Prison Break: Cast & Creators Live at the Paley Center

The cast and crew of Prison Break talk about improvisation, violence, and how real-life prisoners react to the show. This William S. Paley Television Festival evening honors Prison Break, an action/adventure drama about Michael Scofield, a man determined to break his wrongfully-accused brother out of Fox River Penitentiary. Barbara Dixon (director, The Paley Center for Media, Los Angeles) welcomes the audience and introduces Alex Ben Block (senior columnist at Hollywood Today), who moderates the following panelists: series creator/executive producer Paul Scheuring; executive producers Dawn Parouse and Matt Olmstead; and cast members Wade Williams (Bellick), Rockmond Dunbar (C-Note), Robert Knepper (T-Bag), Amaury Nolasco (Sucre), Sarah Wayne Callies (Dr. Sara Tancredi), and Dominic Purcell (Lincoln Burrows). The panelists discuss the concept of the show being more like film than television, how the actors were cast (including Knepper’s potential job as a park ranger and one actor being hired “out of pity”), how much improvising is done by the actors, the show’s violence, the actors’ feelings about knowing their characters might be killed at any time, and reaction from penal system workers and prisoners to the show’s themes. Contains Explicit Language.