The Untold Truth Of Donald Sutherland

Despite boasting a sprawling career that has spanned almost six decades, Donald Sutherland has never been nominated for a best actor Oscar. OK, that could describe almost any actor. Most folks don't have a gold statuette from the Academy displayed on their mantel. But this is rather surprising for Donald Sutherland, who has been in dozens of critically acclaimed films such as "Don't Look Now," "Klute," and "Pride & Prejudice." (He also played a character in "Ordinary People," which won the Oscar for Best Picture.) It's true that Sutherland has been nominated for nine Golden Globes and was even awarded an honorary Oscar for his lifetime of work. But he never got recognized in the official Oscar category for actors. He did, however, earn a spot on GoldDerby's list of "Top 20 greatest living actors never nominated for an Oscar."

Of course, there's more to life than winning Oscars (so we're told, anyway). Maybe it's enough that Donald Sutherland has given us countless memorable characters, including President Snow from "The Hunger Games" and Hawkeye Pierce from "M*A*S*H" (the movie). To honor his career, we've decided to collect some of the most surprising facts about this veteran actor.

As Donald Sutherland recalls in The Daily Record, he was two-and-a-half years old when he spoke his first word: neck. He told Esquire, "My neck was killing me." As it turned out, this was because he had polio. "One leg's a little shorter," he added, "but I survived."

There's one formative moment from Sutherland's childhood that stands out to him above all others. According to The Telegraph, Sutherland ducked out of his engineering class and went to a movie theater instead, where he watched "La Strada." His reaction was, "You can make movies like this?!" according to Rolling Stone. Still riding the wave of exhilaration from that film, Sutherland went to watch another film back-to-back. This time, it was "Paths of Glory," a galvanizing anti-war film. "When I came out of that movie," he told The Guardian, "I was grabbing stones, pieces of gravel, anything, and throwing them at the street, so much was the rage at the injustice that I felt." Sutherland (via Rolling Stone) credits this anecdote as the moment that simultaneously sparked his political passion and inspired his dream to become an actor, which were often intertwined.

When Sutherland writes emails, he goes all-out, often composing several paragraphs or more. He is especially fond of following up with his interviewers via email. After he ran out of time for his interview with The Telegraph, Donald replied to his interviewer Robbie Collin two days later; he spent almost 700 words answering Robbie's question about working on "Forsaken." As well, he reached out to Michael Hainey from GQ a week after their interview to explain that he had read Hainey's book, and he loved it.

But perhaps Sutherland's most famous email is the one that landed him a part in the Hunger Games franchise. Donald didn't audition for the role of President Snow. "Nobody asked me to do it," he told GQ. "I wasn't offered it." Instead, he had simply read Gary Ross' script for the movie (which he loved) and decided "[he] wanted to be a part of it." Sutherland was especially intrigued by Snow's character. So he sent Gary a three-page email (later published in Business Insider) explaining what he believed made President Snow tick. "He believes that [the heroine Katniss is] a real threat to his fragile hold on [his] power," he wrote. "She's more dangerous than Joan of Arc." Ross knew right away that he had found President Snow. He hired Sutherland immediately. 

Donald Sutherland loves a good joke – sometimes even at somebody else's expense. For instance, Rod Lurie told Variety that when Sutherland first arrived on the set of "Commander in Chief," they handed him his contract, but "he insisted he couldn't sign without his lucky pen." Donald made a show of searching for his missing pen, while the filmmakers squirmed, until finally Sutherland told them he was just kidding and signed the contract.

On another occasion, Donald's plans to go trick-or-treating with his granddaughter were complicated after he broke his leg. "[My family] got tired of pushing my wheelchair," he shared in an interview with GQ, "so they stopped and they put me on the lawn." That's when Sutherland discovered an even more enjoyable way to spend his Halloween. His wife stretched a pair of nylon tights over his head and set a bowl of Halloween candy on his lap. Then Sutherland sat perfectly still, pretending to be a decoration. "People walked by," he said. "Children pleaded for candies in the bowl. Mothers cautioned. Some kids dared." And just when the kids were grabbing their candy, he would suddenly move, scaring the living daylights out of them. "They ran to their mothers," Sutherland added, "but I guarantee those kids will remember it with pleasure forever."

Donald Sutherland isn't the only actor in the family. His wife, Francine Racette, is a French-Canadian actress. He named all four of his sons after directors, and funnily enough, three of them (Kiefer, Rossif, and Angus) later became actors. After Donald worked together with Kiefer Sutherland on a film for the first time (2015's "Forsaken"), The Today Show asked him if he gave his son any acting advice. Donald said he didn't recall giving his son any advice, except maybe, "Be truthful."

Likewise, in an interview with Jimmy Carter, Sutherland insisted that he definitely didn't try to be an acting coach for Kiefer. "I would never presume to ..." Perhaps one reason why he was reluctant to offer any parental guidance, admitted Sutherland, was the fear of being too harsh on his son. As a kid, he recalls asking, "Mom, am I good looking?" According to Sutherland, she was silent for a long time, until finally she said, "Your face has got character."

Still, Donald remembers Kiefer as a teenager asking for his father's feedback on an upcoming audition. Donald told his son that his performance was "terrific." But Kiefer said, "No, but wait a second. That's the way they want me to do it. Can I show you how I want to do it?" He then gave a reading of the line that his father loved even more. That was how Donald Sutherland knew Kiefer was quite capable of finding his own voice as an actor.

Though Sutherland is known for playing villains, this was not the case with his performance as Franklin in the HBO series "The Undoing." The show follows a woman named Grace (Nicole Kidman) after her husband Jonathan (Hugh Grant) is placed on trial for murder. Grace cannot accept that her husband could be a killer, despite her father Franklin's insistence that Jonathan can't be trusted.

Hugh Grant knew from the start that his character was the murderer (in fact, he would only agree to take the job if he was the killer, he told Vulture), but other cast members, including Sutherland, were deliberately kept in the dark for most of the shooting. Donald only found out the killer's identity right before they filmed the sixth and final episode. It actually came as a surprise to him. "I always suspected that it was me," Sutherland admitted to Deadline.

This suspicion most likely informed his performance. Whenever Franklin bails Jonathan out of jail, warning him that "I will track you down and I will kill you myself" if he tries to flee, it's easy to believe that Franklin is dead serious about his threat, not least because Sutherland believed it himself. Donald admitted in his interview with Deadline that he was relieved to learn Franklin was innocent.

Donald Sutherland has gotten his share of insults, though he seems quite happy to joke about them afterward. He recounts one such incident for The Telegraph. "[A flight attendant in Glasgow] stopped in front of me and said, 'Ye're Donald Sutherland, aren't ye?' And I said, 'Yes.' And she said, '[Ye're] not near as ugly as ye are on the telly.' " In an interview with GQ, Sutherland recalls asking his agent Ron Meyer to get him a part in a movie. "The producer said to Ronny ... 'You would have a better chance getting the part than he would.'" Even when Donald was chosen for his first major role (a soldier pretending to be a general in "The Dirty Dozen"), the director didn't exactly flatter him. After the original actor said he didn't want to make a fool of himself performing that scene, the director pointed to Sutherland and said, "You, with the big ears. You do it" (Variety).

After "M*A*S*H" was released, a Canadian magazine interviewed folks from Donald's hometown, according to Backstage. They even interviewed one of Donald's former classmates, and while they didn't publish that interview, they did share the highlights with Sutherland. Donald's classmate, having never seen "M*A*S*H," was skeptical that Donald was now a Hollywood star, so when asked how he felt about Sutherland's acting career, he said he didn't know. "All he knew for sure," Sutherland says, "[was that] I couldn't be any good because he sat behind me in school."