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"Round-the-clock action with 24's Sarah Clarke" Hello! Magazine's 7 (2/13/2003)

by Gillian Crawely

US drama 24 has revolutionised actress Sarah Clarke's career and personal life. Here she talks to Gillian Crawely about life and love on set.

It's quite something to be told at an interview that you've got the job and have to start work immediately. But on top of that to meet your future husband the same day is fast work. Sarah Clarke who plays ruthless killer Nina Myers in the gripping CIA drama 24 is still trying to get used to her luck. Last September she married Xander Berkeley who plays her boss George Mason in the show.

"Things have moved so fast that I still catch myself wondering how it happened," she says. "But it's a nice thing to have to get used to.

24 is a hectic day-in-the-life of US government agent Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, filmed in sequential hourly segments over 24 episodes. In the final show of the last series, Jack discovered that Nina, his former lover and close colleague, had murdered his wife and was a double agent. This time we discover Nina's motives as well as watching Jack battle terrorists.

Sarah, 30, was a photographer who tried acting as an experiment when she agreed to shoot pictures of an arts centre in her native St Louis in return for acting lessons. 24 was really her big break, her biggest role having been a bit part in Sex And The City and a car advert, and she was working to make ends meet in a forniture shop when she heard about the show. She made an audition tape and two months later flew to Los Angeles from New York for an interview. After five minutes she was told she had the part and to report to make-up straightaway.

It was in the make-up trailer that Sarah was introduced to Xander, an established character actor. "I went in there and saw him putting all this lipstick on," she laughs. The two of them stayed there talking for hours.

"I think from the first day, from the first moment we met, we knew there was something," says Xander.

Though Sarah is clearly devoted to Xander, she's far more shy than he is to talk about it. "It's very difficult you asking me what I think about him when he's sitting right next to me," she says, blushing furiously and giggling. "Let me try to say what attracted me to him. I think it was that in this business you meet a lot of the same sort of people and he was different. That's what caught me."

As in the first series, Sarah and Xander won't know their storylines until shortly before filming each of the episodes. None of the actors knew, for instance, that Nina was the traidor until three-quarters of the way through.

"We film two episodes at a time and learn the scripts as we get them and beyond that, our guess is as good as yours," says Sarah. "You'll have the props men coming up to you and saying, 'I've got to fit you for this gun holster' and you think, 'Aha! A gun holster? What do you know?'"

So maybe Nina could end up bumping off Geroge too, or maybe he'll do her in? "That would be interesting," says Sarah. "But I've no idea. I'd like to help but that's for you to find out."