| Wentworth Earl Miller III (born June 2, 1972) is an American actor, who achieved fame as Michael Scofield on TV's Prison Break.
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Miller's father is of African-American, Jamaican, English, German, Jewish, and Cherokee [1] descent, and his mother is of Russian, French, Dutch, Syrian, and Lebanese descent.[2] He was born in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England where his father, a Rhodes Scholar, was studying.[3]
Miller was raised in Brooklyn, New York after his family moved back to the United States. In an interview, Miller stated: "My father is black and my mother is white. Therefore, I could answer to either which kind of makes me a racial Lone Ranger, at times, caught between two communities."[4]
Miller's first three years of high school were spent at Midwood High School in Brooklyn. He then transferred to Quaker Valley Senior High School near Pittsburgh, where he graduated in 1990. In 1995, he graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English. During his time at Princeton, he traveled the world performing with the school's famed a capella group, The Princeton Tigertones. Subsequently, he headed to Los Angeles, California to pursue an acting career. He ended up spending years doing behind-the-scenes work to support himself before devoting himself seriously to auditioning for acting roles.
[edit] Career
Miller's first starring role was as the sensitive and introverted David in ABC's mini-series Dinotopia. After appearing in a few minor television roles, Miller moved on to co-star in the film The Human Stain (2003), playing the younger version of Anthony Hopkins' character.
Miller further increased his profile in 2005 when he starred in singer Mariah Carey's music videos, "It's Like That" and "We Belong Together." He currently has a main role as Michael Scofield in the successful Fox Network television drama Prison Break, for which he received a 2005 Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series.[5]
[edit] Filmography
In 2003, Miller was cast as 'Coleman Silk' in The Human Stain. It was revealed that he had an intense personal connection to this mixed-race character. Not only did Miller possess a similar racial background, but he also caused a controversial incident during his time at Princeton for making an apparently derogatory (though misconstrued) remark about African-Americans, much like the character in the movie.
In 1994, while he was a junior at Princeton, Miller published a cartoon in The Daily Princetonian featuring Cornel West teaching an introduction to an African-American Studies course called Rhythm – Why None of You Have It, and How You Can Get It. The cartoon referred to West, who was the Professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University before being hired away by Harvard University, as "newly-purchased", an innocent academic term for newly hired that was taken as a reference to slavery.
The New York Times later published the story about novelist Toni Morrison writing an angry letter to Miller. Despite his multiracial background, Miller was considered a campus racist. Like 'Coleman Silk', Miller declined to explain the reasons behind his action.
After filming The Human Stain, Miller wrote a letter to West apologizing for the cartoon, but received no replies. However, West was present at the premiere of the movie. Incidentally, West is a friend of actress Anna Deavere Smith, who played Coleman Silk's mother in the film. He unexpectedly gave Miller a bear hug (implying to some observers that West had decided to forgive, if not forget, what had happened).[6]
Spoilers end here.
[edit] Trivia
[edit] References
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