On how he became involved in 24: Legacy
I’m good friends with the writers and I run into the head writer Manny Coto quite often. We’re always telling each other what we’re involved in and stuff. He had been pitching the idea of coming back with another season of 24 with Kiefer and had an idea for that story, but then all of a sudden sort of pivoted to the spinoff.
He pitched the idea for the spinoff, and it was awesome, I loved the setup, loved the story.Then he sort of pitched me the idea of how the Almeida character comes back and that was very cool.
I was a little nervous about the idea of a spinoff, honestly, cause you know… I was there at the very start, the very first day of shooting of the first series. So it’s kind of like your baby, you’re protective of it.
Tony Almeida’s Changes
The guy’s been through the mill. The last time you see the character, we shot this sort of short film DVD extra for the last season to go on the DVD’s where he’s in solitary confinement because of all the stuff he did previously on the show. And it’s all about him getting broken out of prison. So that’s the last time you saw him. It was fun. It’s kind of a setup for, they knew they wanted to use the character in the next season. So they wanted to set up having him out of prison, so they did that.
So now when you see him, he’s a guy who’s really just sort of living in the shadows. He’s sort of a gun for hire mercenary type who’s escaped from prison, so he can’t be out there living and going to Starbucks…
What you find out in [Legacy] is that.. You find out why he was broken out of prison, how he was broken out of prison, and what has happened in the meantime since then. So you do find that out, and I don’t want to say anything about it, because obviously I don’t want to spoil it for fans.
Why did Jack Bauer never eat?
It’s funny, I remember the very first season we tried to do a scene eating, and it just didn’t work. They cut it and never tried it again. I guess he just takes a lot of vitamins in the morning.
Wardrobe on 24:
As an actor, you’re like whatever, wardrobe you just go and do it. But on this show you kinda wanna get it right because you’re stuck with it. I remember the very first season, Elisha Cuthbert, she was wearing thongs [flip-flops] when the season started. But half of the season is shot at night, so you’re shooting all night long and it’s freezing. So they had to paint a pair of shoes to look like her feet in thongs, because her feet were just like going to fall off.
Does Legacy have the same vibe as the original?
Yeah, it’s the same writers, same directors, a couple of same directors from the very first run. Same writers who know that genre so well, they just write it so well, they’re kind of masters of it. So yeah, it’s the same feel, just a different cast of characters.
Who wins in a fight, James Bond, Jason Bourne, or Jack Bauer?
Oh man. You know, I gotta go with… Which James Bond though? If it’s Sean Connery, I gotta go with Sean Connery. But if it’s Roger Moore, yeah… (laughs) I’ll say JB wins that, I don’t know which one.