Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland (born 21 December 1966) is a British and Canadian actor. He is best known for his starring role as Jack Bauer in the Fox drama series 24 (2001–2010, 2014), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, and President Tom Kirkman in the ABC political drama series Designated Survivor.
Born to actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, he got his first leading film role in the Canadian drama The Bay Boy (1984), which earned him a Genie Award nomination. He has since appeared in such films as Stand by Me (1986), The Lost Boys (1987), Young Guns (1988), Flatliners (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), The Three Musketeers (1993), Freeway (1996), A Time to Kill (1996), Dark City (1998), Phone Booth (2002), Melancholia (2011), Pompeii (2014), The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023) and Father Joe (2026).
He has also starred in the Fox drama Touch (2012–2013), and provided the facial motion capture and voice for Venom Snake and Big Boss in the video games Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (2014) and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015). Sutherland has been inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and to Canada's Walk of Fame, and has received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Zurich Film Festival.
Sutherland was born on 21 December 1966 at St Mary's Hospital in the Paddington district of London, to Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, both successful Canadian actors who had been living and working in England. His parents divorced when he was three. He has a twin sister, Rachel Sutherland, who works as a post-production film supervisor. His maternal grandfather was Scottish-born Canadian politician and former Premier of Saskatchewan Tommy Douglas, who is widely credited for bringing universal health care to Canada.
Sutherland is named after American-born writer and director Warren Kiefer, who directed Donald Sutherland in his first feature film, Castle of the Living Dead.
When he was a baby, his mother was arrested by the FBI and charged with conspiracy to possess unregistered explosives but was later exonerated. Sutherland's family moved to Corona, California, in 1968. His parents divorced in 1970. In 1975, Sutherland moved with his mother to Toronto, Ontario. He attended Crescent Town Elementary School and St. Clair Junior High (now Gordon A. Brown Middle School) in East York, and John G. Althouse Middle School in Etobicoke. He attended several high schools, including St. Andrew's College, Martingrove Collegiate Institute, Harbord Collegiate Institute, Silverthorn Collegiate Institute, Malvern Collegiate Institute, and Annex Village Campus. He also spent a semester at Regina Mundi Catholic College in London, Ontario and attended weekend acting lessons at Sir Frederick Banting Secondary School.
Sutherland told The Sunday Times that he rarely saw his father, outside of holidays and summer vacations, until he moved out at age 15. He told Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2009) that he and Robert Downey Jr. were roommates for three years when he first moved to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting. He and Downey also starred together in the film 1969 (1988).
1980s: Rise to fame in Hollywood
Sutherland made his screen debut in Max Dugan Returns (as did Matthew Broderick), in which his father Donald Sutherland also starred. Sutherland was one of the contenders for the role of Glen Lantz in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), which ultimately became Johnny Depp's feature film debut.
After receiving critical acclaim for his role as Donald Campbell in The Bay Boy (1985), Sutherland moved to Hollywood. Stand by Me (1986) was the first film Sutherland made in the United States. In the film, directed by Rob Reiner, he played a neighbourhood bully in a coming-of-age story about a search for a dead body. Before that, he played a silent, supporting character, as one of Sean Penn's friends who goes up against Christopher Walken in James Foley's crime-thriller At Close Range (1986).
He next appeared as a vampire David in Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys (1987). Promised Land (1988), with Meg Ryan, was the first film to be commissioned by the Sundance Film Festival.
In the Western film Young Guns (1988), he starred alongside Emilio Estevez and Lou Diamond Phillips. He was considered for the role of Robin in Batman (1989), alongside Michael Keaton, in the early production before the character was deleted from the shooting script. He went on to star again with his close friend Lou Diamond Phillips, in the crime-action film Renegades (1989). That same year, he and his father appeared at the 61st Academy Awards as presenters of the Academy Honorary Award to the National Film Board of Canada.
In the sequel Young Guns II (1990), Sutherland continued to play 'Doc' alongside some of the original cast and with newcomer Christian Slater. As of 2017, it is the only sequel to a feature film he has starred in. Sutherland starred as the lead in Flatliners (1990), with an ensemble cast featuring Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon, a film about a student who wants to "experience" death's afterlife and record what happens during it, with the help of a group of young students who are "a little" crazy like him; the film received positive reviews from critics. He plays a young FBI agent coming to terms with his life in a commune in Flashback (1990) alongside Dennis Hopper. Sutherland had also starred in The Nutcracker Prince as Hans/The Nutcracker.
Sutherland did not make a film in 1991. During an interview in March 2012, he said he had declined director Gus Van Sant's offer to star in the lead role in the movie My Own Private Idaho, a decision that he regretted. He was quoted as saying "I passed on My Private Idaho because I wanted to go skiing and didn't even look at it. I told myself that I needed to stick to my plan ... and it was a really dumb plan."
In 1992, he played a doctor alongside Ray Liotta in the drama Article 99. He played a supporting character in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the continuation of the short-lived television series of the same name which ran from 1990 to 1991, as agent Sam Stanley; and also in A Few Good Men (1992), where he played a junior officer subordinate to Jack Nicholson's Col. Nathan R. Jessup. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In The Vanishing (1993), he starred alongside Jeff Bridges as a desperate man seeking the whereabouts of his girlfriend, three years after she mysteriously vanished. In The Three Musketeers (1993), Sutherland played the central character of Athos.
In 1996, Sutherland appeared in three films. He starred with Reese Witherspoon in Freeway, which gained a cult following. He starred with Sally Field in the thriller Eye for an Eye, and he appeared in A Time to Kill alongside his father Donald Sutherland.
In 1998, he starred in Dark City, the science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas in which he portrayed the historical character Daniel P. Schreber. Sutherland also starred in the film Ground Control where he played Jack Harries, an air traffic controller who had a perfect record until one air crash haunts him to leave the business. Years later, he is hurtled back into the world he thought he left behind.