"I went to see Stand By Me and thought my career was over"

Do you put a time limit on playing Jack Bauer?

It’s still a writer’s medium. We really do believe that we have done something special with season seven. We probably ran into more hiccups with season six than we were accustomed to so it put a lot of fight back into us.

So I think you have to take each year as it comes because the last thing you want to do is take it from this prestigious height and start dragging it down.

It doesn’t deserve that and we’re there to service the show so service it we will. Invariably it will be an audience that will tell you it’s done and that has to be the contract you will have with an audience – they are the ones that put you in a place to do it, they are the ones that appreciated it and they are the ones to tell you it’s over.