You’ll be a star. Wentworth Miller heard that a lot two years ago. That’s what happens when you look like this and then land a coveted role in a fall prestige pic—one based on a Philip Roth novel, no less—costarring Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins. Unfortunately, that movie was The Human Stain, and while we heard it was good, we can’t nd anybody who actually saw it. “I had certainly hoped it would open more doors for me,“ Miller says. Not that he had to wait too long.
In a season of nonstarters, Fox’s Prison Break quickly became appointment television, the kind of show you had to watch live, lest 10 million other Americans learn a twist rst. But the show’s proudly ludicrous plot—it’s about a nice guy (Miller) who gets a prison’s blueprint tattooed on his body to help spring his incarcerated brother—required an actor who could sell that story. Ecutive producer Brett Ratner needed a clean-cut guy, but one who wouldn’t be anybody’s cellblock bitch. And he was having a hard time casting the part, he says, until he remembered Miller, an enigmatic actor—a Princeton man!—he’d met with for an ill-fated big-screen Superman project. “Wentworth has this coolness about him—that Steve McQueen vibe,“ Ratner says. He liked the guy’s thousand-yard stare (see Prison Break’s billboard). “And he had intelligence, which is different from most good-looking young actors. It’s a complex role. I don’t even know if Sean Penn could play that part.“
Ratner might tend to the superlative, but Miller, 33, is enjoying the attention a hit series brings. “People honk at me from their cars,“ he says. And although it can take four hours to apply that tattoo on shooting days, there is an upside. “I haven’t been working out in a while,“ Miller says. “I appreciate that it adds shading and contours where there are none.“