ABCKiefer Sutherland didn't really plan on returning to television this fall. He spent nine seasons on 24 (from 2001-2010, then the limited return in 2014), and just wasn't looking for a series regular gig. But when his friend, producer Mark Gordon, gave him the script to Designated Survivor, he abruptly changed course because of how mind-blowingly good it was.
"I had no intention of doing a television show and I was very busy, but I felt I needed to give the script a cursory read so that I could at least respond with some intelligence and explain why I couldn't do it," Sutherland said at the Television Critics Association summer press tour. "And I found myself on page 22 and I remember saying, 'S--t.' I've got to go back and start from the beginning because it was shaping up so beautifully. And I remember getting to the very end of the script and realizing I was potentially holding the next ten years of my life in my hands."
The next step was natural: "I called Mark and told him I wanted to do it. And he said, 'Well, what notes do you have?' And I said, 'Actually I have to be honest with you, I don't have any.' And so then he thought I hadn't read it!"
But the story, about a low-level cabinet member who suddenly becomes President after an attack at the State of the Union kills everyone present.
"I felt so strongly," he continued. "I felt the script was so beautifully structured. It had the thriller aspect of trying to find out who had done this, it had a family drama—what happens when, overnight, you go from a very structured life to the life of the President of the United States and the First Lady? What happens to your children? What sacrifices are made there?
He continued, "And then it also allowed itself to format a political element to have discussions that I think we need to have in this country in a rational way, not so divisive, hear really important and respectable points of view from the left and the right. I felt that this script afforded every opportunity to create a landscape that was so vast that being able to do many years of a show would be possible, and that was very exciting for me."
Designated Survivor premieres Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 10 p.m. on ABC.