We were so bummed to see 24 kill off Renee Walker. She’s been one of our favorite characters and actor Annie Wersching has always been sweet to us on the red carpet. Seeing her play dark and damaged Renee this year has been really awesome, though she probably should have known hooking up with Jack Bauer was a death sentence, sort of like being Dirty Harry’s partner. Wersching gave a conference call for one last CTU debrief.
Q: Did you finish your filming before the show was ultimately cancelled?
Annie Wersching: Yeah, this happened to me for both seasons that I was completely finished filming all my Renee stuff before the season started even airing. That happened to us with season seven obviously because of the writer’s strike. Then for me, we finished up to episode 18 by Christmas. So by the time we were out promoting the show starting to air in January, I already knew. I had already shot everything which is crazy mostly because I have been keeping it a secret for 3 ½ months which is slightly difficult.
Q: Glenn Morshower actually successfully begged the producers not to kill him off. Did you consider begging for Renee’s life?
Annie Wersching: Obviously, I had immensely huge strong feelings. Carlos Bernard also did that once so it’s sort of a little theme going as people fighting for their lives with Howard Gordon. Because they came to me at the very beginning of the season and said, “Look…” Because at the top of a season they don’t usually know all that much of what they want to do, so the fact that the one big thing they knew they wanted to do was to bring her back damaged, to have Jack have to save her in more ways than one, and have them finally get together and then have her be taken away from him which leads to his sort of path for the end of the series, I knew that that was pretty set in stone. So I didn’t beg too much. Obviously they knew that I was very sad about it and upset but those were the moments that make 24 so great.
Q: What do you think of the fact that Renee was sometimes referred to as a female Jack Bauer?
Annie Wersching: Obviously, that’s quite an honor to share that title. I got that a lot last year when she first came on the scene. It wasn’t something that we thought about or said when we were filming season 7 so it was interesting to hear that that was the fan reaction but he’s a tragic hero and that’s sort of what ended up happening to her.
Q: Do you think fans will be disappointed that Jack didn’t really get to save her and this relationship ended prematurely?
Annie Wersching: Yeah, I’ve been actually very overwhelmed by the reaction. I mean, I knew that there were a lot of people out there that really loved Renee and loved the Jack/Renee dynamic but I’ve had 1000s of messages either on Twitter or Facebook or just different fan things where people are just genuinely so sad and sad, like you said, that there isn’t sort of a resolution to these two. Again, it’s kind of what fuels Jack Bauer in the rest of the show and I think they’ll end up being pleased that they get to see him being the most intense as Jack Bauer could be.
Q: Jack finally opened himself up. Do you think he’ll ever find love or will this close him off completely?
Annie Wersching: Well, I would say this probably isn’t a good sign for him. If we had five more seasons of the show to shoot or something I wouldn’t rule it out but as far as the rest of this particular series goes, who knows what will happen in the movie, I imagine the movie only being 2 hours it would be a little hard to find love. I would say this definitely leaves him not ready to look for a relationship right away.
Q: What would you have liked to see happen if Jack and Renee could have been together?
Annie Wersching: If it had taken off right from being in Jack’s apartment, I think it would have been very interesting to see the two of them try to make it in the world, maybe going back to California but sort of always getting called back into the line of doing the right thing to help save people. I think it would’ve been fun to see them out saving the day together and running around in different situations in countries and places, always having close calls but getting to save the day together would have been pretty fantastic.
Q: How carefully did they have to plan the sex scene for the real time considerations?
Annie Wersching: We went through many different ways that it was going to be. It was interesting too because they knew she was going to get shot right after it so Jack couldn’t be naked when he was carrying her to the hospital. There had to be a way for him to sort of get a little bit of clothes on but yet make it look like they were still going to go back and have more fun. The specifics were very interesting to figure out. We were very aware that it needed to have the right amount of time.
Q: Which version of Renee was more challenging or rewarding, the by the book Renee from season 7 or the dark version we see towards the end and this year?
Annie Wersching: I mean, the by the book Renee was in the very beginning, so finding her was an interesting challenge and figuring out first that first little relationship between Jack and Renee when they first met was a challenge. That was what was so great about this character. Through just two seasons, not even a full two seasons, I got to play so many different sides of her. Last year was challenging in that I was in every episode and there was such a great arc that was written for the whole season, I really wanted to give it little nuances and make the arc interesting. This season I got to do more intense things when I was on but it was more little bursts. I wouldn’t be around for a couple episodes and then I’d be there in a really intense way for four or five episodes. They were both so challenging and so wonderful.
Q: What scenes or elements from your two years helped you define who Renee was?
Annie Wersching: Oh, goodness. Obviously just the relationship that was able to develop between Jack and Renee in that first day of only knowing each other for 24 hours was a huge thing. For whatever reason when you asked the question, for some reason the scene where it’s a Jack, Larry Moss and Renee scene right in front of the capital that we shot in D.C., the three of us basically having a conversation and battling the idea of the whole moral dilemma of what’s right and what’s wrong and everything. For whatever reason, that was sort of her breaking point where she didn’t want to but chose to do the one that Jack was suggesting. I think that was a big defining moment for her.
Q: Were there ever plans for Renee and Larry to be an item, and was that scrapped in favor of pairing her with Jack?
Annie Wersching: Yeah, I mean, there was sort of always this lingering question as to what exactly was Renee and Larry’s history. I think for us, it was never addressed specifically in the show, but Jeffrey [Nordling] and I kind of decided that maybe they had kind of dated for a second and then realized no, we have to be professional or whatever but that he was still sort of always pining for her and longing for her. There was no really discussion as to if Larry and Renee were going to get together last season or anything. It was more sort of a lingering history that they wanted you to sense between those two.
Q: How did you originally get cast in 24 and what were the acting challenges of stepping into this role?
Annie Wersching: I was cast in a Fox and 20th Century Fox pilot that Jon Cassar and Joel Surnow went to do in the spring of 2007. Then that pilot didn’t get picked up so when they were casting for Renee, and they were actually having a very difficult time casting for the role of Renee Walker, just trying to figure out how old they wanted her to be, how young, how tough, how cold. So they brought me in for it and the role that I played in the pilot was very different from Renee so I think they brought me in thinking, “Oh, we liked working with her but she’s not really right for this but we’ll bring her in.” That was a very proud moment for me in my audition life just because I feel like I really went in and changed their mind about what they had preconceived about the type of actress I was and something that I was right for. The challenges were pretty much just because so much of my stuff was with Kiefer, you really had to show up on your game. I never could be slacking in any sense so it really challenged me and made me such a better actor and person. It was just an amazing experience.
