Kiefer Sutherland started the year in jail, serving 18 days of a 48-day sentence behind bars for a drink driving conviction. It's good, then, to see that in the latter half of 2008, Kiefer is making headlines for all the right reasons.

Professionally he is on a high with the return of hit show 24, which opens for a seventh season with a big-budget feature-length episode.

The 41-year-old actor has had a colourful 25 years in Hollywood to say the least and he doesn't show any signs of slowing down, even if he may at last be settling down.

"If you work as hard as I do, you should be allowed to reward yourself by going over the top from time to time," says Sutherland of his reputation for hard work and hard living.

His need to let his hair down has left him in hospital a number of times and, just as frequently, in trouble with the law.

LIFE AS JACK BAUER

Kiefer's time in jail handily coincided with the writers' strike in LA, and the star believes 24 fans are in for a treat now Jack is back full time.

"As difficult as it was for us to take the break because of the strike, I think the audience was affected the most. It was something that no one wanted to do," Sutherland says.

"I don't think the writers wanted to do it, the actors didn't want to do it, and Jon Cassar (24 director) didn't want to do it. It happened nonetheless. I think Fox made a very smart decision with regards to 24, because I think it is at its best when it's released continuously, so you can watch all 24 episodes in a row.

"The one benefit, if you are looking for a silver lining, is that it gave the writers an unbelievable amount of time to really craft this season. We, as actors, had scripts available to us, which we've never had in the past six years of making the show.

"I believe it's the best work we've ever done. The stuff we did in Africa is really some of the stuff I'm the most excited about in regards to 24."

It's perhaps surprising that an actor of Kiefer's calibre has attached himself to a small-screen role for so long. The fact is that in Jack Bauer, he has found a character that continues to excite and fascinate him as well as the fans. So much so that he is executive producer, as well as star, of 24.

"I think one of the coolest things that I'm most excited about is that Jack is always trying to be better than before," says Kiefer. "I have always loved that about the character.

"Then there are all the cool things I get to do on the show, like cutting that guy's head off in season two," he laughs.

Kiefer grew up in Toronto surrounded by movie makers in parents Shirley Douglas and actor father Donald Sutherland, who was a calm guiding light.

"We don't talk about work a whole lot," says Kiefer of his 73-year-old Hollywood legend dad.

"We don't get to see each other enough anyway, so when we do, he wants to know about my daughter.

"We talk about my brothers. We talk about him and Francine (Donald's third wife). Our family stuff.

"He's been very supportive -- apparently he likes 24 and he's very funny about that. But the work itself, we don't really talk about it at all now.

ADVICE FROM HIS DAD

"He's given me one great piece of advice, when I was 15 years old. He said, within the context of the character, don't ever get caught lying -- because they'll never forgive you for it. And what he meant by that was within any moment, don't try to find a short-cut or do what you think the audience wants to see. Do what you actually feel is right. The times I've tried to do something different, I've got nailed for it. So he was right."

But Kiefer has not always seen eye-to-eye with Sutherland senior. "When I was younger, I refused to see any similarities between myself and my father, and it is only in the past 15 years that I've come to appreciate what a great actor he is," he goes on.

"Now, I see my father in me every day. I see his looks and I see his acting style. I am my father's son."

Kiefer seems just as together when it comes to the other relationships in his life. He is playing down rumours that he is about to tie the knot with 36-year-old fashion journalist Siobhan Bonnouvrier, but it is clear he is happy not to be a bachelor boy any more.

Despite having been single for some time before Siobhan came along, Kiefer has quite a history when it comes to his love life.

He has a 20-year-old daughter, Sarah Jude, from his first marriage to actress Camelia Kath, as well as having a close relationship with stepsons Julian, 17, and Timothy, 14, from his second marriage to Canadian ex-model Kelly Winn.

HIS RUNAWAY BRIDE

andwiched between his two ex-wives, is the time he was famously dumped at the altar by Julia Roberts, who fled for Ireland in the arms of Sutherland's best pal, actor Jason Patric.

Kiefer had met Roberts in 1990 on the set of Flatliners. He left Camelia and their family to be with the rising star and he, along with the rest of Hollywood, was swept up in the romance between the Lost Boy and the Pretty Woman.

In August 1990, the couple announced their engagement, with an elaborate studio-planned wedding scheduled for summer of the following year. But Julia broke the engagement just three days before the wedding when she discovered Sutherland had been meeting with a stripper named Amanda Rice.

With a past like that and 15-hour-day schedules for 24, it's no wonder that when Sutherland finds time to cut loose he does so in grand style -- as he did in London a few years ago, when he drunkenly assaulted a Christmas tree at the Strand Palace Hotel.

"I'm really very content with where my life is at," he says before the subject once again switches to the past and his days as a teen idol.

"Well, the lessons learned never stop. I think that acting is almost like working out. It's a physical exercise that one has to go through. The more that you train it and the more you use whatever that instrument is -- your body, your brain, your voice, and all those things combined.

"I hope I still approach each project with the same kind of youthful exuberance that I did with something like Stand By Me or Lost Boys."

Kiefer made his name at a young age in Hollywood. Like many former child actors, he can't help but wonder what he missed out on. Maybe that's why he plays so hard now. "In a way I do feel I've missed out because in some respects, I've done all my growing up backwards," he says.

"I mean, I dropped out of school at 15 so I missed out on graduation or going to college. I'd never had buddies and, in a way, I didn't even know how to deal with people my own age, because from the time I was 15, the youngest people I was around were 30. Then, when I was 19, I married a 33-year-old woman, and had a baby of my own by the time I was 20."

RETURN TO MOVIES

The autumn also brings Kiefer back to the big screen. Mirrors is a chilling horror movie that is set to get pulses racing in a different way from 24. "Horror films, for me growing up certainly, there wasn't a genre of film that could give you any stronger a visceral reaction through watching it," says Kiefer, explaining his role as an ex-cop whose family is terrorised by an evil spectre.

"I had always heard that as an actor, that is something that would draw you to a genre film. You can actually affect an audience that powerfully, and that quickly, so the genre was something I was really interested in.

"I remember at the very first meeting I had read the script and loved it. To play hope and fear at the same time was something that was a real challenge for me.

"This is going to be kind of embarrassing," says the London-born star, shaking his head. "Growing up, the movie that scared me most was not The Exorcist. I know that is it for so many people. And it was not The Omen. There was a film made in 1972 or 73 called The Car.

"The Car in the movie was basically possessed by the devil, and it was a black Lincoln, with yellow windows. It went into this small town and ran everybody over. This car could go through houses. The only place it couldn't go was a graveyard or a church. Every time the car came into town, the wind would start to blow and music would start to play.

"I don't think I've ever been scared by anything more in my life.

"The irony of this is that I lived on a 14th floor in an apartment complex in Toronto called Crescent Town, but I was still scared that this car was going to manage to get through, get up there, and run me over!

"I wasn't that young either. I think I was 12. I should have known better. It stayed with me for months."

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

Looking to the future, things have never looked so bright for the likeable star. He hopes 24 will go on and on and is inevitably thinking big things for the franchise -- like a 24 feature film.

"We really don't want to entertain the notion of a theatrical release film until after the show is over," says Kiefer, who is noticeably more comfortable talking shop.

"The demand on the writers to keep the show going is so great we really couldn't take them out of that."

And before he disappears into the hoards of comic-book geeks and sci-fi nuts at San Diego Comic Con, Kiefer has a little present for the many 24 fans who have long wondered just when Jack fits in a toilet break on his real-time adventures.

Kiefer grins as he solves one of TV's longest running mysteries. "Actually we did shoot a scene where Jack raids an office and runs into the washroom in the lobby and comes out nine seconds later a lot happier," he says. But they cut it out!

"Our stock answer is, whenever they cut to the White House, Jack is in the bathroom. And not only is he taking a leak, he's having a drink and getting something to eat."

So now we know.

- Adam Stone