Kiefer Sutherland recalls freaking out Chuck E. Cheese patrons after playing Eye for an Eye villain: 'I was mortified'

From Barbie to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, filmgoers have passionate responses to movies. Sometimes films provoke quiet contemplation, sometimes they inspire elaborate cosplay. And sometimes they cause parents to flee Chuck E. Cheese.

Kiefer Sutherland, appearing at Fan Expo Chicago on Sunday, told the story of experiencing that passionate response to film firsthand.

"After Eye for an Eye opened, I took my daughter, who was eight years old, into Chuck E. Cheese," Sutherland recalled. "I've never seen parents leave a place so fast with their children in my life. My daughter actually thought I'd rented the place for just us. Because within 10 minutes, everybody was gone. I was mortified by that, and she was just in the ball section playing be herself, just having the time of her life."

In the 1996 John Schlesinger film, Sutherland plays Robert Dobb, a man who raped and murdered the child of Karen McCann, played by Sally Field. Instead of going to jail, Dobb goes free, and McCann plots to kill him. It's not hard to imagine what rattled those parents at Chuck E. Cheese.

Sutherland offered the anecdote in response to an audience question about how he embodies unethical characters. "There were a few [characters] that were really hard to do," he said. "But the storytelling is what matters."

The 24 actor wasn't able to promote projects due to the SAG-AFTRA strike but stuck to talking about his process and the importance of those difficult roles, trying his best to avoid naming them. "You have to be true to telling the story within the context of what that film is deciding to be," he said. "If you're going to take on the character of someone in the Ku Klux Klan, then you have an obligation to show an audience, especially a younger audience, why racism is bad, why it's evil, and why it will destroy a community, a society.

"There's a great sense of responsibility when you take on that part, and you have to lean into it, and you know people are going to hate you for it. I think that's a credit to the fact that we make movies that people really believe are real. They're not. But people do believe they're real."

If those parents had missed Sutherland's Eye for an Eye villain in 1996, that was the same year he appeared as a man enlisting the help of the Ku Klux Klan in Joel Schumacher's A Time to Kill. It was a villainous time in his career.

Additional reporting by Chris Cosgrove.

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