Wentworth Miller Biography
Born: June 02, 1972
The strikingly handsome and refined British actor Wentworth Miller gained his greatest notoriety as Michael Scofield on the Fox network's serial drama Prison_Break. Born June 2, 1972, in Chipping Norton, England, as the son of a Rhodes Scholar, Miller moved to Brooklyn with his parents as a boy; his family relocated to Pennsylvania's Quaker country during Miller's adolescence. After high school, Miller attended Princeton University and studied English, but -- despite a love of acting that he had harbored since boyhood -- he reportedly gravitated away from drama in the pro-business atmosphere of the university. Following graduation, Miller moved to Los Angeles and held down jobs as an assistant at a film production company and a bookstore clerk while he gradually realized his own desire to act and started attending auditions. He debuted before the cameras in a one-episode role, as Gage Petronzi on the hit syndicated series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and landed another one-time stint as Mike Palmieri on ER. But he was poised to break through to more prominent roles with his turn in the 2003 Robert_Benton-directed, Nicholas_Meyer-scripted drama The_Human_Stain. That picture casts Anthony_Hopkins as Coleman Silk, a Negro who has spent all his life passing as a Jew; Miller plays the young Silk, and delivers some of the most effective scenes in the film. (One memorable bit has him climbing into the boxing ring and beating a black opponent senseless, out of self hatred). Unfortunately, despite outstanding craftsmanship and winning performances all around, the public mysteriously rejected The_Human_Stain, and thus inadvertently held Miller back from A-list stardom. (The critics were particularly vicious about Miller's inclusion in the film -- The New York Times' A.O. Scott unfairly complained that Miller looked nothing like Hopkins, and cynically remarked that his juxtaposition alongside coal-black parents reminded one of Steve_Martin in The_Jerk).
Miller's determination doubled, however, and he became notoriously selective, even turning down less esteemed roles to hold out for more respected films and parts. The gamble paid off: after a solid turn as Dr. Adam Lockwood in the sci-fi action thriller Underworld (2003) and a best-forgotten contribution to the embarrassing action thriller Stealth (2005) -- as the voice of the computer EDI -- the thesp landed second billing on Prison_Break. His Michael Scofield is a structural engineer whose brother Lincoln sits on death row in a local penitentiary, for a crime he did not commit. Armed with a full blueprint of the prison and an outrageously complex escape plan, Michael commits a crime to have himself incarcerated and assist his brother with a breakout. The program premiered in late 2005 to solid ratings; Variety observed of the program: "Thus far, easily the most compelling element is Miller, who with his steely intensity conveys a guy capable of outwitting, outlasting, and outplaying whatever the prison and its gruff warden (Stacy_Keach, billed as a guest star) can throw at him." Nathan Southern, Rovi
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