By April MacIntyre Jan 25, 2012, 16:04 GMT
The new Fox drama Touch, debuting with a preview on January 25th (prior to its March 19th premiere), sees Sutherland portray a widower whose special needs 11-year-old son possesses the ability to detect patterns that connect seemingly unrelated events.
From the time the pilot was scripted, Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly has been effusive regarding this series.
Based on a Chinese story called "The Red Thread", "Touch" is from creator/writer Tim Kring (Heroes) and actor/executive producer Kiefer Sutherland, who portrays Martin Bohn as he learns that his challenged 11-year-old son, Jake (David Mazouz), possesses the ability to read future events and their connectivity.
During the Television Critics' Association past winter press tour, showrunner Kring said: “I can’t say enough about Kevin’s support. It was a script that I thought was a challenging one for a network to want to do to, I frankly didn’t think it would be done at a network. And Kevin read it and believed in it instantly and has absolutely been its tireless champion within the company. So I’m hugely indebted.”
At the TCAs, Sutherland talked about doing another television series after "24," and on a recent telephone conference call he further elaborated on why he responded so deeply to the premise.
The "Touch" special preview airs tonight, Wednesday, after American Idol at 9/8 Central on Fox.
Check out what he had to say:
On why this story spoke to him:
K. Sutherland I was doing a play in New York on Broadway. I had a film that I knew I was going to go do and so I read Touch almost reluctantly. I don’t think I was completely ready to go back to television yet. I was enjoying some of the different opportunities that I had had. I think it was around page 30, I remember going, “Oh, ...,” or I guess something you could print, ..., which I just knew I would be so remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity that Touch was. I identified with him out of the gate. There was something interesting because obviously this is very different than 24. Yet there is a real similar through line in the kind of character of the man. Jack Bauer would be faced with unbelievable circumstances in the course of a day and he would never win completely. He’s never going to have the quintessential relationship of a father and a son.
And yet he perseveres and that’s a great kind of character statement and so I identified with him greatly on that and I think as a parent as well just the sense of responsibility combined with not knowing what to do all the time. Even though this is again a heightened experience, I think every parent feels that. I certainly can speak for myself and say that I have during Camelia’s pregnancy when Sara was—for nine months I’d have these great fantasies of how I was going to be the greatest dad on the planet. And then she was born and a kind of fear came over me like none other that I’ve ever had in my life. I was confronted with the fact that I really didn’t know what I was doing and it was something that I was going to have to figure out as I went. I really relate to Martin on that level and just the dynamic between he and the son I just find so extraordinary. So for all of those reasons, those were the first things that grasped me.
On the connectivity that exists in life:
K. Sutherland Well, I absolutely think it does. Can one focus on every single moment of their life in this way? No, of course not, but anything as simple as someone who is late for a bus one day, all of a sudden they’re not on the bus. They’re taking up other space. They either had to get a taxi and that affects the taxi driver’s life. I do believe that there is a cause and effect and a ripple effect upon everything everybody does and they have positive consequences and negative consequences. If you start to focus on the kind of minutia of that, it’s really quite extraordinary, or should I get on the elevator now or should I wait, and obviously we can’t live our lives like that. But I do believe very strongly that all of us and all of the other things in the context of our planet with Mother Nature, all of these things absolutely have a profound effect. Some of the effects that can be felt are small and some of them are very large and it was really interesting to do a show that focused on that.
On why he chose Touch to re-enter TV world:
K. Sutherland Well, it was a combination of things. I had an unbelievable experience on 24. We shot 198 episodes and I was as excited about shooting the 198th as I was the first. So that experience, and I had a great relationship with Fox, both the studio and the network. And so that combined with this script, it wasn’t even really a choice anymore. It was something that I knew I had to do. I remember thinking about it really strongly when I was crossing the street in New York and the person who I work with Susan …, I remember saying to her if we don’t do this, how are we going to feel in September watching it knowing all of its potential and how great we both think it can be.
And that answered my question for me. I didn’t want to be sitting there watching this fantastic show in September if I had had the opportunity to be a part of it. It certainly is a daunting thing having 24 been not only the great experience on a personal level for me, but it was an incredible success. It’s nice to have that in your pocket and let it be, but this was certainly something I just couldn’t say no to, so I think it’s been a little longer than two years, but it feels a lot shorter than that now I have to say.
On how to intrigue his 24 fans to watch Touch:
K. Sutherland I think that ultimately almost in the way that 24 started, people that are initially interested, whether they’re a fan of Tim Kring or a fan of mine or like the trailer, they’ll watch it and then if they feel strongly about it, they’ll tell friends and we have to rely on that. For me personally I feel that there is a great deal of suspense within the context of the show, even in the not knowing what the numbers are and the narrative where the audience actually knows more than the lead character. So I think that even though we’re not blowing things up, I think that there is enough excitement around the drama of this show, that people will not be that thrown by it who enjoyed 24.
On the genre description defying traditional drama category:
K. Sutherland I’ve always felt that this was a drama. This, we’re embarking on the journey of a father trying to connect with his son and trying to have as normal a relationship as he can under the circumstances. That will always be at the heart of the show and it certainly from my perspective it would be, but it has all of those elements. I think there is an element of science fiction. I think certainly as the show has developed, you guys have seen the first episode, which has a lot of requirements to kind of explain where the show is going. But for us in the subsequent episodes that follow, this really does have a great deal of energy, so there’s an aspect of it that I would categorize as a thriller or suspense and certainly the science fiction component as well. But at its heart it’s a drama.
On guest stars like Titus Welliver (Sons of Anarchy) inclusion and the possibility of his father appearing:
K. Sutherland There certainly is always that possibility. The show is a procedural show. Unlike 24 and unlike Heroes, which was a serialized show, these episodes will have a beginning, a middle and an end. But it does not preclude a character who you’ve seen in one episode being able to come back five episodes down the line, and we have in fact done that. I don’t really want to say who. For the people that are going to watch it, I would like them to see that.
There also might be characters that are way in the background on an episode that will come to the forefront in another episode. But it doesn’t stop each individual episode from being its own complete little entity. And so that’s something I think Tim Kring has done a beautiful job kind of weaving in and out. We’re working on episodes five and six right now, but I certainly have conveyed to Tim Kring, our writer, that my father is someone who I would very, very much like to work with. My father (Donald Sutherland) knows of this piece and I certainly have talked to him about it. We certainly do not have a script or a story or anything like that, but it certainly is open.
I think one of the things that’s so attractive about this piece is really Tim Kring’s writing and character development. They give people an opportunity to show some stuff that they might not normally get and I would be honored to be able to do something like this with my dad.
On finding his "son" actor David Mazouz:
K. Sutherland: He’s an amazing young actor and he’s an amazing young man. He does something that is really I don’t—I think it would be impossible to try and teach an actor to do. He has
very limited physical response to anything that I do. He doesn’t talk and yet I can feel his presence even if he’s not looking at me. I can always sense that he’s listening and I think that comes across to the viewer as well. That’s a real gift. He was the first boy out of about 25 young people that I read with and I remember thinking because I was doing the play at the same time, so I could only do five or six or seven kids a day.
I remember thinking wow, this kid is amazing. If the other kids are going to be like this, we’re going to find an amazing kid. I remember it was around the tenth kid, I was still thinking—and all of the kids I have to say were fantastic, but there was something really special with … and then obviously we should just hire the first kid and I’m thinking around 20, I say no, the first kid was still better. And then I read with close to 30 kids and I was finally like would you guys just please hire the first kid. He was just amazing and so that bond kind of started right away.
He works a lot of hours with us, and I’ve just been completely amazed by how focused and attentive he is and interested in it. I think that’s a big thing. He’s not being made to do this. I think he actually really does enjoy it and he’s very curious about how to get better and it’s been a phenomenal experience. I really, really do love working with him.
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