On a chilly — OK, freezing — night in early March, one corner of the massive former Joliet Correctional Center complex was lit by huge lights and littered with portable space heaters (which have a habit of sending up smoke from the parkas of those who stand too close to them). As the cast and crew chugged coffee and drank soup from paper cups, filming on Season 1 of “Prison Break,” which finally returns to television after a 31/2-month break on Monday, neared the end of the line.
When we last left him, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) was in the infirmary of Fox River Penitentiary as the hour of his execution approached. His brother, Michael Scofield, planned to spring Burrows from the infirmary, but he found out that the pipe he had planned to use to get to his brother had been replaced, and the escape attempt of Scofield and his Fox River associates had to be abandoned — for the moment.
I could tell you what was happening at the imposing prison as the cast and crew shot the second-to-last episode of “Prison Break,” but that episode won’t air for two months, and if any of those details got out, Fox would send a team of publicists to break my legs.
But I did speak to “Prison Break’s” creator and executive producer Paul Scheuring about where the show’s going, and several members of the cast as well, about the rabid reception to the show and what may be in store for their characters.
`PRISON BREAK’ CREATOR PAUL SCHEURING:
Revelations, revolutions
“Prison Break” creator Paul Scheuring gave up some details on the rest of Season 1 and hinted at what will happen next season (if there is one).
“Everything goes horribly wrong and the episode doesn’t end like you think it will,” Scheuring says of the Monday episode of the show. “But there are lot of big revelations in the process.”
The April 3 episode of the show, Scheuring says, flashes back to three years before the “Break” inmates were in the big house: There are “a lot of surprises about the characters, a lot of stuff you didn’t know about them. A lot we didn’t know about the conspiracy, and what happened that night [a crime was allegedly committed by] Lincoln.”
When the escape does happen — and Scheuring won’t say when that is — it’s going to “turn everyone’s lives upside down, both inside the prison and out. We’re totally going to reinvent everything.”
“Rest assured, they’re going to break out, and break out soon,” Scheuring adds. “Because, you know, if Scofield’s hanging around in Season 3 with this tattoo on his back, still inside Fox River, going to the other guys, ‘I got this perfect plan … ‘ “
WENTWORTH MILLER: Don’t mention the tattoo
Don’t get him wrong — Wentworth Miller is pleased that “Prison Break” has gotten so much attention, not just from the American media but from press outlets all over the world. And Miller, who plays tattooed inmate Michael Scofield, understands why certain questions recur: “They’re the things that people want to know, and they’re at the heart of the show.” Still, the actor said there are a few questions that he’ll be happy if he never hears again:
1. “How long does it take to apply the tattoo?”
2. “Did you think the show was going to catch on like it did?”
3. “Do you think they can keep the show going after you break out of prison?”
4. “Are you going to break out of prison?”
5. “What’s it like working in a real prison?”
He says the weirdest question he’s gotten is “How has having a shaved head affected my social life?”
“I had my honest answer,” Miller says, “which I’m sure they found disappointing, which is that I’ve had a shaved head for a long time, so I’ve noticed no change whatsoever.”
Besides, he hardly had time for an active social life while the show was shooting. “I spend my weekends sleeping and watching DVDs, and eating at restaurants within a two-block radius of my apartment,” he says.
ROBERT KNEPPER: Bad boy, good lines
Robert Knepper has played guys like T-Bag, Fox River Penitentiary’s resident bad boy, dozens of times. The difference this time is that his character is still alive. “Most characters like this … they’re guest stars,” Knepper says. “They’re the bad guy that gets killed by the hero.”
But T-Bag has stuck around, and even become a breakout character on the show. Knepper gets letters …
” ‘I want to rip that white T-shirt off you,’ ” fans write to him, he says, with a self-deprecating laugh and a shrug. “It’s just primal.” He’s starting to form some theories as to why T-Bag fascinates people.
“When you’re a little kid, growing up, most of us know what’s right and wrong. Our parents teach us that discipline,” Knepper says. But “there is a fascination [with] … the idea of watching a train wreck about to happen. … I think it’s fascinating because I think all of us can understand it. We are all capable of turning into that. Especially when you look at a sociopath’s life, what happened to them as children.”
Plus, he adds, T-Bag often gets the funniest lines. “They’ve given me a lot to work with,” he says of the show’s writers.
DOMINIC PURCELL: The glamor of Joliet
Huddled in a corner of the interior of the former Joliet Correctional Center, sporting the requisite thick parka, Dominic Purcell, like the rest of the cast, looks ready for the filming of Season 1 of “Prison Break” to be over. “You don’t wake up every morning wanting to go to Joliet,” the Australian actor says with a rueful laugh. Still, he’s grateful that the show has given him so many exciting, even harrowing moments as Death Row inmate Lincoln Burrows.
“Having read the scripts, they just keep getting better and better,” Purcell says. “I’m not saying that [to hype the show], it’s just a fact. When you see the crew sitting around at lunch and reading scripts, you know you’re on a good thing.”
Still, there’s one person who can’t watch certain scenes.
“My wife, she can’t watch it,” Purcell says. “She’ll watch it and see me in the [electric] chair or see me tortured, and she gets really emotional about it. [That means] the show is doing its job.”
WADE WILLIAMS: The mean fiddler
Guess what hobby Wade Williams, who plays intimidating head prison guard Brad Bellick, is pursuing in his spare time?
He’s playing the fiddle.
Williams, who lived in Andersonville with his wife and daughter during the filming of “Prison Break,” took fiddle lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music on the weekends. He made it through the Fiddle 2 course (twice) and is hoping to graduate to Fiddle 3 if the show comes back for another season.
“I love music, it’s something to do to relax,” Williams says. “Plus, when you’re an actor, you sit around in your trailer a lot.”
Williams, a classically trained singer, has been on Broadway in “Guys and Dolls” and plays a mean banjo as well. Which is why “Prison Break” creator Paul Scheuring jokingly says he’s contemplating a musical episode in Season 2 titled “Bellick, Banjo and a Bottle of Bourbon.” “It very much syncs up with where Bellick is going to be in Season 2, because his life is going to fall apart,” Scheuring says.
AMAURY NOLASCO: A taste of home
For Amaury Nolasco, who plays Scofield’s cellmate Sucre, Chicago’s weather is a little different than that of his native Puerto Rico. So he often finds himself at a Humboldt Park restaurant, La Bruquena on Division Street, where he’s fond of the steak with rice, beans and plaintains on the side. “It reminds me of my mom’s cooking,” he says.
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NEED MORE ‘BREAK-‘AGE?
– To get fully caught up with “Prison Break,” watch the marathon of episodes that airs on FX beginning 11 a.m. Sunday. For a review of the next fresh episodes of “Prison Break,” check out Monday’s Tempo section.
– And for more from the “Prison Break” cast and from Paul Scheuring, go to chicagotribune.com/watcher.
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moryan@tribune.com
