Time was an actor did a role and then moved on with your life. If they were lucky (or not), someone asked them to come back for some reunion years, even decades later. Now it’s all but understood that if you were ever in something popular, you’ll be asked to come back for more (and more money). In an age when Michael Keaton is dusting off his Batcape and the current live-action Spider-Man is enlisting his two predecessors to help save the world, could some more Jack Bauer hijinks be far off?
In a new video interview with GQ (as caught by The AV Club), Kiefer Sutherland was inevitably asked about 24, the TV show that made him bigger than ever. And he seemed to be cautiously into the idea of playing the counter-terrorism agent once more.
“I do believe the story is unresolved,” Sutherland told GQ. To his credit, that’s pretty much a fact: The last time he played Bauer, in 2014’s Live Another Day, it ended with him kidnapped by Russian agents.
That said, Sutherland has been in showbiz long enough to know that you don’t make promises. “I have learned that you’re just better off not to be definitive about your answer of whether you will do something or not do something,” he said. “I love playing that character,” he added. “If something were to be written that made sense to me and that I thought was going to contribute to the franchise then I would be behind it, even if my participation in that were to be limited.”
The last time the 24 franchise burped out a revival, namely 2017’s 24: Legacy, Sutherland wasn’t there. Instead the focus was on a war hero played by Corey Hawkins. It was cancelled after one season. (Maybe don’t put the word “Legacy” in the title of your revival. The Bourne Legacy, which swapped out Matt Damon for Jeremy Renner, underperformed, too.)
So there you have it: Maybe you’ll see Jack Bauer again. Maybe you won’t. Till then, you can watch Sutherland’s full GQ chat below.