t really talk about in detail. The opportunity to come back and finish it off? Absolutely, not even a hesitation. The show was the love of my life as far as my career goes. To go back and be able to finish it off, why would I say no to that? Now I get to do the last shot of Jack Bauer, whatever that’s going to be. There was a place in my heart saying that should have been me, that should have been me.”
Pitching more “24” television movies to FOX:
“I was always pitching the idea of doing a set of television movies like 24: Redemption. I always thought that was a good idea. So I said to them let’s do a TV movie every year, I think the fans would love that and it’d be a short time period for Kiefer and anybody else that’s coming back. And that kind of spun off into this miniseries.”
He’s still heavily involved in episodes that he doesn’t direct:
“I’m still a big part of the process. I’m at the script meetings as much as I can be, they show me the location photos, I’m involved in the casting. This is all on the episodes I don’t do. And basically I’m a support for that director. They can say look I’m having trouble with this, and how do I deal with that actor, or how do I deal with that crew. Whatever it is. I’m pretty much involved in everything, and also in post [production]. Once a director does his cut I’m involved as a producer then with what we do after that. So I’m involved in one way or another, I’m just not there to call action every day. That’s really just the difference.”
Jack’s kill count dossier:
“Actually it was really funny. Useful Company does all the graphic work for us, they’ve done the Bourne movies and other big pictures, they’re the ones that put it together. And basically it’s off the internet, that’s the best part. It’s not like we kept track of that – it’s the 24 Wiki or they pulled it off somewhere which I just thought was funny.
I was going to adjust it at some point because there’s no last names of people, and I just thought you know what? I’m going to let it stay in there. Because it’s a bit of a nod to the people on the internet, it’s our little easter egg. We know what you guys do and this is yours, we’re just kind of highlighting you in a way. So I kinda left it there. We knew people would freeze it and look at it and go look at all the names we remember.”