Wentworth Miller

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Wentworth Miller bigraphy, stories - Golden Globe-nominated British-born American actor

Wentworth Miller : biography

2 June 1972 –

Wentworth Earl Miller III (born June 2, 1972) is a American actor, model, screenwriter and producer. He rose to stardom following his role as Michael Scofield in the Fox Network television series Prison Break. He made his screenwriting debut with the 2013 horror film Stoker.

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. Miller’s father, a Rhodes Scholar, was studying at Oxford at the time of Miller’s birth.

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, Lebanese, and Syrian ancestry. Paumgarten, Nick., The New Yorker, 10 November 2003. Retrieved 16 June 2008.

His family moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, when he was a year old. Miller retains dual citizenship. 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.

Career

Acting

In 1995, Miller relocated to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.Dutch television program Jensen!, 10 September 2007. 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."

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.

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.

In addition, Miller guest-starred on the Season 11 premiere of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit as Detective Nate Kendall, a detective from Precinct 24 of the NYPD. 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.