LOS ANGELES - Donald Sutherland as the leader of the Jewish Council in the Warsaw Ghetto in Uprising.

Ideal casting? Initially Sutherland didn't think so. On first offer he turned down the opportunity to portray Adam Czerniakow in NBC's four-hour mini-series. "My job is only to agree that I'm correctly cast and I didn't think I was correctly cast," says Sutherland. It's easy to see why he felt himself unsuitable - at least physically. Sutherland, born in New Brunswick, is of Scottish heritage. His eyes are light. He's at least six feet, two inches tall.

But urging from his agent and his recognition of co-writer, director and producer Jon Avnet's passionate conviction changed Sutherland's mind. So he's now one of the stars of the film airing Sunday and Monday 9-11 p.m. ET on NBC and on some Canadian channels (Check local listings).

Another persuasive factor was the makeup artist, Gianetto De Rossi, who in Federico Fellini's 1976 movie Casanova had successfully transformed Sutherland's soft, doleful looks into the archly seductive profile of the notorious 18th-century Italian pleasure-seeker.

As the sorrow-filled, dignified Czerniakow, Sutherland's hair - then extremely long in preparation for another role - was hidden beneath a balding pate. A grey beard and mustache framed his face. But his fleshy nose and the distinctive arch of his eyebrows remained true to themselves, and he eschewed a suggestion to darken his eyes.

"I said, 'No, no, no,' because my feeling is that if you put those round contacts in it blurs whatever is coming through your eyes, and whatever is coming through your eyes is the only thing that is really important. So the colour is irrelevant."

Alluringly elusive in mind and spirit - and often in person - Sutherland is a hard case to pin down. But he stopped off for a brief chat on his way to work on a nearby location for Path to War, an HBO movie directed by John Frankenheimer. He plays the elegant and urbane Clark Clifford, secretary of defence to President Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam conflict, so he's looking elegant and urbane.

The tidy exchange of straightforward question and answer is not Sutherland's style. His conversation drifts into gentle eddies of philosophy, humour and sentiment as he reflects on the fulfilling experience of filming Uprising in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Avnet and his co-writer Paul Brickman based their mini-series about honour and courage during the Second World War on eyewitness accounts and historical testimony that included the daily journal Czerniakow had kept as he struggled to find the compromises that might save his people.

Sutherland describes the sage elderly man's dilemma as not being able to conceive of the horror of genocide.

"It was inconceivable why someone would target the whole Jewish race, therefore if it's inconceivable there must be a way to negotiate . . ."

Avnet describes Czerniakow as representing someone "who did what most of us would have done." When his negotiation policies failed to mitigate the Nazi evil, a group of fighters mobilized to strike back at the Germans.

Hank Azaria plays Mordechai Anielewicz, one of the leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization. David Schwimmer is his cohort Yitzhak Zuckerman. Leelee Sobieski is Tosia Altman, another JFO member. Jon Voight is Gen. Stroop, sent to quell the uprising. Cary Elwes portrays Fritz Hippler, the propagandist director of the anti-Semitic film The Eternal Jew.

Sutherland was overwhelmed by the authenticity of the re-creation of the ghetto in which over 350,000 Jewish Polish citizens were confined.

"I haven't seen a set like it since 1966 and maybe not even then," he exclaims. He was referring to the chateau built for The Dirty Dozen, the film that brought him to Hollywood's attention and led to his star billing as Hawkeye Pierce in the now classic 1970 movie MASH.

He eloquently describes the "acres of cobblestone streets" created for Uprising filled with "buildings, grey, dismal, wretched, out of which life would come pouring - with a kind of optimism and a kind of courage."

"When I sat there with my bald cap on and looked at that set, it was one of those things that claimed me. My heart beat with his, you know. It was extraordinary. I loved it," says Sutherland with a sigh of satisfaction at how much working on the project had moved him emotionally.

Avnet describes the 66-year-old star as an actor who can "take it further," for whom "the only limit is the imagination of the director."

Sutherland's wife, Francine, also had a visceral response to his depiction of Czerniakow. "She loved the way he looked and the way he walked," reports Sutherland, whose conversation is constantly sprinkled with references to his spouse.

Sutherland admits he's always "bemoaned" his Scottish heritage. He says growing up he always wanted to be Irish or Jewish, part of a group to whom family and the word "we" are vital.

So he thinks maybe that's why when he did finally take on the role, he felt what he calls a "real DNA" connection to Czerniakow and the fellow Jews he hoped to save.