Kiefer Sutherland planned to turn down the lead role in new TV drama Touch because he enjoyed his "freedom" after 24 ended, but he was so impressed by the script, he signed up immediately.
The actor's longrunning action drama wrapped in 2010, and Sutherland took on several "small, personal projects" to fill his time, but had no desire to return to a small screen series.
He was then approached to star in Heroes creator Tim Kring's new supernatural show and couldn't turn down the offer after reading through the script.
Sutherland tells Britain's The Sun, "The last thing I had in my mind to do was another television show. I had my freedom back. I was doing a play on Broadway, I was going off to do a film in India - these were all small, personal projects I wanted to do during the nine years doing 24.
"But a friend I used to work with came to see me and said, 'You have to read this script, it's a TV show called Touch'. I said, 'I don't even want to think about that right now' but when I heard who was behind it I knew I had to read it out of respect.
"I was around page 32 and I thought, 'Oh s**t'. Then I thought, 'There are 40 more pages, maybe it'll go bad' but it got better. And the 'Oh s**t' was because I knew this was something I wasn't going to be able to sit back and watch and not be involved in."