HELLO AMERICA!—Since his enormous success in the TV series “Prison Break,” Wentworth Miller continues to receive thousands of fan mail from all over the globe. Speaking with the actor is like catching up with an old friend who is anxious to let you know that he’s one happy, lucky guy.
The critically acclaimed actor was born in June 2, 1972 in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England. “My parents are American. Both professional people; my mom is a special education teacher and my dad is a lawyer [and] educator. I have two young sisters and by the way, my father is of Afro-Jamaican and African-American descent. My mom has Dutch, French Swedish, Lebanese Syrian, Austrian and Polish ancestry. So, you might say my family is quite universal.”
His family moved to Park slope, Brooklyn, New York when he turned a year old. His dad was named assistant district attorney. Even though he has retained a dual citizenship, he says he has always been an American. He proudly says that he was a straight A student in high school. “After graduating from high school,” he said, “I attended Princeton and that was very exciting as well as rewarding. I became a cartoonist for the school paper and a member of the acapella group, The Princeton Tigertones. I sang baritone. I realized that I enjoyed performing in front of an audience.”
West, as his friends call him, graduated from Princeton with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and off to California he went where he was hired by a small company who made films for TV. “After a year or so later,” he offered, “I realized that I really moved to Los Angeles to be an actor. So, I quit my job at the company even though I was offered another stable job position.”
After being forced to take numerous temp jobs, eventually he started being signed guest roles on shows such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “ER,” and “Popular.” Then it began to happen, he starred in the Hallmark series, “Dinotopia,” playing character, David Scott. The guest spots let to a role in the feature film, “The Human Stain” which was his breakthrough role, alongside actress Nicole Kidman and Sir Anthony Hopkins, where he played the younger Hopkins’ character, Coleman Silk. This appearance catapulted the actor to a position of serious recognition.
The actor appeared in numerous films following the Hopkins film, but his career really took off when FOX network signed him to star in the series “Prison Break” in 2005. He played the role of Michael Scofield, a character supporting his brother, Lincoln Burrows, escape death row after being found guilty of a crime he did not commit.
The series became an instant hit and Wentworth secured a spot in the industry as one of the hottest up-and-coming actors in the business. He earned a Golden Globe nomination, a Saturn award nomination, as well as three Teen Choice Award nominations. Not only that, he appeared in two of Mariah Carey’s videos, “It’s Like that” and “We Belong Together,” as the singer’s love interest.
“I’m really a very private guy,” he claims, “I like to spend time relaxing at home. I like reading, or even going to restaurants every week. Of course, music is a passion as well as movies and theater, for me that’s where happiness is — when I can relax and enjoy those things that’s when I feel like I’m WINNING!”
