Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell Interview
“I figure the show’s called Prison Break. Chances are there’s going to be another break,” Miller says. “These things have a way of coming full circle. People, at the end of the day, love prisons. It’s what made us a success to begin with. So it’s kind of a return to form.”
Michael’s brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), now is on the outside looking in. That’s a role reversal from Season 1, when Michael willfully became a prison inmate in order to engineer the escape of his incarcerated but otherwise protective older sibling. His roadmap was a full-body tattoo with a hidden road to freedom.
“Michael has no big brother to keep him safe this time, no tattoo to refer to,” Miller says. “He’s very much chum in the water . . . His hands are dirty at this point. A lot of lives have been damaged and even lost so that his brother could go free. Maybe there is a part of Michael that thinks being in prison is where he should be. That’s the only way to atone for his sins.”
Miller said he’s acclimated himself to life in Dallas, where he’s still living “not too far” from Southern Methodist University.
“Absolutely. There’s still a lot to explore,” he says. “I try to go out to these little towns on weekends and see what there is to see. It occurred to me on my summer break in L.A. that I don’t live in L.A. anymore. I actually live in Texas for 10 months out of 12. So the reality is that Dallas is my home for the time being.”
Purcell is of a different mind. For him, Dallas isn’t so hot, even when it’s not so hot.
Asked if he’s enjoying the city, he says, “No, of course not. I’m away from home. But that’s part of the deal. I get to play, I love what I do and I get good money. I’m not gonna sit here and whine and ***** about how bad my life is because I’m in Dallas. It’s hard being away from my kids and the surf and water and stuff. But it is what it is.”
Season 3 of Prison Break will be “by far” better than the first two, Purcell says.
“Everyone was concerned whether or not we could maintain the fun of it, the creativity and the dimension. Quite frankly, I thought the second season kind of dragged in the ass a bit in the middle and towards the end. This year it’s going to be hard not to be entertained.”
Purcell’s Lincoln Burrows now is intent on freeing his younger brother from a prison full of “psycopaths and nut cases.”
They include three Prison Break regulars — FBI agent Alexander Mahone (William Fichtner), former penitentiary guard Brad Bellick (Wade Williams) and super-sadistic Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell (Robert Knepper).
“Mahone’s losing his mind because he doesn’t have his pills, Bellick’s walking around in a diaper and T-Bag is just the personification of evil,” Purcell says.
Lincoln supposedly will be less stoic and monotonic this season this season.
“It’s going to be a different Lincoln,” says Purcell. “He’s a free man but he’s still got to get his brother out. We’re going to see a lot more of his street smarts this year. He’ll be a more charismatic kind of guy.” |