"Sutherland stars with William Hurt in the futuristic thriller Dark City"
(usaweekend / 01.03.1998)
He was the defiant son of a famous father. So he understood when his teen stepdaughter shaved her head. "It's healthy" when kids rebel, the actor says.
When actor Kiefer Sutherland's stepdaughter was 15, she wanted to shave her head.
"We said no," Sutherland says, but the girl found a way. She shaved the bottom of her head and left the hair on top long. Then, with friends, she wore a ponytail to display her sheared look. "I had to act like I was mad," recalls Sutherland, "but part of me was proud of her. She made it work for herself."
Sutherland, who shaved his head and pierced an ear at age 12, advises parents not to freak out over teen rebels.
"Today, body-piercing seems to be the rage. Kids want to make a mark and identify themselves as their generation. It's healthy that they have to fight with parents for it. It costs them something."
Sutherland, 31, who has a 10-year-old daughter and three stepchildren, was famous in his early 20s for fast living. He says he has settled down and found ways to connect with his parents, actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas.
Last year, he starred with his mother in a stage production of The Glass Menagerie.
"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.
To understand how parents and kids can relate, Sutherland holds fast to his memory of seeing Ordinary People at age 13. In that movie, about a suicidal teen, there's a pivotal scene between the boy and his dad.
"They're talking on the porch, and it was so beautiful. I remember thinking, 'I'd like to have a conversation like that one day with my dad.' "
His father played the father in that movie.
"The film made me think, 'I guess I'm partially responsible. I have to instigate conversations, too.' " Eventually, he and his father did share such heartfelt moments. "That film broke my heart." It also opened his eyes.
"Be brutally truthful" with yourself:
"People alter memories to suit them," says Sutherland, who was engaged to Julia Roberts until the wedding was called off at the last minute in 1991. However hurtful they may be, "our memories give us strength."
On playing villains:
"If I didn't play the bad guy, you couldn't have good guys."
How to "read" a cow: (Sutherland's California ranch has 400 head of cattle. Team roping is his hobby.)
"I love reading a cow. You watch its withers, right in the shoulder blades. It's the initial hint of which way a cow is going to go."
Let twins be individuals:
Sutherland has a twin, Rachel. "My mother [Canadian actress Shirley Douglas] made a point of allowing us to be different," he says. "She didn't get into that cutie thing of wearing the same outfits. We had a strong sense of our own identities."
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