Inside Kiefer Sutherland’s Relationship with His Late Dad Donald Sutherland: Pride, Love and Distance

When Kiefer Sutherland was two years old, his father Donald Sutherland – who died on Thursday, June 20, aged 88 – remembered how his son behaved.

“He was running in circles and banging his head against the wall. I told him to stop, but he said he was just trying to make me laugh,” Donald told PEOPLE in 1984.

Fast forward a few decades, and Kiefer, now 57, was still pining for his father’s approval. “I want to impress him. I want him to be proud of me,” said the winner of 24 Emmys for Radio Times in 2022

Growing up, Kiefer knew his father was a movie star, but he didn’t realize it until later Stupid and MASH the actor was a major player in the industry. “I remember feeling very bad as a son because I was not aware not only of how prolific an actor my father was, but also how much he really contributed to the art of cinema,” he later said.

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Even so, Kiefer — whose mother, Canadian actress Shirley Douglas, split from the elder Sutherland when Kiefer was about 4 — was eager to act. At the age of 9, Kiefer got a role in a play about the Second World War A throne made of strawhis first taste of stardom unrelated to his parents.

Donald Sutherland and son Kiefer Sutherland in 2008.

Michael Tran/FilmMagic

But when Kiefer was about 10 years old, Douglas moved him and his twin sister Rachel, 2,500 miles away from Los Angeles (and the heart of the entertainment industry) to Toronto, where the boy had a hard time adjusting. He often traveled to LA to see his father.

Kiefer said Radio Times 2022 that the physical space between him and his father affected their relationship. “Because I grew up with my mother, there’s a kind of distance between us,” he said.

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The Sutherlands bonded over acting, and Kiefer appeared on screen in a small role in his father’s 1983 film. Max Dugan returns. As a teenager, Kiefer decided to drop out of school and focus on acting full-time, landing the lead role in the 1984 coming-of-age film. Bay Boy.

Kiefer Sutherland and Donald Sutherland at the Oscars in 1989.

Barry King/WireImage

The team invited Donald to the set to watch his son at work, but he refused. “He thought it was my turn,” Kiefer explained at the time. “I earned that place, so I should have the light.”

Kiefer, who would later star in 1980s classics The lost boys, Stand by me and Young gunslingers, gladly took the spotlight. “There will always inevitably come a time when the younger lion wants to face the older lion,” Kiefer recalled to PEOPLE in 2016 about the father-son dynamic from decades ago.

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The sense of playful competition continued into Kiefer’s adulthood. “I benefited genetically from my father who has one of the most terrifying voices of all time,” said the younger Sutherland Guard in 2022

“He was doing voiceovers for those Volvo commercials and he was getting paid a lot more than I thought at first. So I jokingly told his agent that I could make a very good Donald Sutherland for half the money. I don’t think my father thought it was funny, but I thought it was hysterical,” he continued.

Donald Sutherland and Kiefer Sutherland in 1984.

Jim Russell/Toronto Star via Getty

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The Sutherlands largely shared the screen in the 2016 Western Left behind, starring Demi Moore. “Working with him is something I’ve wanted to do for 30 years,” Kiefer told PEOPLE while promoting the film.

Donald added that it was an “awful” experience and praised Kiefer as a “wonderful” actor.

The Sutherlands clearly had a deep affection for each other. “I love him, even though I don’t see him as much as I’d like,” Kiefer said Radio Times. “I am so proud that he is my father.”

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Source: HIS Education