The Forsaken star recalls real-life excitement during making of Young Guns.
For Kiefer Sutherland, Forsaken — now available in limited theatrical release and as video on demand — represents more than a career high point. The western drama also enhanced the personal and professional bonds between him and his father, veteran actor Donald Sutherland, with whom he shares several emotionally charged scenes. As he tells C&I in our April issue cover-story profile: “This film means a great deal to me, obviously — more than any other single thing I’ve done — for those moments.”
But Forsaken isn’t the only western on Sutherland’s résumé that always will trigger fond memories for the 24 star.
He recalls an afternoon during the on-location filming of Young Guns — the 1988 western in which he appeared alongside such notables as Emilio Estevez, Lou Diamond Phillips, Jack Palance, and Terence Stamp — when real-life events drew him away from the shoot-’em-up storytelling.
“I remember them having to pull me off a horse,” Sutherland says, “to tell me that my daughter was on her way.”
Say what?
“I had just shot a guy in a shootout, and I had blood all over me when the producer walked up and said, ‘We need to talk.’ And I said, ‘Oh my God, what have I done? Am I in trouble?’” He said, ‘No, just come with me.’ That’s when he explained that my wife had gone into labor a week early — and they had landed a plane in a field to get me to Los Angeles for the birth.
“So I showed up at the hospital — having not changed, forgetting that I had blood all over me — and I walked in and said, ‘Where’s the maternity ward?’ And the nurse looked at me and said, ‘Oh my God! Sorry, you must have a concussion. We’ll get you into emergency right away!’ She thought I was bleeding all over myself. And I was like, ‘No, no, no, no! I’m an actor!’ And she was like, ‘Of course you are. You’re dizzy.’ And she kept trying to get me into the operating room.”
Fortunately, Sutherland eventually was able to convince the nurse that he’d just been playing cowboy.
