Kevin Mazur/WireImage.comJack Bauer has a new nemesis.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, four-time Oscar nominee Jon Voight has come aboard to play the baddie hatching the latest terrorist threat in the upcoming seventh season of 24.
The role marks the 69-year-old thesp's first recurring tube gig in nearly four decades and mirrors the high-profile casting of Dennis Hopper as Serbian nationalist baddie Victor Drazen in the inaugural season.
Voight's villain will make his debut in a two-hour season-seven prequel now filming in South Africa and premiering on Fox Nov. 23. The plot supposedly picks up with Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) trying to find peace in his life by traveling to Africa to build houses for the poor, only to get swept up in a coup d'etat against a powerful African warlord.
The TV movie will serve as the setup for another bad day for our hero, who once again must face down various types of torture and other dangers to prevent a terrorist attack from being carried out. The latest batch of 24 episodes officially kicks off in January, however, the Deliverance star's character isn't expected to reemerge until the latter half of the season.
During a career spanning five decades, Voight's has racked up an impressive array of big-screen credits, including Midnight Cowboy, The Champ, Runaway Train, Mission: Impossible, Varsity Blues, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (with daughter Angelina Jolie), Ali and, more recently, National Treasure and its sequel. He also won a Best Actor Academy Award for 1978's Coming Home.
On the small screen, the actor's last recurring series role was a three-episode stint in the late '60s on Gunsmoke, the tube's longest running program. He later appeared in a number of well-received TV movies, including Chernobyl: The Final Warning and Return to Lonesome Dove.