With director Tarik Saleh’s (The Nile Hilton Incident) The Contractor arriving in theaters, Digital, and On Demand tomorrow, I recently got to speak with Kiefer Sutherland about making the action-thriller. Written by J.P. Davis, the film stars Chris Pine as a Special Forces Sergeant who joins a private underground military force, alongside Ben Foster, after being discharged from the Army and cut-off from his pension. Unfortunately, on his first mission, things go wrong, and he’s caught in a dangerous conspiracy and fighting to stay alive long enough to get home and uncover what happened. The film also stars Gillian Jacobs, Eddie Marsan, JD Pardo, and Florian Munteanu.

During the interview, Sutherland talks about what drew him to this role and film, what someone should watch if they’ve never seen his work, why he learned so much about acting while making 24, and why he’s so proud of his work on Alex ProyasDark City and what he did to land the role.

Watch what he had to say in the player above, or you can read what he had to say below.

COLLIDER: If someone has actually never seen anything that you've done before, what is the first thing you want them watching and why?

KIEFER SUTHERLAND: That's a great question. My initial instinct is to start at the beginning, and that would be a film called The Bay Boy because it's where I started, and everything from that point forward is an evolution. Going outside of what I would instinctually say, it would probably be 24 because that was the time that so much changed for me as an actor. For instance, when I started working as an actor, Robert de Niro, who had the biggest career at the time, would do maybe one to one and a half movies every two years. Maybe two movies every three years.

And all of the young actors thought that that was what we were supposed to do. Now, if I want to become an Olympic runner, I train every day. So, when I got to do 24, I got to work every day. And so, the training for me, as an actor, really began there because we're working at such a fast pace compared to that of making a film. I feel that my knowledge of the craft of acting grew exponentially during that time period. So, 24s what I would maybe recommend someone if they wanted to see me mature, at least as an actor.

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What was it about this particular project that said, I want to make this, I want to play this role?

SUTHERLAND: It was a combination of things. I mean, obviously, for me, the script is the most important thing that will always be the deciding factor of why I moved to be a part of telling that story. And this on two levels, this script was an incredible thriller, it was exciting, it was a page-turner. But it also taught me about an area of something that I just did not know anything about, which was that there were recruiters out there that were picking out the best of the best of the special forces as they were either being pushed out of the armed forces or retiring and that they were using them for special private ops. So that they were being hired out by corporations as security details to do, in the context of this movie, illegal work. For companies to start getting private armies, that's a very scary option.

All of us were aware of the troubles that Black Water ran into in Iraq when some of their operators abused their authority and killed civilians in the street. So, it opened my eyes to something that I just simply was not very familiar about. So, the combination of being a great thriller and learning something at the same time was very appealing to me as an actor. And then, Chris Pine and Ben Foster did a movie called Hell or High Water, and I thought they were one of the best duos that I had seen since Robert Redford and Paul Newman. The way they work together is just cool. They exploit humor when there isn't any, it's just innately how they behave with each other. I was thrilled to be able to do a film with them.

I told them when I spoke to them that they need to make 10 more movies together.

SUTHERLAND: Yeah. I agree. And I'll go see every one of them.

Also were you happy to be able to use your tattoos in the role?

SUTHERLAND: I was happy not to cover them up.

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Exactly.

SUTHERLAND: Because that's a long process, and I've had these tattoos for years and years, and years, and obviously, Jack Bower did not. Wore a lot of long sleeves on very hot days. But no, every once in a while, if it suits the character, and I felt that it did with this, that it was nice not to have to cover them up.

Before I run out of time with you, I am a big fan of Dark City.

SUTHERLAND: Oh. Me too, man.

And I've never gotten to talk to you about it. So, here's that moment.

SUTHERLAND: Okay.

I love learning the behind-the-scenes. Stuff you don't hear in the press notes or hear about. So, what are cool things that fans of that movie might not realize about the making of the movie?

SUTHERLAND: Well, I'll tell you something. So Alex Proyas had written that as an animated event. He'd written it when he was 15 years old. He'd been carrying that in his back pocket for decades, and when I went to go meet with him, I met with him at a hotel in Los Angeles, California. My career was treading water, to put it politely. And we were just supposed to talk about the script, but I had read it, and I had memorized parts of it already just because I loved it so much that I did an impromptu….We were talking, having a discussion, and I said, well, I don't think I can articulate it as well as I can just show you. And in the middle of the bar of the hotel, I started playing Schrieber, and with the voice, and the walk and all of it.

I think I scared him a little bit, but he took a chance with me because of my enthusiasm. And I was really grateful because I'm very proud of, really, a lot of the work I've been given the opportunity to do, but Dark City will always hold a special place in my heart because I believe that, creatively, it approaches what I consider to be cinema, which is the highest art form of film making, and that was because Alex did that with it. So, it was just something I was so proud to be a part of. Sadly, Will Hurt has just recently passed away, but I think he's extraordinary in it. Rufus Sewell, Jennifer, Richard O'Brien, just so many great actors, and it was a thrill to be a part of.

Yeah. I love the movie. I'm already out of time. I'm just going to say thank you for your work, and I wish you nothing but the best.

SUTHERLAND: Oh, brother, thank you. I wish you everything. Be safe and healthy, and I look forward to talking to you soon.

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