Image Credit: FoxIn anticipation of the 24 finale, EW talked exclusively to the Emmy-winning Cherry Jones about President Allison Taylor’s trippy story arc this year (like how she’s overlooking the Russians’ involvement in the assassination of Omar Hassan and focusing on a doomed peace agreement instead). But spoiler alert, fans! Though the longtime stage actress doesn’t give away too much about the ending, she does tease a thing or two about where her character is headed. Read on after the jump:
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you expect to be on the show all season?
CHERRY JONES: It was funny. The week before the Emmys, I was told they weren’t going to be able to use me in the back half. The arc had gone in another direction. Then two days before the Emmys, they called and said, “We are going to need you for the whole back half.” When we started getting into it, [executive producer] Howard Gordon kept coming to me and giving me ideas that maybe my character was going to be taking a turn. Each script I got, I’d look at it and go, “Really? REALLY?” Every day I’d go to work and say to myself, “It’s for the little children. It’s for the little children.”
You mean the little children she is saving by signing the peace agreement?
The peace she has become completely blindsided by. It doesn’t matter who tries to blow up New York or who is responsible for Hassan or whatever, we are going to make this work! Obviously, she has lost her marbles.
At the beginning of the season, you sure spent a lot of time on the phone in the U.N.
A lot of phone calls! I thought that was going to be my fate, and then at the very end I lose my marbles. It was challenging, but of course it’s always more fun for an actor to trip over to the dark side. Example A: Gregory Itzin as Charles Logan. Guy Skinner, the handheld camera guy who does all of those insane close-ups, came up to me and said, “Is this kind of hard for you?”
Would you talk about it with Howard Gordon? Maybe argue that her actions were way out-of-character?
By the end of the season, these guys are just this side of brain dead. They have been trying so hard. They don’t have an arc. Most TV shows would have an arc and they would figure out how to nudge everybody in the direction they wanted to go in. These guys look at the performances, look at who they’ve got and try to follow things they think will be the most shocking. The fact that my character has suddenly taken this turn was never anticipated by anyone, but they have to figure out a way to justify it. They and I have managed to do that. I’ve got to hand it to them, they live right on the edge. They don’t take the easy road.
Are you satisfied by how it ends for you?
Given how they needed to use me, I am. They give me a personal if not a professional redemption.
Is there an opening for you to do the 24 movie?
I can’t imagine that would be the case.
Up until the last month or so, have fans come up to you and said they wished you were the president?
Yes, to which I would reply, “Oh no, you must be grateful and joyful that we’ve got the president we have.” I would tell them to wash their mouths out with soap to utter such a thought.
What scene did you have the most fun doing this year?
I adore working with Bob Gunton [Ethan] and Greg. I was so happy to be with those two men, scene after scene. There was this one scene where I’ve got Ethan on one shoulder and Beelzebub on the other. It’s an actor’s dream. I didn’t have to do any of the lines, I just had to listen.
I thought the producers were setting up the possibility of a romance between Allison and Ethan!
I never thought that when we were doing it, but my friends back home in Tennessee would say, “In the trailer you all were holding hands.” He had a wedding band on! That’s the thing, even the actors don’t really know about their characters. I used to say to Bob, “Are you married, widowed, what’s going on?” And he’d say “I don’t know!” On 24, there is no past and no future, only the present. You are carving out the character as you go. It’s like sculpting. You don’t know from one script to the next where the chisel is going to fall. You have to go with it and make it work. Because the stakes are always so high, you can get away with so much more than something that isn’t so high drama-rama.
Cherry Jones has been my favourite President after Dennis Haysbert, really powerful performance in her entire tenure on 24.
This interview about the process of writing and creating 24 pretty much sums up everything I have come to dislike and regret about this show. No character arcs. Nothing planned. Just make it up as you go along. Do what is shocking and worry about justifying it later. No past or future to worry about or plan for. Really damning stuff here – I can’t imagine Cherry Jones meant any of this as praise.
Totally agree. This season is a prime example of how they’ve stopped caring about the characters for whatever stupid usually already-done “twist” they decide to throw in. It’s called “retroactive continuity” or “ret-con” and it’s bad storytelling. Think about how they destroyed the Renee character this season — the whole suddenly she’s a former undercover Russian spy deal didn’t fit at all with the version of Renee we saw last season, nor how Katee Sackhoff’s character was at the start of the season a blackmailed hillbilly who then suddenly morphed into a deadly Russian mole. Uh… what? So now the President who was willing to send her own daughter to prison to uphold the letter of the law immediately decides to listen to disgraced President Logan and do something illegal. If they suddenly decided they thought the moon was cool, they’d have Jack announce he was an astronaut and that all the previous seasons had actually taken place in outer space. I’m sure that makes things really easy for them in writing the show, but for anybody who likes a story that’s actually good and pretends to make the slightest amount of sense, it’s infuriating.
I agree with everything you’ve said, Geo. It is infuriating. That’s why I stopped watching the show. It wasn’t fun anymore, it was just frustrating.
TOTALLY agree – very well said!
I don’t buy this storyline at all and it’s certainly beneath the president and her portrayer.
What doesn’t ring true for me is the way she has now completely abandoned her support of Jack when she totally supported him up until the second half of the season.
We must be watching two totally different shows then, because I buy everything she is doing. This presidency cost her her husband, and her son, and she had to have her own daughter arrested..this is a woman desperate to have just *one* positive thing to show for her administration, and she has chosen this peace agreement. It makes perfect sense to me. And the fact that she so desperately needs this to make sense of her presidency is causing her to make some bad decisions.
It all fits just fine for me.
I agree!!!
Agreed as well. I don’t like it, but she’s playing it very well. The delimma is all over her face. AND REMEMBER: this is all in the course of one day, so there is very little time for reflection. Ethan is her conscience.
Completely agree with Jackson’s comments. For all the complaints about the writers working without a story arc, this is nothing new. They’ve been doing it since the first season. Someone once wrote that “24″ is like a novel. Some chapters are great and some not so great. As far as I’m concerned, the book as a whole has been very good. And either way the President Taylor character is portrayed, Cherry Jones always makes her totally beliveable. One of the reasons the show is ending is that the writers are (understandably) burned out. It’s easy to sit in front of the TV and play armchair quarterback, but given the 24 hour format and the pressure to try to come up with something good, I think the writers and producers have done an admirable job, and that includes this season. The fact that they were able to keep this format going for 9 years through 8 seasons is nothing short of amazing in itself. Thanks to everyone connected with “24″. Its been a great ride. Also agree that EW had better give 24 a cover or special issue for its final broadcast.
I love this show, but it suffers from its own premise sometimes. The problem with cramming an entire drama into a 24 hour period is that there really isn’t any time for character development and growth. As a result, you get Renee Walker looking bright and cheery and sleeping with Jack hours after having marginally-consensual sex with Callum Keith Rennie (can’t remember the character’s name) and 17 different villians in the same season. The twists and turns work against themselves because at some point it becomes so impossible for Samir, for example, to have possibly foreseen everything that was going to happen and yet he’s in exactly the right place at the right time, and on and on it goes. This season has been worse like that than previous seasons, so Cherry Jones’ comments about writing as they go make sense. Continuity is the natural casualty of such a process.
Sums it up very well. The problems are also exacerbated by the lack of planning. The Renee stuff was especially EW-worthy, regardless if you liked Jack and Renee, it was icky in the same day.
I’m glad to see she is shaking her head at her character as much as we are.
“You must be grateful and joyful that we’ve got the president we have.”
Uh… apparently not lady.
Of course we should be Cherry…. I mean, Obama has done so much while he’s been in office…..let’s see…..he’s…Ummm…oh…he’s ummmm….uhhhhhh,,,,well…honestly the only thing I can think of right now is he had a beer summit with a white and a black dude…I mean….that’s HUGE…oh yeah…and don’t forget the bill he signed to fund more abortions! Yay…he loves killing babies…and I’m not even counting the Healthcare thing yet….There’s a chance that’ll never see the light of day. I sure am greatful for this guy Cherry.
Don’t be so humble woman…you would own Obama as President!
Hey Tim, it’s still a little early in the Obama administration for talk like that. (At least it is for me.) Let’s chill on the real world politics and enjoy 24, OK?
Yeah; up until that comment, I really liked her! Now, like Zachary Quinto, I won’t be able to look at her the same. Bleccch! I’m sure that even Cubans under Castro wouldn’t be able to make that comment with a straight face.
that’s it then? She becomes insane before 24′s through? Not sure what I think about that one…
She gives and excellent definition of “making it up as you go”.
whispers around the beltway all but confirm that Cheney and Bush have been secretly advising Obama to invade Jordan and Syria in Operation: Endless Liberty”. Valerie Plame has gone broken arrow with the Enquirer reporting on a page 46 article that an unknown blonde assailant forcefed Karl Rove a KFC Doubledown to make him “pass” an iphone memory card with photo evidence. the reporter with the scoop was later found dead with a blowdart to the neck at a Georgetown Starbucks, face down in a cherry croissant. the poison from the dart was traced to Obama’s home tribe in Kenya. wait…who’s that outside my window…Behrooz, is that you…?
Following Dennis Haysbert, Cherry was my favorite president. That is, until she started taking advice from Logan. He was horrible and Haysbert’s character had to come back to get him out of the mess he’d created. So, why would anyone trust him. Although it makes for interesting TV, I found it unrealistic that this president become dependent on someone like him for guidance.
I’m sorry, but Logan rules. Seeing him looking at the ties on his desk in the last episode was fantastic.
Agree about continuity thing though. I was stunned when I learned the show is written like one of those mult-authored stories. How great would it be if they set some stuff up early and actually had it pay off at the end? You look at the cable shows, and you get the sense they know where they are going every season – you’d think a network show would be handled the same way. Too often 24 seems like a kid playing with trucks or dolls making up a story as it goes along…”and then they catch the guy, and they beat him up – then the police show up, and everybody runs, and then there is an explosion…”
Thank You I loved that scene just because its shows what an ass he really is looking at the comments I guess i am the only one who really likes this season and also i love the twists and turns each episode brings its a surprise around every corner not bad writing but that’s just my opinion.
Yes, Logan is awesome! What an incredibly talented actor Gregory Itzin is!
I’m posting this on anything 24 related that comes about.
EW.com better be preparing for a great send-oof to 24 like they are for sure going to give Lost. 24 deserves our sad fairwell just as much as Lost, and maybe even then some. Being the most contraversial show on television and a show that has set new standards, 24 deserves our undying graditude. I’m just hoping EW doesn’t write one article and say goodbye. 24 deserves a cover this month, I’m not the only one who agrees when I say it would be a travasty if EW didn’t give 24 the goodbye it deserves.
You said it perfectly for all of us Ben! Thanks! Ok, EW, hope you will follow through. Long live “24″ (in our memories) and its fans! Hope they won’t make us wait too long for the movie.
I think everyone is focusing too much on the part where she talks about “not having an arc” when three questions before that she was talking about not being needed for the second half, but then getting a call saying they’d need her for the entire second half of the season. That says to me that they do plan some things out ahead of time and give the story an overall arc, but that maybe some of the things that happen from episode to episode just come about because of opportunities in the script and overall story. This is still a great show, and I completely agree with the person who said she’s rationalizing her trip to the dark side because she needs at least one positive thing to come out of this presidency after having sacrificed her family. And I also agree with Ben, EW better do a big send-off for 24 or I will be very disappointed.
I agree with almost everything said about 24. This season is all about the twist that you can see coming and some you don’t. I was so mad when the killed Renee for no reason.I was hoping that he would have ended up with her at the end of the season, but those stupid writers decided to kill her instead just for the shock value. And i also cant believe that this president will turn her back on everything jack did for this stupid president logan. I hope that jack takes him out. I really wish they would keep the story arc constant, but with this show you just have to enjoy the ride. Its not the best written show, and i will miss it. Its one of the few shows that my dad,mybro and all talk about. I will go see the movie when it comes out too. I will miss Jack when his time is up.