’24: Legacy’: Jimmy Smits talks his character’s complicated relationships

The clock ticks again with the next evolution of the Emmy Award-winning “24.” 24: Legacy” chronicles an adrenaline-fueled race against the clock to stop a devastating terrorist attack on United States soil – in the same real-time format that has propelled this genre-defining series.

In “24: Legacy,” the emotional level of the series gets intense as the day goes on. For Jimmy Smit’s character, Senator John Donovan, it’s a rollercoaster of emotions. John is faced with many dilemmas. He isn’t sure who to trust, his assistant who is accused of organizing the current terrorist threat against the company and his father who he finds out is involved.

On the personal side, John’s wife Rebecca is right in the middle of things.

To thwart further attacks, Carter enlists Rebecca Ingram played by Miranda Otto, who quarterbacked the raid that killed Bin-Khalid. John and Rebecca’s relationship becomes strained throughout the day. She’s given u her career in order to support her husband’s bid for The White House.  

Now John finds himself in the middle of it all as he is the latest loved one to get taken by Jad Bin-Khalid (Raphael Acloque). How does this latest situation affect John and Rebecca’s relationship?

“Miranda’s character had been very successful in this operation and then now the contract between them was that she was going to take a step back and let Donovan and his campaign flourish, and then we have this thing that everybody gets sucked in,” Smits said during a conference call with reporters. “But it has to do with what the dynamic is between that and how much one throws themselves into whatever they do, their work, and when one, especially in the types of jobs that they have they’re related but they have to keep secrets from, they can’t tell everything to each other, there are little secrets that are kept between them. And during the course of the 12 episodes that we’re doing that’s going to become very, very evident and it plays in terms of their relationship.”

Smits and the cast also went through a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the filming of the series.

“Having shot the final …episodes, there was a real emotional rollercoaster that both of our characters, Smits said. “All of the characters in the show really have to go through [it]. But I didn’t realize that we were going to go through it from A through Z, to ZZ with my guy, not this season, but that’s where we’re headed.”

Catch “24: Legacy” airing Mondays at 8:00 p.m. on FOX.