Gene “Bean” Baxter: Kevin, I know how you always say you could be the President. You always say that it looks easy.
Kevin Ryder: I could be the president. I’d be great at it.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: And I know you always say you’d be an awesome undercover agent, CIA, FBI, stuff like that. Could you be Jack Bauer? Do you have it in you to be Jack Bauer?
Kevin Ryder: Are you kidding?
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Cause I know you love the 24. Is it only just coincidence that he got that job and you didn’t?
Kevin Ryder: Like I’m not that way in my real life, dude. I torture people, I yell at them and say “Everyone get down!”, I do that!
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Well I know 24 is one of your favorite shows and it is back for a new episode tonight at 9:00 on the FOX network. You know, they’re up to Day 8 now, I guess.
Kevin Ryder: Yeah, yeah.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Day 8. He’s having some bad days in his life. We’re very excited to welcome for the first time ever to the Kevin and Bean Show, the beautiful talented actress who plays Renee [Walker] on the program, Annie Wersching joins us right now. Hi, Annie. How are you?
Kevin Ryder: (impersonating Annie) Hi, very good Bean!
Gene “Bean” Baxter: What, we don’t have her? Is she on the phone?
Kevin Ryder: (continuing to impersonate Annie) How are you? I like being on the show.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: What happened, I thought we had her?
Kevin Ryder: Alright, now we have her. Do it again, do the whole thing again. Big setup!
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Blah blah blah blah blah, Annie Wersching ladies and gentlemen! Here we go.
Kevin Ryder: Nicely done.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Hi, Annie!
Annie Wersching: Hi! (laughs)
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Sorry, we introduced you and you weren’t quite there yet.
Kevin Ryder: Welcome to the Kevin and Bean Show, welcome back to 24.
Annie Wersching: Thank you! Thanks for having me.
Kevin Ryder: Absolutely, thanks for coming on today.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Are you at CTU today? Because we want to imagine that you are.
Annie Wersching: I actually am, yes. I have Chloe here right next to me, she says “What up?”
Kevin Ryder: (Laughs) That’s funny, Chloe doesn’t seem like the “What up?” kinda girl.
Annie Wersching: Yeah, she is. In the morning really she is. Yea! (Laughs).
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Yeah, ok. So, as an actress. Huge fun playing a role like this. You get to do everything, right?
Annie Wersching: Oh my god, huge! And especially last year I thought I got to do a lot of cool stuff and then this year came along and they’re like “Okay, your first day back this year we’re gonna have you cut off a thumb. Go!” (laughs)
Kevin Ryder: Yeah, that was a little shocking. Did they explain it to you? Like “You’re gonna have to come onto the show this year and out-Jack Bauer Jack Bauer, sort of”.
Annie Wersching: Ah, they didn’t say it quite like that!
Kevin Ryder: He’s scared of you, he’s scared of you.
Annie Wersching: That’s pretty huge, right? To have him actually be like “Oh no” about someone is a pretty big honor.
Kevin Ryder: Yeah, he’s the guy who breaks all the rules. This time you come back and you’ve got crazy eyes, you got bonker eyes this year.
Annie Wersching: (Laughs)
Kevin Ryder: Really, really. There’s some kind of past that you have with the Russian mobsters, and you look like you’ve gone through a lot. And they keep alluding to what happened…
Annie Wersching: Uh huh.
Kevin Ryder: Are we gonna find out all of those details? Or are we just gonna parse them out throughout the year?
Annie Wersching: No, you find out pretty much, I mean you found out a good amount last week and then tonight you find a good bit more. The last four hours for her haven’t been great, and tonight is probably her worst hour yet.
Kevin Ryder: Excellent. So you’re saying this is worse than when [Vladimir Laitanan] had a gun to your head and you’re shouting “Kill me! Pull the trigger!”?
Annie Wersching: I would probably say yes.
Kevin Ryder: You’re gonna say worse than that?
Annie Wersching: She’s not gonna have a good hour tonight. (Laughs)
Kevin Ryder: Wow.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Look, I understand that Jack always gets talked back in no matter how crappy his previous days have been, but why don’t the rest of you retire? Why don’t the rest of you go “Not my problem, man.” I mean what kind of person voluntarily puts him or herself in the kind of situation that you guys are in?
Annie Wersching: I know.. I dunno. You know, they messed me up so bad from one year I didn’t have anything left to live for. So I just had to [come back]!
Kevin Ryder: So you came back crazier than ever.
Annie Wersching: It’s their fault, yeah.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Now, this show has a way of turning on people. Like for example Tony Almeida has been the good guy and then the bad guy and then the good guy. And then the bad guy. And then they keep changing it (laughs). Are they doing that with your character? Are you going to turn into one of the bad guys? Are you still a good guy? What’s your allegiance?
Annie Wersching: Oh I think she’ll always be good way deep down. She’s obviously messed up and different than last year, but she’ll never be like a “Nina [Myers]” bad.
Kevin Ryder: Really? Do we know that for a fact?
Annie Wersching: I mean, I don’t know.
Kevin Ryder: Have they told you?
Annie Wersching: We’ll see.
Kevin Ryder: I’m just saying, you should check.
Annie Wersching: Next script I get they’re gonna go “Ok, evil.” (laughs)
Kevin Ryder: Right. She’s gonna go over the top and start killing people. Well you are hanging out with the Russian mobsters in this one. This has to be a lot of fun to play the character that really just doesn’t care about anyone or anything.
Annie Wersching: Yeah, it’s really really fun. And these actors have been… ’cause usually I’m just stuck with Kiefer you know.
Kevin Ryder: Sure, just Kiefer!
Annie Wersching: So, it’s good to mix it up a little.
Kevin Ryder: To work with someone who doesn’t show up on David Letterman in a dress you mean?
Annie Wersching: Right, yeah. What was that about!? I wish he would’ve chosen a better dress!
Kevin Ryder: Well it wasn’t a nice dress if that’s what you’re saying. But I think when you lose a bet, you don’t really choose which dress you get. That’s how it works.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: I would imagine that people love Kiefer Sutherland so much and love this character so much that you must be the envy of all of your girlfriends.
Annie Wersching: (Laughs) They’re pretty excited. You know, my best friend since I was a little girl is like a huge, huge fan. So she’s constantly just like really pissed.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Just kinda like “Here, give him a note. Here, pass my phone number along. Give his phone number to me!”
Kevin Ryder: It’s gotta be weird though, do you still face the same kind of… I imagine at the beginning of 24 there was a lot of “Oh we gotta play by the rules”, your character is presenting the authorities in a bad way, blah blah blah. “We can’t torture”, blah blah blah. Is there any of that anymore? Or has everyone kinda just accepted what 24 is and moved on?
Annie Wersching: Uh, when we do press panels and that kind of stuff we’re always asked about it – Howard [Gordon] and Kiefer [Sutherland] for the most part. But the show wouldn’t be the show that it is without that element of it. It’s all for dramatic effect and I think last year was a good year because we really took it to, my character in particular had a lot of conversation about it with Jack’s character. So at least we talked about it a lot last year.
Kevin Ryder: They did that probably on purpose because of all the response they were getting to that particular thing [torture]?
Annie Wersching: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think they decided purposely to go right after it.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: I was just gonna mention, for folks just joining us, we’re talking to actress Annie Wersching about her role on the TV show 24 that is back tonight with a new episode at 9:00. You guys are at the United Nations tonight? Is that the episode we’re going to see?
Annie Wersching: Yeah, we’ll I’m kinda still stuck in with the crazy Russian guys. But some other people are at the UN. I’m always somewhere weird and dark and gross!
Kevin Ryder: There’s a President of a mid-Eastern country in there trying to get peace talks going and they’re having all kinds of problems with that. And the President’s brother is trying to get weapons grade uranium and you’re with the Russian mob. There’s all kinds of trouble on this program!
Annie Wersching: There’s all kinds of stuff happening!
Kevin Ryder: There’s really just a lot to keep track of.
Annie Wersching: All in a days work!
Kevin Ryder: The writers must be amazing to be able to… I remember seeing the very first episode of 24 and thinking “Ok, there’s no possible way they could top that one hour of 24“.
Annie Wersching: I know, me too! I remember watching the first one too. Yeah, I don’t envy them whatsoever (Laughs).
Kevin Ryder: But they seem to be able to do it. This is what, the eighth year?
Annie Wersching: Yeah, yeah. Eighth season, ninth year kind of with the writers strike. But yeah, I dunno how they do it. They lose a lot of sleep.
Kevin Ryder: Yeah, I’m sure.
Gene “Bean” Baxter: Exactly. It’s a great show, one of those few programs that’s critically acclaimed as well as a big hit in the ratings too, so congratulations on being part of that. We’ll look for a new episode tonight at 9:00PM. I’m glad we finally got a chance to have you on the Kevin and Bean Show, Annie. Thanks a lot for joining us.
Annie Wersching: Yeah, thank you so much!
Kevin Ryder: Thank you Annie! Bye now.
Annie Wersching: Ok, bye.