By: Valerie Milano – Pasadena, CA (Hollywood Today) 1/23/12

Kiefer Sutherland at the FOX TOUCH TCA Jan 8, 2012

            After eight seasons on Emmy Award-winning series 24, Kiefer Sutherland returns to FOX with Touch, which will preview this week on January 25 and premiere on March 19. The show, from the creator of Heroes, Tim Kring, stars Sutherland as a single father who discovers that his 11-year-old son can see hidden patterns connecting people worldwide.

            Recently, at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, Touch‘s executive producers, Katherine Pope and Carol Barbee, executive producer and director Francis Lawrence, creator and executive producer Tim Kring, and stars Kiefer Sutherland, David Mazouz and Gugu Mbatha Raw sat down to discuss the show. 

            Addressing any comparison between Sutherland’s character on Touch, Martin Bohm, and Jack Bauer of 24, Kring explained, “The script was not originally written with Kiefer in mind.  And in terms of Jake’s character being like a character on Heroes, we probably had some characters that had various abilities that would be kind of in that category, but this is not a superpower idea. It’s more of a mystical or spiritual idea.”

            Explaining the story line to HT, Kring said, “So each week will have enough of a standalone feeling because you will get a beginning and a middle and an end from these stories, and the Martin and Jake characters will be following kind of an “A” story that each week will be a different story, some bread-crumb trail that Jake’s character is leading his father on. And then centered around that will be these satellite stories that all interconnect. And you are right. Each week will be different a different set of characters and a different slice of life story that we will see.”

            Discussing the difference in his characters, Sutherland offered, “Well, they are both fantastic opportunities. I mean, the opportunity that I had in 24 to have to repress all of this stuff and carry that with me informed the character beautifully for me. To be able to have the antithesis of that and this opportunity now where he can openly show and have an emotional reaction to what is actually happening at this exact moment is another fantastic opportunity.” He continued, “The one thing I learned over the course of doing 24 was that these characters developed hopefully over a long period of time. If we are lucky enough to be able to do the show for a few years, this character will grow. And so that is an aspect that I would like to see this character grow in. Very much like in 24 where the repression was something that got heavier and heavier and heavier, this will hopefully become more open and more open and more open.”

            Further discussing his character with HT, Sutherland allowed, “Unwittingly. I mean, again, the real driving force for my character is to really just simply communicate with his son. He wants to have as normal a relationship as he possibly can with his son, which I think every parent can relate to. And the rest of the stuff is really for the audience to kind of experience in how one thing can interconnect or affect another. But, really, the driving force for me is to have this relationship with my son. The one parallel that I can actually bring from the two characters is that Jack Bauer was asked to save the day, and there were always going to be casualties. So it was never going to be a perfect win. And Martin Bohm, my character in Touch, is never going to have the perfect, idyllic relationship with his son, and so there is a circumstance, a kind of weight on both characters where they just will never completely win. And that is something that, for whatever reason, I am drawn to certainly as an actor.”

            Kring also denies that the show is about autism, explaining, “The show does not attempt to talk about autism. It’s not a show about autism. In fact, just to give you a little background on why the character is the way he is: I sort of backed into what the character, what Jake’s character, was — by the idea of a character who had this gift to see how we were all connected. And then I started to take away various attributes of that character and think about — wouldn’t it be interesting if that character who has this very profound gift was someone who was the most disenfranchised person on the planet? He’s small. He’s unable to communicate, unable to even make his point known. And so I think, by backing into some of those ideas, we ended up with a child who, by the outside world, would be labeled or diagnosed as autistic. In the pilot, we have Danny Glover’s character, who is a professor, who has done research on this, on these people, who he thinks has this gift. He literally states kind of right up front that there is a misdiagnosis going on.”

            Speaking further on Touch‘s story, Sutherland said, “This show, there is no wrong place at the wrong time. This explains that things happen for a reason, and very much like the wildebeest that is stung by a bee in the Serengeti and starts a stampede and creates a dust cloud that rises and carries over two continents and starts a storm in the Gulf, there is a cause and effect to everything. And I think, just on a fantastical level, certainly for me as a reader, why I chose to do this show, and certainly while I’ve watched it, there’s something wonderfully comforting about thinking that everything has a purpose and that there is no small moment. The choice to get on a bus or not get on a bus will have an effect on the other people on the bus and the people on the curb if you choose not to get on it and that we matter.”

            Addressing the audience for Touch and its positive tone, Katherine Pope offered, “Yeah, I mean, I think that, as Tim said, this show came out of a feeling that is, I think, universal, that we are connected. So I think if broadcasting hopes to appeal to the broadest audience possible, I’m not sure there’s a more visceral, broad idea than, you know, you are connected to the person sitting next to you, to the person across the world from you. So I think that the world is ready for this show, for sure.”

            Looking ahead for Touch, Kring stated, “I don’t think that the show is really, at least where it is right now, in what you’ve seen, is really just about putting this message out into the world and just about trying to create stories that uplift people through this theme of interconnectivity. In terms of actually calling attention to various things, it is a show that aspires to do that. And as we go forward, I would love to be able to have some of the stories that we tackle, especially some of the global issues, call attention to various issues around the world and use the power of storytelling to create some positive change out there.”