In tonight’s premiere of 24: Live Another Day, 24 fans will finally find out what went down after Chloe O’Brian ordered surveillance of rogue U.S. agent Jack Bauer turned off in the 2010 series finale of the FOX favorite.
The 12-episode event picks up the action four years later with Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) still on the lam from the CIA and trying to prevent a new terrorist attack that involves the assassination of the U.S. President — who just so happens to be James Heller (William Devane). Bauer’s once trusted ally Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) works for a Snowden-like uber-hacker named Adrian Cross (Michael Wincott) — and isn’t entirely happy to see her former pal.
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“We have such a cool cast coming on and Kiefer’s been so happy and excited about it,” Rajskub says. “It was like a perfect storm of the producers and writers being ready and Kiefer being in the right place and them pulling the trigger on it. … People have been asking and I’ve been expressing that I can’t believe this happened. Being on a show like this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience — and this is like, ‘Oh, twice in a lifetime!’ I get to come back and have this dark transformation and also work with people who feel like family to me and then get to go that much deeper.”
We recently interrogated Rajskub with our own 7 Questions.
1. You’re at a magazine rack and can only pick three titles. Which ones do you choose?
People Magazine. I’m just embarrassing, because I don’t pick intellectual things! I’ll do a “redo your kitchen” magazine — an Architectural Digest type of thing. And maybe an Elle.
2. If your TV or DVR carried just three shows, which would you choose?
The Walking Dead, House of Cards and True Detective. But you know what I’m embarrassed to admit I watched a few episodes of recently is Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I actually watched two or three back-to-back recently. One was where Kanye proposed to Kim at some sports field and they had fireworks and I was like, “Why are you watching this?!”— but I could not get enough of it. They’re all waiting in the dugout, trying to be really quiet and it was, like, really sweet and really gross all at the same time.
3. What are three things you have to have in your fridge or pantry?
These questions are funny! This is embarrassing, too. I keep trying to eat only raw foods and then I fail miserably. So it’s like extremes where one day I’ll have chunks of coconut as a snack and then the next day I fall off the wagon and have a frozen pizza. So it’s like, “Is it going to be green juice or grilled cheese?” I can’t spend my day craving things — sometimes you gotta just have ’em! But if you’re taking away everything but three things — dark chocolate, frozen pizza and broccoli.
4. What has been your strangest fan encounter?
It’s always something weird at the airport. Usually being hugged by a stranger and having them call me by my character’s name. The hugs from a stranger can go either way. They can either be fantastic or terrible.
5. Tell me about a time that you were starstruck.
Does Kiefer Sutherland count? Otherwise, probably Steve Martin or Garry Shandling. More recently, I was at an event with Queen Latifah. That was pretty awesome.
6. Your fans are unbelievably faithful to you and to Chloe. How great is it to be able to bring her back to the fans, as well?
I can’t wait ’til it comes out! I know this would make the lady who handles our press here very nervous, but I’m really tempted to just start Tweeting people, like, “I’m going to be at Waterloo Station for the next 20 minutes! Come say hi!” Because people are just so beyond excited and I can see that on Twitter. And it never really stopped with all the downtime! People are re-watching their box sets and stuff. It’s really nuts.
7. Perhaps Chloe’s — and the show’s — most interesting high-profile fan was former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who named a Department of Homeland Security surveillance technology development program Project Chloe. How surreal was that?
You know what’s so funny — and I’d like to say that it’s because I’m humble, but it’s really just because I’m not really quite that with it? Someone actually brought that up to me recently and I was like, “Oh yeah, I forgot!” I just go about my life because you can’t really let that enter into your brain. I mean, I sat next to him at a dinner years ago and he told me about that and I just was like, “does not compute!”
24: Live Another Day premieres Monday, May 5 at 8/7CT on FOX
Photo © 2014 Fox Broadcasting Co. Credit: Harley Evans/FOX
