Robert Knepper is back as T-Bag in FOX’s new edition of Prison Break but he wants fans to know that this isn’t just a revival of the series.
Did he ever think that Prison Break was going to be revived?
“No,” he told us. “I have to say I’m a little weary of these reboots. I’m not even calling it a reboot, I’m calling it a rebirth.
“I’m sure I’m not the only one, but [series creator Paul Scheuring] and I had a good talk about it, and I was like don’t start it up where it left off. Things have changed in six years. I’ve changed. My character’s gone through some epiphanies in jail so I’m sure the other guys and women have had the same thing happen to them.
“This rebirth of nine episodes, it’s like the first season. It’s a surprise and then another surprise and another surprise as each episode ends. You’re going to be sitting there like the first season, going no, come on, tell me. Tell me what happens. And I’m like nope, wait ’til next week.”
Whatever happens to T-Bag in the next nine episodes, there’s no doubt that they will be some of the best moments from the new Prison Break. The character provided some of the biggest surprises in his first go-around, and Robert was able to chew the scenery in every episode, making T-Bag someone audiences loved, hated and were bewildered by — sometimes all at the same time.
Six years is a long time to step away from a character, though, so how did he find that inner madman again? He told us that his approach to getting back into T-Bag’s head was not to look too far in the rear view mirror.
“I didn’t go back and study four years worth of episodes,” Robert explained. “I didn’t sit here going, ‘What did I do?’ I wish I could remember what I did. I didn’t do any of that.
“I just allowed myself to really go out on a tightrope and say okay, blindfold off, look at the script right now. What is it showing me? All the answers I needed were right there in the moment.
“I didn’t have to try and recreate anything. I didn’t have to redo anything. I just, with my fellow actors, [we] looked each other in the eye and went let’s go. We’re on the ice, let’s skate.”
In the interest of preserving the suspense for fans, he didn’t drop any major hints about what T-Bag will be up to when audiences meet him again. However, we do know that he’s not going anywhere once he gets there.
“All I can tell you for sure is that I caught on IMDB that I was doing one episode, which is not true,” he clarified. “I’m all over this thing. He is as much a part of this ensemble this time around as he always was before.”
As for the idea of more Prison Break past the event series, Robert doesn’t want to look too far ahead either. “There’s already rumblings of people saying well, what about a next chapter? What about a spinoff?” he continued. “I’m like, let’s just do this one first and see how it goes.”
To a certain segment of TV audiences, Robert Knepper will always be T-Bag from Prison Break. And he’s totally okay with that.
“I was that guy. I was that guy that people would go up to and go, you’re that guy, I’ve seen you in so-and-so. And that all changed because of Prison Break, and that is an incredible feeling,” he told us.
However, those same people might be surprised to know that the event series is just scratching the surface of what Robert Knepper has done and is doing right now. He’s playing a number of characters, and not all of them are bad guys either.
He has the recurring role of General Jamie McClendon in the current season of Showtime’s drama Homeland and will appear in an as yet unrevealed role in the network’s revival of Twin Peaks. And in an upcoming TV movie, he’s actually playing the guy chasing the killer.
“I was shooting a film that comes out this year on television on ID called The Dating Game Killer,” Robert said. “I play the detective that goes after Rodney Alcala and it’s an amazing story.”
“This year you will see me slip into the shoes of nine different characters between Homeland, Prison Break, iZombie, Twin Peaks, and three movies,” he continued, laughing, “I’m not doing any more prison stuff for a while!”
But if anyone can play nine different characters and get away with it, it’s Knepper. It takes a rare kind of actor to believably be able to portray everything from a military leader to somebody with a laundry list of crimes. That kind of versatility is what every actor dreams of but few are able to achieve.
And that’s what makes it great to have Robert back on our TV screens with the new Prison Break — he might be playing the same character but we know he’s going to take him in a fresh direction, one that we can’t help but follow.
Catch Robert Knepper as Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell when Prison Break returns for its fifth season this Tuesday, April 4 at 9 p.m. on FOX. You can also follow him on Twitter at @robert_knepper.
by Brittany Frederick - fansided.com
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