 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
Dennis Haysbert on President Palmer:
“They Killed Me for the Sake of the Ratings”
Dennis Haysbert, the actor who played President David Palmer in the early years of 24, still casts a towering shadow over the show, even though his character was assassinated several seasons ago.
Haysbert exudes the qualities many Americans would love to see in a president—courageous leadership, the ability to make tough decisions, a strong moral compass, intellect, charisma, and genuine gravitas. A 6 foot 4 inch middle-aged African-American in real life, Haysbert’s fictional backstory as President Palmer makes him an NCAA All-American basketball star while at Georgetown, a Senator from Maryland, and then ultimately, the first African-American president of the United States. And he has clearly won the hearts and minds of Americans as their favorite fictional president. In a 2006 opinion poll he bested even Martin Sheen, the popular President Bartlet of West Wing fame.
Haysbert’s role on 24 is thought by some political and cultural commentators to have helped create the space if not the inspiration for Barack Obama’s 2008 U.S. presidential bid. But the David Palmer character actually shares more historically with Bobby Kennedy: In the very first episode of 24, we meet David Palmer campaigning for the presidency in the California primary and facing an assassination plot that Jack Bauer is assigned to foil. Bobby Kennedy, of course, was actually assassinated on the night he won the California presidential primary in 1968. On substance, David Palmer is a president who seems much more like Bill Clinton than any other real-life president. And in a long-running subplot, President Palmer must deal with the subterfuges and machinations of his powerful wife Sherry, whose evil heart exceeds even the vast right-wing conspiracy’s worst imaginings about Hillary Clinton.
Large numbers of Americans disaffected by the George W. Bush presidency have longed in retrospect for Bill Clinton’s approach to leadership. Similarly, 24 fans wish David Palmer could come back to life, having had to endure the decidedly Nixonian evils of President Logan (whose physical resemblance to Nixon is played up by every camera angle), not to mention the comparatively weak leadership of President Wayne Palmer, David Palmer’s less capable, less inspiring brother.
The life—and death—of President Palmer has a certain spillover effect outside the realm of TV entertainment. To this day, actor Dennis Haysbert remains unhappy with the creative decision to assassinate his character. He explains why in the excerpted interview that follows, which originally appeared in the UK-based newspaper, The Independent.
"I'm a little jet-lagged," warns Dennis Haysbert, dropping his trim 6ft 4in frame into a chintz armchair in a London hotel. "If I doze off, just yell at me."
The 52-year-old has made a career out of playing characters whom you are convinced would never fall asleep on the job. In America, he is the face of Allstate insurance and the voice of the Military Channel. He is the actor the producers of 24 went to when they wanted a president with a strong moral backbone, and is currently playing the reliable-under-pressure field commander of a counter-terrorist team in David Mamet's hit series The Unit. And when the film-maker Bille August needed someone to play Nelson Mandela, in an adaptation of James Gregory's book, Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend, he contacted Haysbert….
Haysbert's most famous and popular role to date is still President David Palmer….
…For the complete interview with David Palmer, see Secrets of 24, Chapter 3.