Kiefer Sutherland gets emotional working with his father.

The 55-year-old actor has shared the screen with his dad Donald, 86, and Kiefer treasures his memories on set with the veteran star.

He told the Irish Independent's Weekend magazine: "It’s all of the emotions in one bag. I remember this one moment [on set with Donald] which will always make me smile. When I go to work, I take it seriously, I don’t f*** around, I’m prepared. He is one of the very few actors that I’ve worked with that I’m really watching, you know, and there was this moment where he did this one gesture which is really familiar to me because I know him, obviously, and it’s a gesture that I do myself. I’m watching him work, staring at him, and there’s this long pause and it’s, ‘Oh s***, it’s my turn, right?’ I just got caught staring at him and I was so impressed with what he was doing that I actually forgot what I was supposed to do."

Although his late mother Shirley Douglas was an actress, Donald insisted it wasn't inevitable that he would follow in his parents' footsteps.

He said: “I have a twin sister who wants absolutely nothing to do with it, and two of my three younger brothers have nothing to do with it. The middle one plays music and acts."

But Kiefer well and truly caught the acting bug when he starred alongside River Phoenix and Corey Feldman in Rob Reiner’s 1986 film, 'Stand By Me'.

He said: "Oh gosh, I have memories of that film for so many different reasons. It was the first major thing I did in the United States and it felt really big, you know? Here am I, a little provincial boy from Canada and, all of a sudden, I’m making a Hollywood movie. It was Columbia Studios — they were right next to Warner Bros. We shot on location in Eugene, Oregon, and it felt like a big deal in a small town."