Kiefer Sutherland has somehow become our generation’s top government agent, at least on the small screen. With 24 and Designated Survivor under his belt, Sutherland knows how to slip into a role shrouded in fictional mystery, espionage, and intrigue.
Try Paramount+ FREE for a week. Subscribe here to watch your favorite shows.
Keeping with that tradition, the former teen heartthrob will next star in Paramount+ series Rabbit Hole (premiering March 26). He plays John Weir, a “corporate spy-for-hire” who made a reputation for always being three steps ahead of the competition. His latest mission goes awry when he finds himself framed for the murder of a Treasury Department official.
According to EW‘s synopsis, “what happens when Weir’s reality starts to fold in on itself and he can’t trust anyone, including himself? Is the woman (Meta Golding) whom he coincidentally hooked up with last night somehow part of the population-controlling conspiracy? Cue a paranoid spiral into danger, confusion, and manipulation. Plus, democracy at stake!”
Phew, ok. Sutherland at least claims that his newest thriller will head in a different direction that fans might expect.
“I think you’re going have a hard time guessing where it’s going to go,” the actor notes. As he explains, the appeal of this story boils down to a simple concept: “What happens when you go from the hunter to the hunted? [Producers] pitched that idea, and that’s exactly what we made.”
Sutherland even went as far as to say he would “never” do this type of specific thriller without the right kind of creatives backing it.
“It’s the reason why I worked with [director John] Schlesinger on Eye for an Eye,” Sutherland explained. “In no other circumstance would I have ever played that part. It’s a very serious tic for me that I really enjoy watching, and therefore would be incredibly interested in making. And it was a great joy making [Rabbit Hole].”
Kiefer Sutherland said that much of Rabbit Hole boils down to a simple question: who can you trust?
As for the tone, Kiefer Sutherland likens it to the predatory Wild West era, when snake oil salesman took advantage of simple Western people who didn’t understand the scope of the country’s growth, yet.
“We are living in a world where truth and honesty is very questionable — no different than the kind of snake-oil salesman of the West that preyed upon people that were so isolated in far Western towns that had not been connected yet to the United States. I don’t think we’re in a different time, and the show reflects that,” he said.
At its core, the show sounds like a commentary on power structures and how special interests influence the direction of our country behind the scenes.
“In the United States, people will think that the President is the ultimate power, right? Everything kind of stems from that. I don’t actually agree with that; I think that there are people that are more powerful than the President … I’m just going to kind of put out there that there are incredibly wealthy people that have huge amounts of power and just by simply putting their headquarters in a single state, completely change around the economy of that state. That’s not a secret. So in the context of our show, we’re dealing with people like that,” he said.
