Kiefer Sutherland on why he wanted to go from 'hunter to hunted' in thriller Rabbit Hole

The next time you see Kiefer Sutherland, he'll be a master manipulator who suddenly finds himself hanging by a thread controlled by a mysterious puppeteer.

Actually, it might even be more complicated than that.

In the twisty new Paramount+ series Rabbit Hole (premiering Mar. 26), the 24 and Designated Survivor alum plays John Weir, a three-steps-ahead corporate spy-for-hire who plots exquisitely. But his latest gig goes up in smoke (and fire) when he's framed for the murder of a Treasury Department official (Rob Yang). Who or what suddenly has John in their crosshairs? What happens when his 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!

Created by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (directors of I Love You, Phillip Morris and Crazy, Stupid, Love), this corporate espionage adventure returns Sutherland to a genre that he's quite familiar with — the thriller — but he insists that viewers won't find him saving any days in familiar fashion. "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 intricate, labyrinthian show came down to a simple, time-tested concept: "What happens when you go from the hunter to the hunted?"

Let's hunt down a few more answers from Sutherland before he disappears down this Rabbit Hole.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What are the first words that pop into your head to describe Rabbit Hole?

KIEFER SUTHERLAND: Exciting. And thrilling. It's a real testament to the genre. When John and Glenn came to me with this idea, it was pitched as a thriller. It was pitched as an idea, a Three Days of the Condor: "What happens when you go from hunter to hunted?" And that's exactly what it is. It didn't morph into something different. It is exactly what we intended to make. And I say that in a funny way, like that's a rarity. It wasn't like we sat at the pottery wheel and we set out to make an ashtray, and all of a sudden it became a bowl. [Laughs] And hats off to John and Glenn for actually being able to stay the course and do that, because it's not as easy as one would think.

John and Glenn have said that they were inspired by '70s espionage thrillers. Movies like Three Days or The Parallax View — is that a genre that you also have a particular affection for?

Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor? Absolutely. It was very funny. They had a couple ideas that I wasn't as big a fan of. But definitely those. Pretty much every movie that Michael Caine made during the '80s was also an espionage thriller. It's what I grew up watching, and it's what really grabbed me. And you can make an argument that The French Connection is one of those movies as well, although Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider were not hunted in that movie. But Marathon Man was definitely one of those films. And it's the reason why I worked with [director John] Schlesinger on Eye for an Eye. 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].

I'm glad you brought up Marathon Man. In the spirit of that movie, let me ask you within the context of this show: Is it safe?

[chuckles] Not completely, no. And I think we're witnessing this. I've always likened this era — and I'm going back to the mid-90s to now — when you've had this incredible technological boom that's moving much faster than we evolve as human beings. You had this during the Industrial Revolution as well, and I had great conversations with my grandmother and grandfather about it. It takes us a minute to catch up, and we're absolutely in one of those times, and it leaves us very vulnerable. 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.

After 24, you went on to star in more TV thrillers, such as Designated Survivor and The Fugitive, before most recently playing FDR in the decidedly non-action thriller The First Lady. Was there a particular type of show that you were looking to do for your next project? What brought you to this corporate espionage thriller?

I think after 24, I was looking to do something that was different. And it's really dangerous when you start to look for something different for the sake of being different, which is exactly what I did. I felt I'd been doing something like 24 for a decade, that I should be looking to do something different — for all intellectual reasons, none of which came from my heart or my soul. Designated Survivor was not one of those jobs. Designated Survivor, I actually thought was just a genius idea that at times was maybe not as well executed as it could have been. But I certainly was very proud of that show. But there were other things that I was kind of looking for, even before that, in the first five years, where I was just like, "I'll do anything that's not related to 24." And that was a mistake.

First of all, it was a mistake because I absolutely adored doing 24. I loved it. And I had a blast. I should be doing what I think is actually fun and exciting to do as opposed to what I think people want me to do. I know that sounds really simple, but it's very funny when you do something for as long as I had with 24, and I kind of made some mistakes in figuring out what to do next. Also, the end of 24 — and I'll be really candid — it was a lot harder than I ever had anticipated, right? I'm a goal-oriented guy, so I wanted to finish — if it was going to be eight years or 10 years, it didn't matter, we started, I want to get it done, and one day it will be finished. And, yeah, it was hard. That crew and I, we'd spent 10 years together. There were 38 weddings and 45 children that were born over the course of the making of that show. For all the films that I've done before and we said, "Oh, gosh, we were like family," this was for real. And when it ended, it just ends, right? Like someone died. And I wasn't prepared for that, because I was so happy that it was ending: "I'm not going to have to wake up at four in the morning tomorrow!" [Laughs] But I went through a period of mourning without knowing I was going through a period of mourning.

It took me a minute get right about what it is I was excited about doing. Having said that, Designated Survivor was something that I really loved doing. For instance, something as simple as doing the fight sequences in this — yeah, I'm a little older and I'm a little creakier and the bones are making noises — but I missed it, and I really enjoyed it. So all of that stuff about this was a real plus for me.

The trailer shows John in action — for instance, the moment where he hands the security guard a box and tells him it is a bomb and issues instructions, which could have been in 24. But you're playing a bit of a different type of character here; he's savvier, but not nearly as action-based or heroic by nature. What intrigued you most about John Weir, a man who always has a plan but suddenly finds himself untethering from reality and losing control?

Well, it was really simple. He doesn't have the skillset of a Jack Bauer. He's much more intellectual. And I like the fact that, for instance, in that fight sequence [in the pilot], it was the first time in a long time where I was on the receiving end of a beating, as opposed to the giving end. So those things were turned around, which was interesting to me. But it literally was being the guy who went from being the hunter to the hunted. You want to go back to The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor — that's what I thought was really interesting as a character: to make all of your decisions based on fear. Marathon Man is another great example.

It allows you as an actor to tap into something that we all experience on a daily basis, on a much smaller level. But fear is a real part of our lives. A character that's entirely motivated by fear is something that's really interesting to play. And having two guys like John and Glenn writing that is really interesting as well. Then, at some point in the context of our show, it's all funneled through this relationship between [John and Hailey, played by Golding], and that's really interesting to do as well.

In the first episode, John is paranoid that Hailey has come into his life for the wrong reasons, and she's thrown by his accusations. By the second episode, the dynamic is shifting and they are even cracking jokes and there's some levity in the chaos. Is this series aiming to show a more comedic side of you while in save-the-day mode? And what can you hint about that relationship?

If you've ever punched out of your weight class and you've ended up with someone who's just so far exceeds anything you should possibly be with, it's a funny situation. And this is exactly that situation. I've been fortunate enough to know it quite well in my life, and what I find so absolutely charming about it is he has every buzzer going off in his body, of like, "She's lying. And this is not cool. And you're going to regret this." [Laughs] And then he has every other buzzer going off in his body: "Who f---ing cares? Look at her!"

He's got that great line in the first episode. [She says,] "Why do you think I'm lying?" And he says, "Well, look at you!" and I know how that feels. That was a really honest line for me. I also think it's incredibly funny and it tells me about him as well that he's got a sense of humor. That relationship is the center for me of the show, with regards to my character. Meta is an incredible actor, and just an incredible person. But the two of us, I think we do have a natural chemistry that worked, and I couldn't be more happy about that, because one thing that I haven't done in my career is comedy or be funny. I think she kind of dragged me, kicking and screaming, into dangerously being funny for a moment or two. [Laughs] And I will be forever grateful to her for that.

The show is titled Rabbit Hole, John is plagued by paranoia, and it runs in the family. How much fun will the show have with this unreliable protagonist? Can the audience even trust John, who doesn't trust himself?

Here's the deal. So when we started the show, we had four episodes and we were going to make eight. And I had this issue with 24 as well, certainly in the beginning before we really got going and knew what the show was. I read the next four episodes waiting to find out if I'm the bad guy or the good guy. I didn't know. And they certainly didn't tell me. What I enjoyed about that kind of experience was I had a sense of what it was going to be like for a person in the audience, and it's all open, right? It's all possible, especially if you're going to make a show about people lying, it just inherently becomes fun trying to figure out who's actually telling the truth. That's what they sold me on as the idea, and I was really thrilled that even in the context of making it, I was experiencing that.

How deep does this conspiracy go, and how powerful are these political or corporate forces, given their ability to influence populations?

As powerful as anything you can imagine. 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 not saying that there are dark, malevolent forces that are in the background that we don't see, but there are certainly forces out there, and 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.

Here are a couple of teases from John and Glenn about the show: "Things are not what they seem." "The show reframes the story in every episode." "We're lying to the audience, but we're hoping it's a delicious lie." What hint can you offer to further disorient viewers?

Well, first off, that just tells me that they're frustrated ad men, and they really wanted to just be doing that their whole lives. That's hysterical. Okay, I'll contradict them on some level. Yeah, there are certain lies that are being told to the audience, but there are also certain truths and you have to figure out which one is which. Does Hailey really love John? Or is she manipulative? It's an "and or but" question.

At the end of the day, John Weir's not a clean guy in this, right? He's manipulated a lot of different things in his career to get the upper hand. But his claim is that he's never done it where it's physically harmed somebody; it's only economically harmed somebody. But that's a pretty thin line, so he's not innocent in this. And then the key is, through what he ends up going through, do you end up really liking this character or not? Do you end up liking his potential girlfriend and all the other characters as well? And we are not making it easy for you to like them. You have to discern whether or not they're lying, whether they're telling the truth, whether they're victims or whether they're not. That actually makes it interesting.

Let's talk about the mysterious Dr. Ben Wilson (Charles Dance), whom we meet in the trailer. In our interview, John hinted, "What if you were forced to trust this man?" Clearly there are a lot of mysterious layers to Ben. What can viewers expect from him?

This sets up the show: Who's telling the truth? This guy actually comes out and his opening statement is, "I'm a liar and this is what I do, and I've worked for the CIA, but you have to trust me now." And it's a question of whether or not the audience is going to or whether they're going to question it. And there's payoffs for believing in one or the other. For me, I could watch Charlie read the phone book and I'd be like, "Oh, that's really cool." I would watch him doing anything. Giving an actor like that this kind of duality is an exciting thing to watch. And yeah, he's got the command, he's got the gravitas to do that.

By the way, you mentioned earlier that you haven't done a lot of comedy in your career —

I haven't done any of it.

But you're in They Cloned Tyrone, a Netflix sci-fi comedy mystery [which streams this summer]...

Yeah, they've told me I'm not allowed to talk about it. But you brought it up. Not me!

Yes, I brought it up. What do you play in that?

It's a dark, dark comedy. I was so thrilled to get to work with Jamie Foxx, who I've been a fan of, and who I think is one of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. And with regards to comedy, the key to that part for me is that I got to play it straight. And that's what was funny about the part. You know, it's not Carol Burnett-funny. It's me really leaning into a part and playing kind of an arch villain, and just by that, it becomes funny because the writing is so good.

Can you say anything else about the role?

I'm not on the good side of things. That's as vague as I'll put it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Related content:

• 'Things are not what they seem' in this Rabbit Hole first look
• Kiefer Sutherland shocks himself, shorts out a city in Rabbit Hole
• Kiefer Sutherland trusts no one — including himself — in Rabbit Hole first teaser