Kiefer Sutherland: Heart of Darkness

These days, the neighborhood he chooses to live in is predominantly Salvadoran, and at night there, walking his dog, a border collie named Molly, he's been held up with a gun pressed to his noggin. His place is huge, almost a quarter-acre in size, not cut up into rooms but left wide open, with only a half-wall to partition off the sleeping area. Showing me around, he says, "It took a while to get used to sleeping in a barn." Kiefer has at times led a kind of messy life, but his home suggests an almost obsessive attachment to order. Nothing is out of place. His bed is made and looks freshly plumped; the pack of Camel filters on the bedside table has been set down square to the corners. No dirty dishes or food crumbs mottle his kitchen sink. His guitar collection is neatly arranged according to make and body style.

Eventually, this attention to neatness comes up during a discussion about his various possible failings as a boyfriend.

"I think I'm pretty demanding as a person," he says. "I like things to be a certain way, everything from being on time to being tidy. I haven't been flexible with that. I mean, as I've gotten older, I've hopefully become a lot more flexible. But, of course, I am living alone."

"Does disorder bother you?" I ask.

"I had the 24 cast over for dinner one night and I heard that Reiko Aylesworth, who played Michelle, said, 'It's so nice that he cleaned up his place.' Someone else said, 'He didn't clean it up for you, honey. It's always this clean.' And her response was, 'Ewwww.' But there's so much disorder in every other aspect of what we do, if you can control your environment at home, you do it."

"It's a little freaky to walk into," I say.

"Yeah?" he says, and he says it with a smile.

* * * *

Why 24 succeeds on the level that it does -- since 2001, it's won or been nominated for dozens of awards, topped critics' lists and been dominant in its time slot -- Kiefer isn't exactly sure, though he does have one main theory: "People respond to a guy who is trapped and succeeds on some level and fails on another."

It's glib to say so, but that's probably also true of Kiefer himself. For instance, one problem with being tied to a show like 24 is that, while you might succeed on some level with girls -- with the occasional one-night stand and so forth -- you can forget about anything deeper. Kiefer often, and at length, bemoans this fact.

"I've had one-night stands, but they're just not my nature," he says. "I think of myself as much more of a romantic than that. The point of being with someone is out of the hope and desire for connection. Otherwise, you might as well just go home and masturbate. Actually, there is someone who I really like a lot. But it feels like all I do is work and sleep. If you're just into that, you're fine. But if you're hoping to fall in love, you're dead meat. It fucking ain't going to happen. You're going to fall apart and not make it."

"Ever been to a shrink?" I ask him, apropos of nothing, really.