In 'Monsters vs Aliens' Kiefer Sutherland voices a warmongering general responsible for wrangling a group of monsters in a battle for the earth versus, yes, aliens.

How many times did you watch George C. Scott in 'Dr Strangelove'?

I watched it a couple of times. It’s so funny because I have been having to fight off the Yosemite Sam comparisons, so I am so relieved to hear George C. Scott. The voice was very simple, we just talked about the character and the fact that he had been away from the rest of the world for quite some time – reclusive with this prison that he was responsible for raising and so I figured that as a general I wanted him to have a little Southern flair and that his isolation would make him a little eccentric and bigger than life. So we tried variations. But the voice actually came very quickly. I liked the voice and I was doing it at work and someone said: 'That sounds like Yosemite Sam!' and I got worried so we pulled back on some of it a bit. It is an awful lot of fun to be able to do something that is not restricted by your own physicality. I found that the balance of this story was unbelievably funny but I also found it was very touching. It also does this unbelievable balancing act between the text, which is obviously designed for children - and a sub text, which I found funny as an adult and as a parent who has suffered through countless movies that were not designed for me at all but were designed for my six year old or seven year old. So I was really glad to be a part of something like that.

You do so much shouting – were they worried you might damage your voice?

I have been really lucky in my career; for as much as I need to yell on '24', this was nothing. At one point Conrad asked if I wanted to take a break but I said I was fine. It was not so bad.

Did they use other aspects of you – besides your voice – to animate your character?

I sure hope not! I don’t think so. When I walked in to do the first day they had the mock-up of what the character was going to look like. That was also very helpful in finding the voice. He just looked like he sounded like that.

Did you see storyboards?

Not storyboards, they had a poster of each character. Do there was a visual reference, not only of what my character would look like but what the other characters would look like. I did not work with any of the other actors but they had these wonderful guys who would read all the parts. There was this one guy who was unbelievable…he played four characters at the same time and had distinct voices for all of them. He was so fast and so good. We got into a thing where we would do whole scenes at a time. Which was different from other experiences that I have had in animation. So I really enjoyed that a lot.

You prefer ensemble voice recording?

I think that any time that you can get into the dynamic of actually playing out an entire scene with someone and reacting to what they are doing is helpful in regards to any sense of timing. Obviously I have not built a career on comedy. So I can use all the help I can get.

What is your favourite monster in this film?

I think that Dr Cockroach is pretty funny. Obviously most of the inter-action that I have is with Ginormica and Reese and I have worked together before and I knew what kind of a fantastic job she would do with that. That had the largest arc for me. She is the monster that he feels the most sad about from the moment that he puts her in her cell and she starts to cry and he says…Gotta go, can’t handle that. He tries very hard to have a very gruff exterior but underneath he feels very indebted to them.

What had you and Reese worked on before this?

We did 'Freeway' together.

Is comedy a side of yourself that you would like to explore?

I explore trying to be funny every day! I can have dinner with friends and feel absolutely confident in being funny. It has never been something as an actor that I feel confident with. There is a real gift to the timing of what it takes in a scene with someone. I have read beautiful scenes that I thought were unbelievably funny – this goes all he way back to theatre school – that I would just kill, for whatever reason. I learned very early that just simply being able to be funny in a room does not translate into your ability to pull that out of an audience. It was never something that I felt comfortable with so I did not run it down.

Have you thought that this 3D film will make you part of a landmark in movie history?

I have been doing this long enough to never get caught up in that. But there are moments where you just get excited. For instance I thought 'Finding Nemo' was an unbelievable movie. I went and saw it without a child. My kid was 20, she was in college. I was shocked by how cool I thought the film was and how beautiful it was. I went to see it specifically because I wanted to see the advancement in animation. I ultimately took my daughter. I thought that film had a wonderful balance for children and a wonderful sub text for adults. 'The Incredibles' is another one that is special. And I feel that this film, 'Monsters Vs Aliens', also has that balance. So I was very excited to be a part of it from that perspective. I think it will be great if we can get the 3D thing going. That would be very cool.

What made you accept this job?

There were a lot of things. I think the actors that are in his are fantastic. And if you are going to do an animated film right now then Jeffrey Katzenberg is one of the people you want to do it with – he understands every aspect of the production of this kind of film, from the very beginning of the development of an idea, to the animation to the casting, all the way through to the selling and the promotion of the film. All of these things are equally important. It was a combination of those different things. And I liked the character, it gave me an opportunity. I did a film called The Wild and that voice was very similar to my own. He was a father and there were moments when he had to be tender and very audible and relatable. And this character was anything but. He could be whatever he wanted. It was fun to be as large with that as I got to be.

What was it like filming '24' in South Africa?

I think I had a lot of judgement when I went to South Africa and certain things did not change for me. There are aspects of that culture that mean living in the most abject poverty, right next to unbelievable wealth. I can’t understand how they can have these palaces to the left and a quarter of a mile down the road there is no running water, no electricity and thousands are forced to live in these conditions. The one thing that did catch me off guard was that we worked with about nine children, all of whom came from the townships. I had never worked with children who were as present as these children were. When we left they started to cry and we started to go. It was tough in the context of that. It has to make you take a serious look at what you are complaining about. It certainly did for me. It was one of those great moments when you look at yourself in the mirror and you feel kind of silly about a lot of stuff because these kids have unbelievable hope in what I perceive to be the worst of circumstances that I have ever seen.

Robert Carlyle wanted to work with you ever since you’d filmed in Hawaii. Why do you get on so well?

I think Bobby is one of the great actors of our time. One of the difficulties for him is that he has played his characters so well. When you take a look at how vicious some of those characters are that when he was in 'Redemption' people commented on how gentle he was. But that is Bobby. It is a real testament to his quality as an actor and an indictment on how we tend to limit actors on what we have seen them do, as opposed to letting them branch out. I called him up and said I had this part and we needed him a lot more than he needed us. I begged him. I asked him a favour and he was there in a day.

Has your friendship anything to do with your Scottish roots?

There is probably a longer explanation than that but that might be something about it.

You are not comfortable with comedy. How did you feel about auditioning?

Bobby Duvall tells a story that had it not been for the fact that (in 'To Kill A Mockingbird') he played Boo Radley with no dialogue at all and it was the look they were going for; he would never have had a career because he was so awful at auditioning. And he is one of your great, most prolific American actors. I did the same thing that most theatre school students do out of the gate, you try to show you can do everything and you scare them. You come into an audition and try to show the physicality but you are stuck in a chair, you are on top of their desk and you are yelling at them. It finally dawned on me that we were all doing this and it seemed that we were uncontrollable.

Someone said just to focus on one thing – figure what the most important thing is about the character and read it. Don’t show them everything else. Just make it clear you know why it was written the way it was written. After I did that, three days later I got Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories and then Stand By Me – in fact the audition for Stand By Me went so well he hired me right there before I walked out the door. It never happened to me again. Then three months later I got Lost Boys. After that point I never went on an audition that I did not get. I have friends who I think are better actors than me but they were scaring the guys for whom they were auditioning.

What does it mean to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

It means a lot. Two blocks down from that star, on Hollywood Boulevard, I slept in my car for three months waiting to work. To all intents and purposes I grew up on that street in those three months. I would see the names on those stars and there was always one thing that I would do…before I went to bed I looked at the Hollywood Sign and I had to convince myself that I could make it here. I was 17 years old. I saw the names on the street, some of them I knew, some I didn’t. But there was this unbelievable sense of history.

It was like when I was in New York and I was not working at all and I saw Johnny Carson doing an interview and I looked at my girlfriend quite sadly and said…’By the time I ever make it he’ll be dead.’ I did not mean that meanly, I was just trying to say that it might never happen. I might never get to do the one thing that I wanted to do. It was the same with the stars on the sidewalk – they were unattainable. I just wanted a job. So it is hard for me to fathom this. This place has welcomed me in a way over the last 23 years of my life that I could never express. It is the only city that I ever fly into that when I see the skyline I know that I am home. Even if I don’t live here any more it is the only one that does it for me. It is an incredible honour.

Where is your father’s star?

He does not have one. I agree it is a disgrace.