Five Questions With Wentworth Miller

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August 27, 4:26 PM

by Rick Ellis, TV Examiner

 

 

Fox's "Prison Break" returns with a two-hour season premiere on Monday, September 1st.

Wentworth Miller recently answered a few questions about the show, and the return of a very popular cast member.

Q: This is the fourth season and each of the seasons, the show has pretty much rebooted its premise to some degree. For you as an actor, what are sort of the advantages and disadvantages of doing a show that from one season to the next can be something completely different?

Wentworth Miller: Well, it keeps it interesting. First and foremost, most other TV shows are in the habit of figuring out their winning formula and then beating it into the ground whereas we take what we already know works and toss it out the window at the start of every season, which I think is very bold and ambitious and it certainly provides a new playground for the actors. 

That said, I’ve been more comfortable with some seasons than others.My favorites so far has been one and three because I actually think that my character works best behind bars with very real, physical, deadly obstacles to surmount whereas second season was a total change of pace and a real downshift for me and was one of my least favorite seasons because it felt as though my character was literally and figuratively riding shotgun, much more reactive than active. That can be frustrating.

But like I said, it’s most important for a show that’s running 67 episodes at this point to keep it as fresh and as exciting for the actors as possible.

Q: The season three finale set up the whole scenario of Michael being on this great vengeance quest.  At what point did you guys realize that Sarah Wayne might be coming back?

Wentworth Miller: I think it was at some point during the strike that I started hearing rumors that Sarah was returning, that the fans were organizing write-ins and petitions and I think that’s emblematic of where we are in terms of television and the media.  It’s very much a back and forth conversation between the fans and the writers, between the writers and the powers that be.  Their opinions, especially when expressed online or via correspondence, are important and are taken into consideration.

Q:  I think your writers are pretty fantastic, but obviously reattaching someone’s head is a bit of a tall order.  What can you tell us about how this comes off in the first couple of episodes?

Wentworth Miller: I think that we address it as plausibly as possible. It helps that the show is kind of fantastic and I feel like we’ve gotten away with worse. But at the same time, we do provide an explanation and we don’t tease the audience. It’s not a flash of Sara’s ponytail disappearing down an ally for the first episodes, everyone wondering when she’ll actually make a face-to-face with Michael.  Michael and Sara are reunited, and then the gang hits the ground running because there’s work to do.

Q: There has actually been some talk lately that maybe the way the series will end; the producers have talked about where they want it to end, that it might end with Michael actually dying, almost like a Greek tragedy type of feel to it.  Is that something you’d be comfortable with at the end of the day?

Wentworth Miller: Maybe, if it came to that. I think that there’s definitely a price to be paid for this little adventure.  Michael’s hands are pretty fifthly at this point in the series. It’s become harder and harder to tell the good guys from the bad guys and the question becomes, can there be any sort of redemption for Michael? What would that look like? What would that take? Perhaps laying down his life so that someone else can live might be one answer to that question.

Q: So, are we ever going to see hints of the tattoo again?

Wentworth Miller: The tattoo is addressed pretty definitively in the very first episode. It’s funny; it was a fan favorite the first season, but then Michael escaped - mission accomplished. Suddenly, it was just something that kind of had to be born rather than be something that could be used as a plot device. That resulted in me in Dallas in 120 degree heat wearing long sleeve shirts because we’re still pretending that I actually have the damn thing on. 

I appreciated the tattoo and I think it’s addressed in the first episode of Season Four as something that’s kind of emblematic of Michael’s experience, that this is an experience that has left its mark.  It’s not something that can be easily washed off and it speaks to the fact that Michael is now a changed man inside and out.

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