Michael Rodrick Interview On '24,' 'CSI: Miami,' Jon Voight

My character’s name is Stokes, and, well, without giving too much away, we’ve already seen John Voight come into play. I will be secret op for John Voight’s character helping him create as much chaos as we possibly can.

We start at 6 p.m. and work up until sunrise. The executive producer Jon Cassar — I don’t think there’s anyone else who works as hard as he does. They work their asses off. It’s amazing. Night after night, we are going 16-hour days. It’s incredible.

We have a great coordinated fight between me and Tony Almeida. Basically, I’m at the gas pumps and he's supposed to come at me. Then it’s backhand, right cross, duck, drop kick, hit the concrete. It’s pretty tough. We got it in one take which made everyone happy since they could go home. I do my own stunts. I remember when I did Cold Cases, and the day I arrived there was a fight scene. They asked if I wanted somebody to stand in and I said, ‘No.’ You just make it safe and choreograph it really well. I would rather do it myself. I just did CSI: Miami, and they had a stuntman driving this power boat that my character was supposed to be driving when I come up along P. Diddy’s boat and rob him. They wouldn’t let me near the powerboat because it’s a half-million-dollar boat. You can’t have it — you’ve got to give something to the stuntman once in a while.

He would shoot on different days than I would. But they splice it together. It’s such a different experience when I saw the finished product it’s amazing. I’m shooting at him, he’s shooting at me. I love it! When they go to split screen — it’s me, then him — it’s totally surreal!

Jon Voight and I were together quite a bit shooting scenes at 3 or 4 am. I’ve never seen anyone work harder. I saw him smash his ankle on a Jeep. He didn’t say anything to anyone and iced his own ankle. I remember I was talking about my twin brother, and he started asking me everything about twins because [Voight’s daughter] Angelina Jolie had twins. I told him when you get gifts for the kids they have to be exactly the same–different colors are ok. We both went to Catholic University in Washington, D.C. So I was able to get him some alumni magazines. He’s just so tall! It’s so amazing to watch him walk. It was really inspiring to watch him work.

On a day-to-day basis, I didn’t know if they were going to kill me or not. It’s a good motivator, because they could kill me tomorrow. The less I saw of Kiefer the happier I was – I knew the moment I saw him, I’m going to be dead. It’s really wild.

Well, I’m on three episodes. We’re just going to have wait and see if Keifer knocks me out. If not, next season.

We shot with him the day after the Golden Globes. So I caught him a couple times just looking out over the water, trying to get himself there emotionally. He was very quiet. It was a hard scene to shoot because the director was on a different boat.

That's a great question. It’s like going to different nightclubs–they all have a certain feeling in the way things are run which definitely starts from the top down. I’ve done 5 Bruckheimer shows — I just did Without a Trace. The Bruckheimer shows feels like you are in a television studio in a 1950s. There’s a certain order. Like you are part of the studio system and you are going to get what you need. 24 feels like I’m on a independent film.

Well, I’m on Without A Trace running a Ponzi scheme. It was fun working with Anthony LaPaglia – I had done another film with his brother called Lantana. He's great. Such a New York personality.