Emily Berrington as Effie in "Children's Children"
Emily Berrington as Effie in "Children's Children"

Emily Berrington: Simone was originally in just two episodes

It’s always interesting to hear things like this. Emily Berrington has revealed that her character Simone Al-Harazi was originally only meant to appear in just two episodes of 24: Live Another Day but the writers expanded her role. She also praises Kiefer Sutherland, dyeing her hair red for the role, and explains how the brutal finger chopping scene was filmed.

It was during filming in Australia that Emily got the call telling her she had won the role of Simone Al-Harazi in 24. Initially the character was only meant to appear in two episodes but, as filming progressed, Simone’s role grew.

If Emily is wary of giving too much away about Inbetweeners 2 she has no such reservations about her time on 24. As the daughter of the show’s master-villain Margot, Emily’s character has a tough time. In one scene – set on the London underground – she has to stab herself in the leg as a diversionary tactic to escape from hero Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) and in another, perhaps even more gory scene, her little finger is chopped off: ‘They made me a fake arm; the hand was filled with “blood” plus some plaster, so that when the chisel came down to chop off my finger it would make a “crunch” sound like bone. The scene looked so realistic on screen that my poor mum had nightmares after she watched it,’ she says.

The role of Simone also required Emily to dye her naturally blonde hair red, something that initially worried her. ‘It was strange: I have been blonde my entire life and then to suddenly have a complete change was terrifying. But actually I really loved being a redhead. It was wonderful – and sometimes funny – to see how people’s perception of you changes and your own perception of who you are alters. I felt much more classy and grown-up and I no longer suited my blonde clothes so I had to have a totally different wardrobe,’ she says.

But, for Emily, by far the most brilliant aspect of her time on 24 was working with Kiefer Sutherland. The actor was, she says, fantastically supportive, encouraging and a complete gentleman.

‘He is so kind. One day I brought my mum to the set and he was so wonderful – he treated her like the Queen, explaining everything we were doing and making sure she had cups of tea. You imagine that going into such a huge American series you will come up against a lot of egos, but it was the complete opposite on 24, a dream team,’ she says.

This is not the first time that an actors role was expanded. In the eighth season of 24, actress Nazneen Contractor (Kayla Hassan) was originally scheduled for just two episodes as well but she ended up appearing in 21 episodes. Anil Kapoor (Omar Hassan) was originally supposed to appear in ten episodes but was increased to sixteen.

44 Comments

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Nazneen and Emily must give really excellent head!

Not cool, XAM.

Wow… Yeah, I’m with Brad on this one.

Interesting how you left Anil out though.

Anil actually gave a good performance, so…

acting performance.

Lmao XAM, good one bro… People need to stop being so prude tbh.

There clearly is some “backroom casting couch” going on in Hollywood these days.

It has absolutely nothing to do with being ‘prude’. It was a baseless and derogatory comment directed towards individuals of a specific gender. XAM is often funny and insightful, but that was uncalled for.

I would strongly suggest 24Spoilers broaden their Comments Policy to prohibit THIS kind of thorough unpleasantness… or better yet, permanently ban XAM once and for all, the guy is nothing but a plague on this site!

XAM is the air of comedic-relief that we need in the comment section. You guys are taking it way too seriously, ‘baseless’, ‘derogative’, and ‘unpleasant’ are too uptight and stern for a show as fun as ’24’.

Really? I think Mary’s remarks (which pokes fun at the characters and the absurdity of the show) are far more hilarious and certainly more tasteful.

Fazil's Beard
July 13, 2014 at 4:10 pm
I don’t think XAM should be banned, and I don’t want to be a prude either, but I agree with Brad and Gerry that the comment was tasteless and derogatory.

I’m open to the possibility that there might be an appropriate context to mention blowjobs in a post, like maybe if it relates to plot speculation or something, but XAM’s comment this time was a lewd insult to those actresses.

You a**hole!!! How dare you accuse me of getting a role like that!!

Well, I know one for thing for certain, XAM has zero chance of ever finding out…………..

Who says I even want one clever tits? :-)

She is very attractive.

Thank you.

New West Virginian
July 12, 2014 at 10:58 pm
I think Habib Marwan was the one given the most extra episodes vs initially planned.

I wonder if Simone and Behrooz have found each other yet….

Rumor has it, they’re hanging out with Judy Winslow from Family Matters.

You know, they were talking about bringing Behrooz back as my husband instead of the Naveed character, because he might have gotten back into his parent’s business from series 4, but in the end they decided not to.

Anil Kapoor actually featured in 15 episodes, not 16. There was an episode of season 8 set in the middle of the night, when the presidential storyline was not included.

They dropped the ball on having the biggest jaw dropping moment. Make Simone Marie Warner’s daughter. Then you would’ve had some legit beef between Marie and the US.

XAM- Just ignore them. I thought it was funny.

If you think it’s funny to suggest that two female actresses only got the job because of ‘sexual favors’ when there is *nothing* to suggest such a thing aside from one’s personal opinion of their acting abilities then that is awfully depressing. But I suppose that is the way of things, right? Society certainly loves to devalue women.

Sorry to make a fuss, but once you start dismissing comments like that you’re part of the problem in devaluing human beings and, in this case, women.

Dude, are you kidding me? It was a JOKE. I’m am a feminist and strong believer of women’s rights and sexual equality. A joke’s a joke. And if you ask me and pretty much everyone else here, you’re the one who’s trolling and stirring up drama.

Do you know how many black jokes people make? How many fat jokes? Or is it that you won’t tolerate jokes at all? Or no, jokes are ok, as long as it isn’t about women, becaues whoa damn sexism derogatory. I’m trying to be civil, but you’re the one jumping mine and XAM’s butt.

Just because I made a comment about 2 women does NOT make this a universal issue about society or the treatment of women.

This isn’t even about gender. 3 actors were mentioned in the article about having their contracts expanded, I consider 2 of them very bland, and they just happened to be female. If Arnold Vosloo was mentioned in the article I would have claimed he gave excellent head too.

I think Emily Berrington was excellent as Simone.

“If Arnold Vosloo was mentioned in the article I would have claimed he gave excellent head too.”

Thanks for the laugh dude. I was in stitches upon reading that! Big Ups!

They must be Coldplay fans or something.

JackBauerFan1977
July 13, 2014 at 9:26 am
There’s no doubt that XAM posts the most dumbest and most offensive posts on this website. Just ignore him from now on. XAM constantly refuses to obey the comments policy of this website and he is so damn obscene when writing posts. One last thing, I think that Simone Al-Harazi died moments after we last saw her. We’ll never see her or hear about her ever again in a future 24 episode.

I wouldn’t be so sure about Simone. My thought process for 24 is that if a villain doesn’t die on camera, then they didn’t die.

And she got Behroozed!

I thought his comment was funny, even if mildly inappropriate. But I don’t think he should be banned for it.

Wasn’t Mary Lynn originally signed for only a couple of episodes when she was cast?

No, where did u hear that?

Fazil's Beard
July 14, 2014 at 1:26 am
I had not heard that before either, but I wondered why she was absent for several episodes in the middle of season 4. In the story, Erin Driscoll was pissed that Chloe went against her orders, but if the writers wanted to keep Chloe they could have made Driscoll forgive her for one reason or another. It would make sense if they originally intended to let Chloe go but changed their minds and brought her back due to popular demand.

Can’t recall where I heard it (so don’t quote me) but I think she’s said that at the start she was only ever guaranteed for 4-5 eps at a time or something like that, so she never anticipated that it’d end up being such a long term gig?

Fazil's Beard
July 13, 2014 at 4:24 pm
You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if Simone were to appear in the finale tomorrow. My thinking is, if they didn’t intend to bring her back, they would have shown us that she died last time we saw her. The doctors warned that she would most likely die if they had to wake her up, so it would have made sense. It would have taken five seconds or less to show her flatlining and have the doctor say, “Time of death, XX:XX.” or maybe just show the medics pulling a sheet over her face in one of the windows of the final split screen. They gave every indication that she was about to die, but they just didn’t show her death.

Can anybody think of another significant character in the entire series that could have been killed off so easily and conveniently as Simone but that got Behroozed instead?

Logan…Wayne Palmer..The mom that worked for Martha Logan and her kid in S5…

Jane Saunders, President Keeler, Lynne Kresge, Mitch Andersen

Behrooz himself

Fazil's Beard
July 13, 2014 at 6:41 pm
Yeah, Evelyn Martin is a good example, except that they put her in an impossible situation. It wouldn’t have made sense for her to tell Henderson where Bauer was without some guarantee of safety, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which she would tell him where Bauer was and he would let her live. I think the writers didn’t know how to resolve that scenario, so they didn’t show us how it got resolved because it was impossible. I hope this makes sense?

Lynne Kresge is a good example, too, but I would like to point out that Jon Cassar mentioned in an interview that Lynne Kresge might return (none of the five characters Cassar mentioned in that interview ever did return).

Wayne Palmer and John Keeler are good examples except that the writers probably would have killed them off except that Fox won’t let a sitting president be killed on-screen.

Jane Saunders? I don’t remember what was happening the last time we saw her, but I don’t remember wondering what happened to her afterwards. I thought all her loose ends were tied up.

Mitch Anderson, maybe, but I don’t think he was in quite as much danger as Simone. I kind of assumed he got away.

Allison Taylor told us that Logan was going to make it but that he would suffer permanent brain damage.

Behrooz wasn’t in as much danger as Simone was. Neither Marwan nor his men indicated any intention to kill Behrooz.

This news bodes well for the future of 24 as they both have a long standing relationship with the show! http://www.thewrap.com/dana-walden-gary-newman-near-deal-to-lead-fox/