Born to Canadian parents Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, Kiefer spent much of his childhood at the theatre with his mother, and visiting his father on sets in L.A. He joined the family business at 15 with his first role in Max Dugan Returns. Kiefer followed that with The Bay Boy and a Genie Award for Best Actor. He headed for L.A. after that, landing roles in Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories and the telefilm Trapped in Silence, with Marsha Mason.
Roles in Stand By Me, The Lost Boys, Young Guns, Eye for an Eye, Article 99 and A Few Good Men, Three Musketeers and The Vanishing followed. Other film credits include Dark City, A Soldier’s Sweetheart, Taking Lives, The River Queen and Phone Booth, to name just a few.
His television credits include the blockbuster hits 24, for which he has earned a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama Series, and Designated Survivor.
Sutherland made his directorial debut in the Showtime film Last Light, garnering glowing reviews. In 1997, he added his second directorial credit and starred in Truth or Consequences, N.M. along with Kevin Pollak, Rod Steiger and Martin Sheen.
Kiefer starred in The Glass Menagerie with his mother, Shirley Douglas, at The Royal Alexandra Theatre. “During rehearsals, we’d be two professional people working together. Then, the second we’d break for lunch, she’d be my mother again, talking in a motherly, listen-to-me-son tone.”
