Kiefer Sutherland: Man-Child in Filmland

The bloodlines are unmistakable. When Kiefer Sutherland strolls into a room, you are immediately reminded of his father, actor Donald Sutherland. There are differences. Kiefer is seven inches shorter than his father, who stands 6-4. And Kiefer has a slightly fuller face. But the full-lipped mumble is there--and so is the diverse career.

Barely into manhood, the 21-year-old Sutherland has already made 12 films, most of them features. He played a bully in “Stand By Me,” a vampire in “The Lost Boys,” a nerdy failure in “Promised Land,” a slick adman/cokehead in “Bright Lights, Big City” and a soft-spoken gunfighter in “Young Guns.”

In his current film, “1969,” he’s off to college with buddy Robert Downey, Jr. during the turbulence of the Vietnam War era. Downey becomes embroiled in anti-draft activity, while Sutherland becomes an idealistic hippie, dropping out to travel, confident in his ability to make the world a better place. The film from Atlantic Releasing, written and directed by Ernest Thompson, opened in early Novemember to mixed reviews.

“I probably understand the ‘60s a lot better than the period I’m (living) in now,” he said during an interview at the office of his personal publicist. “I didn’t have to do massive research because I heard about it at the family dinner table. I grew up with two politically active parents. The ‘60s was my family’s heyday. I went on a march against police brutality when I was 5 years old.”

Donald Sutherland was very active in Vietnam War protests. His wife, stage actress Shirley Douglas, whom he divorced when Kiefer was 4, was a Black Panther sympathizer. Kiefer’s grandfather, T.C. Douglas, was the first leader of Canada’s socialist New Democratic Party.

Of “1969,” Sutherland said: “It’s more of a nostalgic look at the 1960s. We’ve given a more positive interpretation of the period. If there was a time in the 1960s that was close to blissful, it was 1967, the summer of love, before Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were shot. People’s collective goals still felt tangible and reachable.”

From the audience’s point of view, Sutherland’s character, Scott, might seem confused and aimless. Dropping out of college, he paints his van in psychedelic colors, writes poetry about nature and eventually becomes a Vietnam War protester.

Sutherland, however, admires the character’s “inner strength.”

“Scott lived by his ideals 100%,” he said. “He was one of those people who, by being there, thought he could change things. He had real strength. Nothing fazed him. He was so content. There’s something very attractive about people like Scott. I want so badly to be like that.”

Although the young actor has been working professionally since he was 15, he is still in the process of growing up.

“In my work I have a lot of experience, but I think I probably have a lot of shortcomings in other areas,” he said with a touch of embarrassment.

“As an actor, I’ve probably done more work than most actors that are 30. But as a human being, I have some very young aspects that take me right down to about 3.”

Last year, he married a woman 12 years his senior. They now have a baby daughter, Sarah. His wife, actress-producer Camelia Kath, has a 12-year-old daughter from an earlier marriage. So when Sutherland is not on location, he is step-parenting an almost-teen-ager.

(Contrary to a recent People magazine report--published after this interview took place--a spokeswoman for Sutherland said that his marriage is not breaking up.)

“Camelia is kind of the authority figure in our house,” Sutherland said with a chuckle. “She deals with things in a very different way than I do. She just went away for four days, and this is one of the first times I’ve been allowed to be with the baby alone.” Actually, there’s also a nanny.

“It’s not a real trust problem that anyone has with me. I just forget to do a lot of things when I’m playing with her--like I forget to feed her. I like to fly her around the room. I do that for hours. She has such fun that she forgets she’s hungry. She falls asleep and wakes up very cranky.”

Sutherland is thrilled to be a father. “Children help adults in a lot of ways,” he said. “Humility is probably the largest. I’ve done stupid things just in trying to keep Sarah from crying.

“In a lot of ways, having a baby has made me feel a lot younger. When I was living by myself, I was very much in control of my life. I felt very grown up. I could sit on the steps at 3 in the morning and have a drink and a cigarette and go to bed whenever I wanted. I felt very sophisticated.

“This is Camelia’s second child and my first time dealing with an infant. I had so many expectations built up in my mind. The first week was so different from what I envisioned, I was in shock. She was like a potato. You always think they’ll come out and look up at you and say, ‘Oh, you wonderful man!’ ”

Sutherland the parent may still need parenting himself, but Sutherland the actor has impressed critics with his versatility. Unlike many of his contemporaries, whose range seems to be limited to playing themselves, he can play many parts. He attributes it to his theater training, which he started at age 15 after dropping out of his Canadian boarding school.

He made his first film, “The Bay Boy,” in 1984 opposite Liv Ullmann and then moved to New York.

“I’d come from Canada, where I’d been nominated for a Canadian Academy Award and had done a lot of plays and had a career going,” he said, “and I spent a year and a half out of work.”

Then he came to Hollywood, slept in his car on the beach and eventually was hired for “The Mission,” an episode of “Amazing Stories.” He has worked nonstop since.

His father’s life and career have been his inspiration. “My father told me, ‘As long as you act a scene honestly, it doesn’t matter if you get caught making the wrong choice. The honesty will come through.’ To a 15-year-old, that had an awfully profound effect.”

He also listened to his mother’s advice. “She said, ‘Smile when you’re doing a television interview.’ OK, I thought, it’s all seemingly pretty simple now. Acting is two things--smiling and being honest. Right.”