Rabbit Hole's Kiefer Sutherland And Charles Dance Talk Their Characters' [Redacted] Relationship [Exclusive]
This post contains major spoilers for the first two episodes of "Rabbit Hole."
If you've watched the first two episodes of Paramount+'s new thriller, "Rabbit Hole," your brain has likely already exploded by the surprising reveal about Charles Dance's character, Dr. Ben Wilson.
Over the course of the first two episodes, we learn some things about Kiefer Sutherland's character, John Weir. Weir specializes in corporate espionage, yes, but we also find out via a series of flashbacks that his father apparently killed himself with a shotgun to the head when he was a boy.
It turns out, however, that the death of Weir's father was a cover-up — Weir's dad is alive and well in the present day, and he happens to be played by Charles Dance. Ben is a major character in the series, and it turns out that Dance was at the top of Sutherland's list to play the part.
"Kiefer suggested Charles for it," co-showrunner Glenn Ficarra told me in an interview in the lead-up to the show's premiere. "I mean, I love Charles Dance, I've always wanted to work with him, but Kiefer was first to the party on that one [...] I think he knew him a little bit from before this, and we immediately realized that [Dance was] perfect."
I also talked with Dance and Sutherland about playing father and son on the show, and the two shared their experience acting against one another on set.
'I don't know another actor that hasn't met Charles at first and been a little nervous'
"I've admired him as an actor for 20-some-odd years," Sutherland told me about Dance. "And the one common denominator that you'll find in all his work is just how much weight he brings to the role. There's a real gravitas. And I don't know another actor that hasn't met Charles at first and been a little nervous because he's got so much power, he's got so much force."
Dance and Sutherland's characters also don't have the best father-son relationship — it's hard to come back, after all, from finding out your dad faked his own death and you didn't learn he was still alive until decades later. That tension — while heightened on the show — is something that Sutherland thinks most people can relate to:
"Look, fathers and sons are tricky and they're hard. And so you don't have to reach too far for that either. And I've got an amazing relationship with my dad [actor Donald Sutherland]. I love my dad immensely, but we didn't escape any of that either. So it's not hard to actually imagine for a brief moment not trusting your father because he wasn't there at a certain point.
Dance also shared that he is "a huge fan" of Sutherland's. "I doubt that there would've been a better person to be doing this character in this series than Kiefer," he shared. "I'm just very glad I'm part of it, and he's a joy to work with, what can I say?"
We'll get to see Sutherland and Dance's characters continue to clash with each other as the season continues. And who knows, maybe there will be more twists and turns in their relationship. "They play it to the hilt," Ficarra said about the co-stars. "To the very end. It's great. If he is his father, that is."
New episodes of "Rabbit Hole" drop on Paramount+ on Sundays.