Michael Scofield

Template:Infobox Prison Break character Michael Scofield, is a protagonist in the American television series, Prison Break. He is portrayed by Wentworth Miller. He is 31 years old. The character first appeared in the series pilot as a man who stages a bank robbery in order to get sent into the prison where his older brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), is being held until his execution. The premise of Prison Break revolves around the two brothers and Michael's plan to help Lincoln escape his death sentence. As the principal character, Michael has been featured in every episode of the series. Although both Lincoln and Michael are the protagonists of the series, Michael has been featured more extensively than Lincoln, especially in the first season and the third.

Various flashbacks from subsequent episodes provide further insight into the relationship between Michael and his brother, and the reasons behind Michael's determination in helping Lincoln to escape his death sentence. In the episode flashbacks, the younger Michael is played by Dylan Minette.

Background

After his father deserted the family, Michael Scofield took up his mother's maiden name in order to start a new life because his mother told him that his father, Aldo Burrows was addicted to alchohol. After their mother's death from liver cancer, Lincoln became his guardian and took care of him. Having lost both their parents, Lincoln descended into a life of crime while preventing Michael from suffering the same fate. Following the death of his mother, he and Lincoln moved in with the family of Lincoln's friend, Veronica Donovan. That situation was short-lived. Afterwards, Michael and Lincoln traveled in and out of different foster home situations. Though they were usually kept together, there were periods time when circumstances required them to be placed separately. Once such instance occurred when Lincoln did a six-month stretch in juvenile hall on an assault charge when he was seventeen and Michael was eleven. Michael was placed with a foster father in the Pershing section of Chicago. Though several reports had been filed suggesting the man was abusive and routinely locked his charges in a small storage shed, no formal inquiry had been made prior to Michael's placement. Six months into Michael's stay, his foster father was found dead in his home, a victim of a violent attack. For better or worse, young Michael Scofield repressed all memory of what had occurred and was not able to help police in their investigation. To this day, the murder investigation remains unsolved. When Michael would wake up in the morning not knowing where his brother was, there would be an origami crane next to his bed, a sign his brother was watching out for him. In high school, Michael took an elective survey class in Arts and Crafts, which had a large section devoted to the Japanese art of origami. He was immediately drawn to the precision and patience that the practice required. He was particularly fond of constructing cranes and began to do so out of any material he could find. Michael's practice of making paper cranes carried over into his adulthood.

Michael was a gifted student, and finished his secondary education at Morton East High School in Cicero, Illinois with an impeccable record. He graduated magna cum laude with Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Loyola University in Chicago. He went on to become a successful structural engineer at the firm of Middleton, Maxwell & Schaum in downtown Chicago.

The sixteenth episode of the series, "Brother's Keeper", reveals Michael and Lincoln's relationship three years before Lincoln was imprisoned at Fox River and the reason why Michael would go to such extreme lengths to save his brother from his death sentence. Michael's discovery of his mis-perception of his brother and his brother's sacrifice for him prompts him to change and help Lincoln.

In season 3 it is revealed that Michael is fluent in Spanish.

Education and experience

Loyola University, Chicago, Chicago, IL M.S. in Civil Engineering

• Earned magna cum laude distinction for graduating with a grade point average in the top five percent of his class (3.89).
• Studied under professional engineers Eduardo Rivera, Megan Costa and Ravi Rajendra.

Calloway/Drushal, Chicago, IL Intern Assisted partners Peter Calloway and Jeff Drugshal with various aspects of managing their architecture firm for four consecutive summers. Duties included:

• Applied creative and analytical problems solving skills to multiple advanced building systems.
• Developed schematics for sustainable designs in developing urban communities.
• Spearheaded low-income renewal project through corporate outreach initiatives.

Honors and awards

Phi Beta Kappa Elected to nation's oldest academic fraternity in first year of eligibility.

• Dean's List

Achieved Dean's List honors (by earning a grade point average of 3.5 or better) in every semester, both undergraduate and graduate.

• Percival Stern Award

Received award from the Engineering Department honoring "most promising young structural engineer" upon undergraduate graduation.

• Chicago Youth Outreach Mentor, Chicago, IL

Mentored over 50 inner-city children during five year involvement with the program.

• Food For Kids, Chicago, IL

Helped found this service that provides free breakfasts to all schoolchildren in the Morgan Park area of Chicago.

Appearances

Season 1

The opening scene of the series shows Michael's final preparation of his plan to infiltrate Fox River State Penitentiary; the tattooist is applying the finishing touches to Michael's tattoo, which is prominently featured in the first season. In order to get into Fox River, Michael stages a bank robbery, pleads no contest at his trial, and requests that he be sent to the prison nearest to his home. Michael begins his sentence on April 11th, exactly a month before Lincoln is set to be executed. Once there, he scrutinizes every detail regarding the prison and its inhabitants.

Given Scofield's educational background, inmates and correctional officers alike would often wonder why a man of Michael's credentials would have thrown such a privileged life away to end up in a state penitentiary. What's even more intriguing is weird "habits", as he is often seen conversing discreetly with his brother, Lincoln Burrows, both during Prison Industry time and Chapel time; and the fact that he tends to execute a highly defined stare around Fox River's boundaries immediately from the point he got incarcerated as well as being called personally on command by the prison's warden himself, Henry Pope.

The season follows Michael as he puts his plan into action while overcoming various obstacles. In the first 13 episodes, Michael is seen to have a specific objective in each episode that he must accomplish in order to build an escape route out of the prison. On the way, he recruits a number of people to aid in the escape: his cellmate Fernando Sucre (Amaury Nolasco) to help him dig, mob henchman John Abruzzi (Peter Stormare) to get him on PI (Prison Industries) and provide air transport once they escape, and Charles Westmoreland (Muse Watson), who he believes to be D. B. Cooper and can help finance their lives as fugitives.

Michael feigns type 1 diabetes, giving him daily access to the infirmary (the escapees' exit point from the prison) and allowing him to build a relationship with Dr. Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies), who happens to be the daughter of Frank Tancredi (John Heard), the Governor of Illinois. After agreeing to help Warden Henry Pope (Stacy Keach) finish his Taj Mahal replica in his office, Michael also forms a friendship with Pope. He also later stages "brief insanity" to gain access to the penitentiary's J-Cat premises to gain contact with one of its insane inhabitants gifted with photographic memory, in order to re-acquire the portion of the tattooed blueprint that he lost after coming into contact with a steaming hot piece of metal

Michael's relationship with Sara is featured prominently in the nineteenth episode, "The Key", where he fails to steal the key to the infirmary from her. Although she finds out about his motive for being in the infirmary in the following episode, Sara decides to help Michael by leaving the infirmary door unlocked on the night of the escape. Towards the end of the season, Michael finally succeeds in helping his brother escape from Fox River State Penitentiary, through the window of the infirmary in the nick of time, but also aids the escape of six other prisoners.

Season 2

In the second season of the series, the story continues to follow Michael, his brother and other escapees as they try to evade the authorities pursuing them. Away from the prison setting, Michael and Lincoln are frequently featured in scenes together in the first seven episodes. Michael and Lincoln travel together, after the fugitives separate to accomplish each of their individual goals. When they fail to retrieve L. J. Burrows before his trial, they decide to head to Utah to find Westmoreland's hidden money. There, they reunite with the four of the other escapees: Sucre, C-Note (Rockmond Dunbar), T-Bag (Robert Knepper) and Tweener (Lane Garrison).

The seventh episode of the season, "Buried" marks the first time Lincoln and Michael separate, when Lincoln decides to go after his son, L. J., who has been released from prison. Michael fails to retrieve the money after being fooled by T-Bag. Nevertheless, Michael continues to execute his plan in order to meet the coyote at the 'Bolshoi Booze' location. Prior to leaving for 'Bolshoi Booze', Michael meets Sara at the location which he encoded in his messages to her inside the origami cranes. Thinking that she had declined his invitation to Panama, Michael goes to meet the coyote, who has the location of an escape plane to Mexico. There, Michael is reunited with Lincoln, Sucre and his father, Aldo Burrows (Anthony Denison).

When Aldo is killed by Agent Alexander Mahone (William Fichtner), Michael and Lincoln decide to confront "The Company" and the conspiracy, and bid farewell to Sucre, who alights the getaway plane to Mexico. After a brief capture by Mahone, Michael and Lincoln are aided in their escape by Paul Kellerman (Paul Adelstein), who turns against "The Company" in an act of self-preservation. Kellerman takes them to Terrence Steadman, the man Lincoln is accused of murdering. Steadman's suicide forces Michael, Lincoln and Kellerman to find Sara since she holds the key to unlocking information that can expose the conspiracy. After Sara joins them, Michael, Lincoln and Kellerman head to Chicago, where Sara's father has hidden the information. On the way, Sara tells Michael that she has fallen in love with him and later in the same episode Michael reveals that he feels the same.

With the help of the former Fox River warden Henry Pope, Michael and Sara succeed in getting the USB drive in Frank Tancredi's private locker. After leaving Kellerman behind, Lincoln, Michael and Sara soon found that the recorded conversation on the USB could not be used as evidence due to its modified time-stamp. They decide to blackmail Reynolds instead. When this also fails, Michael and Lincoln are forced to escape to Panama but are forced to leave Sara behind after she is arrested. Upon discovering that T-Bag is in Panama City, Michael decides to go and capture him, which he successfully does. However, when Michael returns his boat with Westmoreland's money to find Lincoln missing, he receives a call from Mahone, who demands the boat and the money in exchange for Lincoln's life. Michael outsmarts Mahone and escapes with Lincoln. At his new boat, Michael and Lincoln are reunited with Sara, who tells them that Lincoln has been exonerated after Kellerman's testimony.

Their happiness is short-lived when Agent Kim (Reggie Lee) arrives and threatens to kill Lincoln and take Michael to Sona, which causes Sara to shoot him. As the three flee from the scene with the police pursuing them, Michael and Sara separate from Lincoln and end up surrounded in a small isolated shack. After expressing their love for each other, they leave the shack. Unbeknownst to Sara, Michael confesses to Kim's killing and is arrested in her place. Michael is then imprisoned at the Penitenciaría Federal de Sona (Sona Federal Penitentiary). Michael is the fifth member of the Fox River Eight to be taken down by the authorities, and the second member not to die upon interception.

Season 3

In the season premiere, Michael witnesses a brutal duel between inmates, the usual manner of settling disputes at Sona. He unintentionally makes an enemy of one of the most influential and powerful inmates at Sona, a drug lord named Lechero. He is soon informed by Lincoln that The Company needs him to break somebody out of Sona (James Whistler), and that they have taken Sara and LJ hostage to ensure his cooperation. He began to look for Whistler, only to find that he has a bounty on his head: whoever kills him can receive exoneration from the mayor of Panama City. As a result, Whistler had gone into hiding in the sewers. He eventually found him and successfully persuade Lechero to remove the bounty on his head.

With seven days to bust Whistler out of prison, Michael tried to take matters into his own hands and uses it to contact Sara and receive a coded message about her location. He relays this information to Linc, who unsuccessfully attempts to rescue Sara and LJ and gets Sara killed as a result. Michael then purposely short out the power, causing Lechero to call on Michael to fix it. Michael restores power to the prison and also manages to restore power to a previously broken electric fence. It is revealed that Michael fixed the fence so that the electricity will superheat a chemical that Sucre (who was hired as the new grave digger) sprays on it, as the heated chemical is able to melt steel.

Michael spies the Sona's guards but is seen by the second one, due to the lens glare. He observed that at 3:13 p.m., there would be a glare which causes one of the guards to look over to the other side. After a small raid takes place, the prisoners are rounded up in the yard. Captain Hurtado questions Michael to the point that he unholsters his pistol and puts it to Michael's head. Whistler manages to intervene on Michael's behalf. With the help of Mahone, Michael concluded that by drugging one of the guard's coffee, they could have that guard. As the escape plan continues Michael finally learns of Sara's death, which has a devastating impact on him. In a moment of weakness he seems to challenge Whistler to a duel death but this reveals this to be only a diversion for the escape. The escape ultimately fails.

When the Company decided to rescue Whistler themselves, Michael foils their plans but he was suspected of such an operation. At the end of the episode he is being escorted out of SONA and is kept in solitary, being interrogated. He evenly relented and told them about Whistler, who then revealed that Gretchen Morgan is in charge of the operation. Later Michael finds out the officers that were with Gretchen have been killed. Michael and Whistler are returned to SONA. It was then when they turned to a new escape plan, with the help of Lechero, and that is through an underground tunnel.

Later in the tunnels with Mahone, Whistler and Lechero, he says they need braces to hold up the escape tunnel. Then, when part of the tunnel is about to fall, Michael puts a little piece of metal in to hold it up. Their escape plan was jeopardized with Sammy taking over SONA prison and investigating their escape, but Sammy was killed after the tunnel fell upon him. It is then revealed that Michael killed Sammy by taking out that little metal piece. McGrady joined the team in the escape. Later Michael, Whistler, Mahone, and McGrady escape from Sona, with Lechero, T-Bag and Bellick caught in the escape.

Michael successfully tricks Gretchen into giving LJ and Sofia back safely. When a shootout begins out a museum in Panama, Michael grabs the gun from Linc's car and has Gretchen in his sights, but she escapes when police start to shoot at her. Later on outside the hospital, LJ gave him the same origami rose that Michael had given to Sara on her birthday. Fuelled by revenge, he bids farewell to his family as he goes on a solo mission to hunt down Gretchen.

Season 4

In the season premiere Michael has tracked the Company to Los Angeles as Revenge fo Sara's 'death' but it is revealed by Gretchen that she lied about killing her. He doesn't believe her and contacts Lincoln about it and then Bruce. When both Michael and Lincoln are arrested Donald Self tells them that they can either bring down the company and get Scylla (A key card that stores a wealth of information about The Company) or go to jail. At first they refuse after being Bailed out by Bruce. Bruce takes them to Sara and she and Michael joyfully reunite. After Wyatt tries to assassinate them at Sara's safehouse they decide to take Self's offer. They are joined by Mahone, Sucre, and Bellick in their mission. To blend in with the crowds Michael gets the tattoo removed via laser surgery. He seems to have health problems getting nosebleeds and suddenly clutching his head in pain when talking to Self. Things he hides from Lincoln and Sara - In the episode safe and sound Michael experiences a bloody nose that he can not hide from Lincoln, Michael tells his brother "It's not a big deal." and Lincoln replies "It was a big deal when you were thirteen...". It appears that Michael has a condition that his mother also shared. In his mother's childhood she had frequent nosebleed that stopped after a few months. They however came back shortly before she died at the age of 31 of a brain aneurysm. Michael is experiencing nose bleeds for the first time since 13 and is about to turn 31.

Characteristics

In the flashback episode of the first season, "Brother's Keeper", Michael finds out about Lincoln's $90,000 debt to pay for his education, however, Michael starts to see his brother differently. According to creator Paul Scheuring, this was emphasized through the actors' performance in their different heights and the use of camera angles. His feeling of guilt and familial obligation causes him to devote all his time to his brother's case. After he cannot help his brother via any legal means and Lincoln's last appeals are denied, Michael decides to take matters into his own hands.

Michael has been clinically diagnosed with low latent inhibition, a condition in which his brain is more open to incoming stimuli in the surrounding environment. As a result of this condition he is unable to block out peripheral information and instead processes every aspect and detail of any given stimulus. This, combined with a high IQ, as a psychiatrist explains in the episode "Tweener", theoretically makes him a creative genius. His intelligence is well noticed even by his enemies with Mahone during season 2 making various comments about Michael's intelligence even holding a certain admiration to him as told in the episode "Otis" In "The Art of the Deal" after successfully breaking out of 2 prisons (Fox River & Sona) he is even offered a place in The Company. This particular attribute is apparently the product of his detrimental experience during childhood, where as a child, his abusive foster father would often have him locked up inside a closet; and by doing so, Michael's eyes begin to adjust to the darkened environment, allowing him to scan objects around him which he can use for his own convenience. Due to a feeling of abandonment and abuse during childhood, Michael has absolutely no sense of self-worth. With the low latent inhibition, this has made him become very attuned to all the suffering around him. As a result of being unable to block out other people's suffering, he is extremely empathetic and altruistic towards other people's emotions; he is more concerned with other people's welfare than his own. However, Michael often is outwardly taciturn and stoic, rarely allowing the dangerous element he's frequently surrounded by to penetrate his thoughts.

Scofield has a very strong moral sense and is cool and reasonable. He knows that if he or his allies turn to kill rather than subdue their enemies, they will gradually lose themselves and eventually everything. Brad Bellick, Theodore "T-bag" Bagwell, Alexander Mahone, James Whistler and overall Gretchen Morgan, all people with much blood on their hands are alive because Michael spared them. The first and only time Michael killed someone, was the time he intentionally made the escape tunnel in SONA collapse over Sammy to save the groups lives and escape plan. In the end of season 3, Michael was seen driving along the Panamanian coast, on his way to take action against Gretchen Morgan and the Company.

Michael's enhanced creative ability allows him to design a tattoo with a hidden blueprint of Fox River Penitentiary that normal people cannot discern. Over the course of four months, Michael had specific sections of the prison tattooed onto his upper body, hidden within gothic imagery. Each part of his tattoo had to be precise, which provoked the tattooist's comment to Mahone about Michael being a "detail Nazi" and that the tattoo was "some sort of inside joke" that only he got.

As shown in each episode of the first season, Michael is meticulous and well-prepared as he uses his knowledge and intellect to achieve each step of his escape plan. The first three episodes of the second season demonstrate again the level of intricacy of Michael's plan. Prior to his incarceration at Fox River, Michael prepared an alternate escape route outside the prison in the event that he and his brother fail to board Abruzzi's getaway plane. His hidden cache in Oswego proves to be useful in "Manhunt".

Concept and creation

Character creation

The character was conceived after Paul Scheuring, Prison Break's creator, developed an idea by another producer, about a man who deliberately imprisons himself to break somebody out. From the initial proposal, Scheuring then justified the character and story by making him a structural engineer who worked at the architecture firm that had access to the prison's blueprints. The name was originally used in Roald Dahl's collection of short stories, Someone like you, as Michael Schofield.

Portrayal

Michael Scofield is portrayed by Wentworth Miller. For most of the first season of the show, Miller utilized a limited range of facial expressions which generated both positive and negative criticisms. It was for this performance in the first season that Miller was nominated for a Golden Globe. The Washington Post criticized Miller's performance as being "the most oppressive" and how "the actor apparently thinks it looks cool for him always to be scanning the surroundings..." Entertainment Weekly recognised the numerous scenes the actor was present in by saying that "it's Miller's show" and on his performance, they stated that his "Michael Scofield has the silky voice of a sociopath, the resigned stance of a long-distance runner, and the deadpan delivery of Macaulay Culkin at his Uncle Buck best". On the other hand, The New York Times commented that although Miller does not show a wide range of emotion, "he projects an unflappable determination that confounds his fellow prisoners...". Regarding his character, Miller says, "First season, I think part of my challenge was to create, hopefully, a compelling character. But at the same time, there were so many things I could never show, because standing next to Abruzzi or T-Bag or Bellick, I couldn't afford to be vulnerable. I couldn't afford to crack a smile."

In the show's second season, the character of Michael Scofield shows a wider range of emotions as Miller explains, "He's going to have some lighter, more colorful shades... now that he's off with his brother, around whom I think Michael is willing to show a side of himself that he's not with others, there's a lot more that I can explore."

Tattoo

Further information: Tattoo (Prison Break)

The tattoo, which covers the entire upper body of Michael Scofield, is featured extensively in the first season of the show and to a lesser extent in the second season. It contributes a major part to the plot of the series, containing various details of the protagonist's plan to escape from prison and from the country. Incorporated within the tattoo are the blueprints of the prison in which the protagonists are incarcerated during the first season. Wentworth Miller, who plays Michael Scofield, has commented that questions about the tattoo are amongst the most frequently asked questions when he is interviewed about the show. In the first episode of season four, Michael refused to take any painkillers during a night-long session in which the tattoos were removed by laser.

Other

In the series pilot, Michael's jail entrance form held by Bellick shows that the character was born on September 8, 1978 in Toledo, Ohio. However, the birthdate is inconsistent with the characters' dialogue in later episodes. In "By the Skin and the Teeth", Michael remarks to Lincoln that their father left them thirty years ago. Since the series is set in the year 2005, the birth date shown on the prop cannot be considered as canon. Thus Michael is 27 years old since last episode in Season 3, Vamonos took place on June 24th 2005. This is according to the expired one week ultimatum given by "The Company" to Michael for breaking out James Whistler. However his age is stated by a charactrer for the first time in "Five the hard way" as 31, meaning all the facts above cannot be cannon. Before imprisonment into Fox River State Penitentiary Michael lived at 440 West Ardmore Avenue, Apartment 11 Chicago, Illinois 60660.

External links

• Michael Scofield's biography at Fox.com