HAIL TO THE RETURNING CHIEF - CHERRY JONES ON '24' - SEASON EIGHT

Exclusive Interview: 

The award-winning actress talks about playing the President once again and giving orders to Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN, Contributing Writer
Published 12/29/2009

Cherry Jones is known to Broadway lovers as the winner of two leading actress Tony Awards, in 1995 for THE HEIRESS and in 2005 for DOUBT. Filmgoers have seen her in features including SIGNS and THE PERFECT STORM.

But television viewers likely know her best for her Emmy Award-winning portrayal of beleaguered but determined U.S. President Allison Taylor on this past season of Fox's 24, the role Jones originated in the 2008 telefilm 24: REDEMPTION. President Taylor survived the bedlam of 24’s seventh season to return for its forthcoming eighth debuting on Fox this January 17th.

Naturally, Jones is sworn to secrecy about most of what she’s doing this season, but here’s what she can tell us about what’s happened so far and how involved she is with the show this year.

 

iF: When you started 24, you were saying that you wanted to look really tired, because you could see that President Barack Obama was so tired in his first month in office, his face was shaking.

 

CHERRY JONES: [laughs] That’s right.

 

iF: Did you feel after awhile like, "Okay, enough with looking tired?" Because your President Taylor did wind up looking fairly put together despite the day she was having.

 

JONES: She did get a brief period where she got to change clothes, have a shower and proceed, but I think if you notice at the very end of the series, I may look put together and clean, but I’m pretty tired-looking. She starts [the day/season] having lost a child, having survived a U.S. presidential campaign, and she’s about to launch an intervention in another country. So I wanted her to look pretty shitty from the get-go [laughs].

 

iF: Did you know at the outset that Tony Todd’s General Juma  was going to show up in the White House?

 

JONES: Certainly not.

 

iF: What were some other big surprises between the TV movie and your first full season on 24?

 

JONES: That I had a grown daughter [laughs]. I had no idea until about the third episode that I had a grown daughter. And I remember this one – Mr. [Howard] Gordon came up to me in the grand corridor of the White House one day and said, "Your character is I think a very noble person, but she is a human being and a world leader and therefore also probably flawed [laughs]," and my Achilles heel apparently was my family. But honestly, when I started, I didn’t know if she was going to end up being another Greg Itzin, another President Logan, or more in the David Palmer mode. I had no idea. And I was delighted to see the strength that they gave her. Every single episode, it was such integrity.

 

F: Were you rooting for her to go one way or the other?

 

JONES: Well, I became invested in her being an honorable human being. And I have to say, if she had turned out to be a bad guy, I would have been really disappointed, because I bought into her integrity.

iF: Well, having had an evil female vice-president on PRISON BREAK, maybe Fox felt, "You know, we can’t have another …"

 

JONES: Bad woman [laughs]?

 

iF: "We can’t keep doing this with the idea of a woman as president." After all, there’s a theory that believes David Palmer helped pave the way in people’s minds for Barack Obama.

 

JONES: Culturally, it certainly didn’t hurt. I don’t know if they literally paved the way, but it certainly did no damage in that department.

 

iF: Do you feel at all like you’re maybe making people a little more comfortable with the idea of Madame President?

 

JONES: Well, I do think television operates as an educational tool and opens our minds – the best of television opens our minds. In that instance, presenting a strong woman leader certainly opens a few minds, I hope.

 

iF: You play President Taylor with such intensity …

 

JONES: Well, the situations that these guys give me are so insane and they’re so intense that I always try to put myself in the position of this woman in these impossible situations and it’s always very easy to give them a little loft. It’s there. The situations are so outrageous [laughs].

 

iF: Obviously, you are sworn to secrecy about what’s happening now, but did you have a particular favorite scene from your first season on the show?

 

JONES: I loved being in the safe room with Kiefer [Sutherland as Jack Bauer] – that was fun. As a new fan of 24, because I had not watched the show before I was on it and I was catching up with all the seasons and I found myself completely star-struck with everyone I was having to go and work with, being in that safe room with Kiefer, that was a greatly enjoyable scene. He’s the big cheese of 24, but in the final analysis, he works for me [laughs]. [Those scenes] were fun. When I got to say to Jack Bauer, "Open that door," he had to open it.

 

iF: What did you do during the hiatus between 24 seasons?

 

JONES: I actually had a fun day a few months ago – I have a little part in the film AMELIA with Hilary Swank and Richard Gere that Mira Nair directed. I play Eleanor Roosevelt. I shot on 24 all day one day and I got on a plane, flew to Toronto and by nine the next morning was playing Eleanor Roosevelt. So in a twenty-four hour period, I got to play the President and the First Lady, which may never have happened before.

 

iF: That may be some sort of Guinness World Record.

 

JONES: Yeah, I think so. I was excited about that. There’s just one other little film that’s coming up and probably it’s going to be a great film. It’s starring Annette Bening and Naomi Watts and Kerry Washington and David Morse and Jimmy Smits and S. Epatha Merkelson, and it’s directed and written by Rodrigo Garcia, a wonderful writer and director. It’s called MOTHER AND CHILD. It’s a beautiful, beautiful script..I got to work with Annette and Kerry Washington, and they were just superb. So I think that will be an exciting film.

 

iF: When in the process was it decided that your President Taylor would be coming back for another season of 24?

 

JONES: Initially, we just thought I was going to be back maybe for a couple of episodes and then it seemed like maybe there would be a few more and then suddenly, it was at least the first half. I don’t know beyond that whether they’re going to need me or not, but I’m personally so thrilled to be back, because I love this crew and the people I work with when I get to go to Chatsworth and do this show. I don’t get to go as much as I would like to, because I wish I were there every day. I love to act and I love to be with these people. But just to come back for a few days every month is heaven for me.

Source: ifmagazine.com