Wentworth Miller

Wentworth Miller
Miller on October 27, 2008
Born	Wentworth Earl Miller III (1972-06-02) June 2, 1972 Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England
Alma mater	Princeton University
Occupation	Actor, model, screenwriter, producer
Years active	1998–present

Wentworth Earl Miller III (born June 2, 1972) is an American actor, model, screenwriter and producer. He rose to stardom following his role as Michael Scofield in the Fox television series Prison Break. He made his screenwriting debut with the 2013 dramatic thriller film Stoker, which stars Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska.

Early life

Born in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England, Miller is the son of American parents Joy Marie (née Palm), a special education teacher, and Wentworth Earl Miller II, a lawyer and teacher.^[1][2] Miller's father, a Rhodes Scholar, was studying at Oxford at the time of Miller's birth. Wentworth retains dual citizenship, but has affirmed that he has always been an American.^[3]

Miller is of multiethnic origin: his father is of African-American, Jamaican, English, German, Jewish, and Cherokee background, and his mother is of Russian, French, Dutch, Syrian, and Lebanese ancestry.^[4][5][6][7] He has stated, "My father is black and my mother is white. Therefore, I could answer to either, which kind of makes me a racial Lone Ranger, at times, caught between two communities."^[8]

His family moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, when he was a year old.^[9][10] Wentworth has two sisters, Leigh and Gillian. He attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn, New York, and was a member of SING!, an annual musical production that was started by Midwood. His family moved to Aleppo Township outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he graduated from Quaker Valley High School, in Leetsdale, Pennsylvania, in 1990. He graduated from Princeton University completing his bachelor's degree in English Literature. While at Princeton, he performed with the a cappella group the Princeton Tigertones and was first a member of the Quadrangle Club, and later the Colonial Club.^[11]

Career

Acting

Miller signing autographs after Prison Break in Beverly Hills, California, October 21, 2008

In 1995, Miller relocated to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.^[12] He has stated that his rocky road to stardom "was a long time in the coming and there were a lot of upsets and a lot of failures and roadblocks, but I couldn’t walk away from it. I needed it like I needed air, it was just something I had to do."^[13]

Miller's first TV appearance was as student-turned-sea monster Gage Petronzi on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ("Go Fish", 1998).

Miller's first starring role was in 2002 as the sensitive, introverted David Scott in ABC's mini-series Dinotopia. After appearing in a few minor television roles, he moved on to co-star in the 2003 film The Human Stain, playing the younger version of the Anthony Hopkins character, Coleman Silk. He identified strongly with the core dilemma of the movie, being that of a man struggling with his heritage. Miller worked extensively on the role, not only in researching Anthony Hopkins, but by embarking on a four month regimen to accurately portray Silk as a boxer.

He had a minor role in the film Underworld, playing a doctor and friend of the character Michael Corvin.

In 2005, Miller was cast as Michael Scofield in Fox Network's television drama Prison Break. He played the role of a caring brother who created an elaborate scheme to help his brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) escape death row after being found guilty of a crime he did not commit. His character had a full upper body (front and back) tattoo. Covering both the front of Miller's torso and his back, along with both arms from shoulders to wrists, the special effects for the tattoo took over four hours to apply. His performance in the show earned him a 2005 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series.^[14]

Miller appeared in two Mariah Carey music videos, "It's Like That" as a party guest and "We Belong Together" as her love interest. Director Brett Ratner, who directed the pilot episode of Prison Break, was also signed on to direct the two Carey videos. Ratner decided to use Miller in the videos as well.^[15]

In addition, Miller guest-starred in the Season 11 premiere of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit as Detective Nate Kendall, a detective from Precinct 24 of the NYPD.^[16][17] He also featured in Resident Evil: Afterlife, the fourth film in the commercially successful Resident Evil film series based on the video game series of the same name; Miller plays Chris Redfield, one of the protagonists of the video game series.

Screenwriting

Miller wrote the screenplay for the film Stoker, as well as a prequel to Stoker, Uncle Charlie.^[18] He used the pseudonym Ted Foulke, later explaining, "I just wanted the scripts to sink or swim on their own."^[19] Miller's script was voted to the 2010 "Black List" of the 10 best unproduced screenplays then making the rounds in Hollywood.^[20] The film is about a teenage girl who must deal with a mysterious uncle following the death of her father. Miller described it as a "horror film, a family drama and a psychological thriller".^[21] Although influenced by Bram Stoker's Dracula, Miller has clarified that Stoker is not a vampire story.^[21][22] Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt also influenced the film but only as a jumping-off point, from which the story takes a different direction.^[21] Park Chan-wook directed, with stars Mia Wasikowska as the teenager, Nicole Kidman as the mother, and Matthew Goode as the uncle.^[23] The film was released in 2013.

Miller scripted the film The Loft, an American-Belgian thriller film, which is a remake of the 2008 Dutch-language Belgian film Loft by Erik Van Looy. The plot is about five married men who share an upmarket loft with their mistresses. When the body of a murdered woman is found in the loft, the men begin to suspect each other of having committed the gruesome crime, as they are the only ones with keys to the premises. Through flashbacks, which are intertwined with scenes from the present, the entire story is unraveled.

Miller has also sold a screenplay for a film called The Disappointments Room, the story reportedly also a family drama with horror elements similar to Stoker, to Voltage Pictures and Killer Films.^[24] Miller is reportedly in negotiations to write the screenplay adaptation of the novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski which is set to be produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks among others.^[25]

Personal life

In 2007, Miller denied to InStyle magazine that he was gay.^[26] He publicly came out as gay in August 2013, when he posted a letter on GLAAD's website declining an invitation to attend the Saint Petersburg International Film Festival because he felt "deeply troubled" by the Russian government's treatment of its gay citizens, referring to anti-LGBT legislation enacted the previous June banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations".^[27][28] Miller wrote, "I cannot in good conscience participate in a celebratory occasion hosted by a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly."^[27]

At the 2013 Seattle, Washington, Human Rights Campaign Dinner, Miller said he had attempted suicide multiple times as a teenager before coming out as gay.^[29] He said, "When someone asked me if that was a cry for help, I said no, because I told no one. You only cry for help if you believe there's help to cry for."^[29] He discussed struggling in Hollywood as a closeted actor. He also talks about how his involvement in The Mankind Project helped him learn about brotherhood, sisterhood and being part of a community.^[30]

Filmography

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Wentworth Miller

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wentworth Miller.

• Wentworth Miller at the Internet Movie Database
• Wentworth Miller Interviews on theTVaddict.com
• Wentworth Miller's biography at Prison Break's official website