Cast at the 2008 TCA - Summer Press Tour

Prison Break": Breakfast With Michael, Lincoln and T-Bag

Tcatour_4_2The tag line for Fox's "Prison Break" in the coming season is: "The only thing harder than breaking out is breaking in." Brothers Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows will be working for the government for a change, in hopes of earning their freedom permanently. But it's not going to be easy.

The cast and producers of "Prison Break" showed up for breakfast at press tour this morning, and nobody got much to eat because we formed a huge scrum around Wentworth Miller (Michael) and Sarah Wayne Callies (Dr. Sarah Tancredi).That's my hand holding the recorder in front of Miller's shoulder.

Tca0708_pbreak_0035_2They weren't giving out a lot of spoilers about the coming season, although Miller told us there won't be a third breakout, after the characters escaped Illinois' Fox River prison in Season One, and the Panamanian hellhole Sona in Season Three.

Is the actor glad to be out of those dank prison cells? Not really, it turns out. "I felt like Michael was at his best in Season One. He had a clear sense of purpose," Miller said. "And then in Season Two (after the escape), the character kind of spun out. And then when we were back inside in Season Three, he had that sense of purpose again." So will the character spin out again now that he's back on the street in Season Four? "No, because this time we're being pro-active instead of reactive. He has a mission."

I asked Dominic Purcell (Lincoln) how the actors feel when they get their scripts featuring the show's trademark outrageous twists. Do they ever think, Oh, come on? "Not really, because with this show you just have to check your brain at the door sometimes, and I think the fans know that and have come to accept that."

Probably the most fun, though, was talking to Robert Knepper, who plays the brutal sex-murdering psycho Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell. He said he can walk into any bar in any town and even the toughest looking characters keep their distance. Women who turn around and find him behind them tend to shriek.

T-Bag chopped his own hand off to escape capture and later forced a veterinarian to reattach it in one of the show's most outrageous storylines. Then he killed the vet. Turns out Knepper is the son of a vet and actually called dad one night to doublecheck the right amount of dog-euthanizing drugs that would be required to take down a man.

Knepper used to help his father with dogs in his clinic, and he felt that the 5cc suggested by the writers just wasn't enough. But he didn't want to spoil the upcoming episode for his father, so he invented a story about dreaming that he had killed a man with a 5cc injection and asked dear old dad if that would be enough. "There was a looong pause," Knepper said with a laugh. But dad came through with the facts - 15-20 cc's was more like it. Ultimately, though, that prop needle was just too big.

The "Prison Break" Season Three DVD will be out Aug. 12.

Much more to come, but I can't hear myself think over the "So You Think You Can Dance" performance going

TCA press tour: ‘Prison Break’ing news


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The turnout for Fox’s “Prison Break” breakfast disappointed– no Wentworth Miller; no Sarah Wayne Callies, though both were promised. I did talk to Robert Knepper, who wouldn’t tell me a darn thing about what Tea Bag will get up to in the new season, which begins Labor Day. But he agreed that Tea Bag is like a cockroach: You can’t kill him, although you can chop pieces of him off.

Then I had a nice long talk with co-executive producer Nick Santora about bringing Sara back. He said the writers had deliberately left Sara’s fate open from the beginning. “That’s why we shot the head scene” — a head alleged to be Sara’s, in a box — “in a dark garage, partly decomposed and turned to the side.” They had always hoped to get Callies back, he said, and when they did, they dropped in the line when LJ said he hadn’t seen her die, just heard it. (”I was onto you,” I told him. “We didn’t fool everybody,” he said.)

As for the new season, Santora wasn’t spilling much either. It’s shot in LA, as we know, after Chicago and Texas previously. A little time (”maybe a week and a half”) has passed since the season finale. We”ll see Sara pretty early in the season, and “it won’t be that long” before Michael sees her too — and that, Santora said, “will be very powerful.” Hot, too, I’m hoping.

The last time we saw Dr. Sara Tancredi, she was a mere decapitated head in a box. Even Prison Break star Sarah Wayne Callies put the character to rest by “mourning and grieving” the loss the doctor she played for two seasons.

Truly uncharacteristic of the show (we know how much they love to kill off their leads), the show is bringing Dr. Tancredi back for Prison Break’s fourth season.

The invitation to return was surprise to Callies too who says, “Resurrecting her was an interesting process and certainly an unexpected one.”

The actress kept tight lipped about where Tancredi’s been but teased, “She is a very different person than she was. What happened to her during the third season, which will be revealed in the first episode has changed her and I think has changed her irreconcilably and I think her big question is what of her old self can she retain…she hasn’t been in a good place and it sort of starts to make that Kellerman bathtub scene look a little bit like a picnic.”

Tancredi’s love life is about to heat up to when she reunites with her leading man Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller), “They don’t know each other that well. This whole series started like six months ago. There are a lot of moments of, ‘Oh you like grapefruit? Oh, I didn’t even know that and I’m in love with you how weird.’”

Fox's Summer Press Tour: Prison Break's Sara and Michael Are in the House!


Mmmm...scrambled eggs, bacon and a side of "Hey babe" with a wink from Dominic Purcell. I could start off every morning just like this, as Fox kicks off its Television Critics Association press day at the Beverly Hilton.

Sarah Wayne Callies is not going anywhere, Wentworth Miller is happy as a clam (make that, a hot clam—you know I can't resist) and the producers are moving forward on a Prison Break spinoff. Click in for all the scoop!

Sarah Wayne Callies Loves You: When asked how she felt about the overwhelming fan response to her character's death that brought her back to the show this season, Sarah Wayne Callies got a little misty: "It was heartstopping. She's a small character on the show, and I never thought they would make the noise that they did. I don't have words for the kind of gratitude I felt. It's incredible." Added Wentworth: "It was a happy day when Sarah returned. There are a lot of chefs and so to say that one person made the decision would be erroneous. And I have to say that Sarah has handled herself with grace, and dignity through the whole process and ultimately what happened is that we are doing right by the fans and bringing her back."

Say it with me now: HOLLA

Wentworth added: "Sarah is not going anywhere. She's in for the long haul."

(I won't make you holla again, but that is worthy, no?)

I Love It When a Plan Comes Together: "It's the A-Team 2008!" Wentworth said with a laugh as he describes the new season, adding, "We are seven guys with very different agendas who are forced to work together." Their mission? To bring down the Company, naturally. (Pardon me while I send a scowl over to Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, aka Gretchen, who, eek, just smiled back. Just kidding, JLO!)

"There is a little A-Team vibe," admitted executive producer Matt Olmstead, "but it is more a Dirty Dozen-Ronin type of feel. I can give away that the show is set in Los Angeles this season, and it's that sort of a down-and-dirty, street-level Prison Break-style Los Angeles. It's not the Hollywood sign and palm trees."

Dish From the Man Behind the Curtain: PB boss Olmstead whispered: "I didn't tell anyone else, but I have to tell you I've seen cuts of the first three episodes, and I am amazed and relieved. We weren't sure how it would work out to move the show to L.A., and at first we thought we'd have to work off of all these layers of character history, but now we realize L.A. is a clean slate, and the show has a whole new energy."

As for Michael and Sara, SWC said, "She's back right away, and you won't have to wait. I can tell you that." She also promised some hot, steamy action, "as much as they can show on a 9 p.m. show" but advised: "People forget that Michael and Sara really don't know each other. This whole new series started six months ago, and so I think there's a lot of 'Oh, you like grapefruit? I didn't know that, but I know I love you.' "

And Oh Yeah, the Spinoff! Olmstead told me that he and coexec producer Zack Estrin (both very cool guys, FYI) are right in the middle of rewriting the Prison Break spinoff. "We are finishing the script; then we'll cast it, and then we'll hopefully shoot it and get it on the air." The strike threw a wrench in the original plan to intro a new female character who would helm the new show—they also couldn't get their dream picks to move to Dallas, so Olmsteadt said the move to L.A. will help with the casting. Estrin added, "The new show will be more like CSI Miami is to CSI and less a spinoff, because it will be a new character altogether."

Running to the So You Think You Can Dance session (just heard Jessica was injured, eek, so stand by). I'm hitting up all the Fox panels and the party tonight, so if you have any more questions for the Prison Break crew or any of the other Fox stars and show runners (24, SYTYCD, Bones, Fringe, Terminator, etc will all represent) please comment below