T-Bag of Prison Break

Background:

“I don't choose a part because it's a bad or good guy. Sometimes I turn down bad guy parts out of boredom from doing the same type of role, sometimes because I'll have a momentary fear of being typecast...then a juicy part like T-Bag in Prison Break comes along and I have to jump at it. I always try with him to be charming and primal, at the same time...these kind of characters tend to make choices in their lives that are more interesting to play and watch, than those of the typical good guys.” Rob Knepper

American actor Rob Knepper, also credited as Robert Knepper, is famous as the villain Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell on the television drama series “Prison Break” (Fox, 2005-2009), from which he earned a Satellite nomination and a Teen Choice nomination. He has also played regular roles on the short lived shows “E.A.R.T.H. Force” (1990, as Dr. Peter Roland), “Thieves” (2001, as Special Agent Shue), and in the hit series “Heroes” during its fourth and final season (2009-2010, as Samuel Sullivan), as well as recurring roles in “Presidio Med” (5 episodes, 2002-2003), “Carnivàle” (12 episodes, 2003-2005) and “SGU Stargate Universe” (6 episodes, 2010). Knepper's film credits include “That's Life!” (1986), “Wild Thing” (1987, played the title role), “ When the Bough Breaks” (1994), “Everyone Says I Love You” (1996), “Phantoms” (1998), “Jaded” (1998), “Lady in the Box” (2001), “Hostage” (2005), “Good Night, and Good Luck” (2005), “Transporter 3” (2008), “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (2008), “Burning Daylight” (2010) and “The Mourning Hour” (2011). Prior to entering the world of television and film in the mid 1980s, Knepper made a name for himself in the theater scene of Chicago. He picked up a Joseph Jefferson Award for his performance in a stage production of “Class Enemy” (1982).

Currently, Knepper lives in Los Angeles with his wife Tory Herald and son Ben. He stated, “I am helping to form the life of my beautiful, almost four year old boy, which is the biggest project of my life right now. I am on hiatus and totally enjoying it after spending almost a year away of super intense work.”

Drop Out

Childhood and Family:

Robert Lyle Knepper was born on July 8, 1959, in Fremont, Ohio. His father, Donald Knepper, was a veterinarian, and his mother, Pat Deck, worked in the props department for the community theater. Thanks to his mother's involvement in community theater, Rob became interested in acting at an early age, and went on to spend many years of his youth working in community theater and high school productions. After graduating from Maumee High School, Maumee, Ohio, in 1977, he took drama major at Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois, but quit later in 1981 just before completing his degree.

In 2005, Rob married Tory Herald. They have one child, Benjamin “Ben” Peter Knepper.

Heroes

Career:

Rob Knepper left college to further pursue a career in theater in New York City. He returned to Chicago in the early 1980s and became highly involved in the city's theater scene. In 1982, he was awarded a Joseph Jefferson Award Citation for Actor in a Principal Role in a Play for his performance in “Class Enemy” at Chicago's Next Theatre Company. Knepper eventually broke into the screen in 1986 with an episode of Showtime's “The Paper Chase” called “Graduation.” A month later, he landed a notable role of Georgia Buckner, a secretarial candidate who reveals that he/she is a transsexual, in the pilot episode of NBC's “L.A. Law.” He would reprise the role in two more episodes called “Those Lips, That Eye” (1986) and “Odor in the Court” (1993). Still in 1986, Knepper made his feature film debut in the Academy Award nominating comedy/drama “That's Life!,” which was directed and co-written by Blake Edwards and starred Jack Lemmon, Julie Andrews and Sally Kellerman. There, he played the supporting role of Steve Larwin.

In 1987, Knepper had the titular role on the action/drama film “Wild Thing,” with a screenplay by John Sayles, appeared with Timothy Hutton, Kelly McGillis and Maureen Stapleton in Alan Rudolph's “Made in Heaven,” and made his television movie debut in “Police Story: The Freeway Killing,” opposite Richard Crenna, Angie Dickinson and Tony Lo Bianco. The same year, he also guest starred in television shows such as “The Twilight Zone,” “ Tour of Duty” and “ Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Knepper was cast as Nicholas Lang in the remake “D.O.A.” (1988), which was directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, the creators of “Max Headroom,” scripted by Charles Edward Pogue, and starred Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Charlotte Rampling and Daniel Stern, played the supporting role of Marino in the Lou Diamond Phillips and Kiefer Sutherland crime vehicle “Renegades” (1989) and guest starred in an episode of “ Gideon Oliver” called “Kennonite” (1989).

In 1990, Knepper starred as zoologist Dr. Peter Roland in the action/adventure television series “E.A.R.T.H. Force,” opposite Gil Gerard, Joanna Pacuła and Clayton Rohner. The show debuted on CBS on September 16, 1990 but soon canceled due to poor ratings. The same year, he was cast as Deputy Carlyle in the western movie “Young Guns II,” a sequel to 1998's “Young Guns,” starring Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christian Slater. He also appeared in two episodes of ABC's “China Beach” called “The Thanks of a Grateful Nation” (1990) and “Quest” (1991), played Torrey Cole in the short film “Session Man” (1991), which won a 1992 Academy Award for Best Short Film, Live Action, worked with Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale and William R. Moses in the TV film “ Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Fashion” (1991) and guest starred in “Civil Wars” (1991).

During 1992-1995, Knepper played roles in such films as Allison Anders's “Gas, Food Lodging” (1992, starred Brooke Adams, Ione Skye and Fairuza Balk), “Where the Day Takes You” (1992, with Dermot Mulroney and Laura San Giacomo), “When the Bough Breaks” (1994, as Lt. Jimmy Creedmore), “Under Heat” (1994) and “Search and Destroy” (1995, as Daniel Strong) as well as in the made for TV films “ Zelda” (1993, as Wilson), “Pointman” (1994, as Johnny) and “Getting Out” (1994, as Carl). He also had an episodic part in “Tequila and Bonetti,” “Red Shoe Diaries,” “South Beach,” “Law & Order,” “ New York News,” “New York Undercover,” “Murder, She Wrote” and “ Pointman,” and starred in an unsold TV pilot, “Doorways” (1993).

Next up for Knepper, he co-starred with John Enos III and Kathleen Kinmont in the horror film “Dead of Night” (1996), with Colleen Ann Brah, Clancy Brown and Tia Carrere in “ Desert Breeze” (1996, TV), with Kevin Dobson, Megan Ward and John Terlesky in “Voice from the Grave” (1996, TV), with Michael Kenneth Williams, in the award winning indie movie “MugShot” (1996), with Julia Roberts, Alan Alda, Edward Norton, Drew Barrymore, Gaby Hoffmann, Tim Roth, Goldie Hawn, and Natalie Portman in Woody Allen's musical, “Everyone Says I Love You” (1996), and with Jenny Robertson and Reed Birney in “You Are Here” (1997). He played John in Pawel Pawlikowski's “The Stringer” (1998), Agent Wilson in the film adaptation of Dean Koontz's 1983 novel, “Phantoms” (1998), starring Ben Affleck, Peter O'Toole, Rose McGowan and Liev Schreiber, and Freddy in Caryn Krooth's “Jaded” (1998), starring Carla Gugino and Richard Bright. He also appeared in two TV films in 1999, called “ Absence of the Good (as Glenn Dwyer) and “Kidnapped in Paradise” (as Renard). During this period, Knepper also made guest appearance in a string of television shows like “C.P.W.,” “The Big Easy” (both 1996), “The Visitor” (1997), “ER,” “Brimstone” (both 1998), “Strange World” and “Star Trek: Voyager” (both 1999).

In the new millennium, Knepper portrayed Gerard Boussard in the comedy film “Love & Sex” (2000), which was directed and written by Valerie Breiman and starred Famke Janssen, Jon Favreau and Noah Emmerich, Chris Stark in Christian Otjen's mystery film, “Lady in the Box” (2001), opposite Darren E. Burrows and Paige Rowland, and Robert F. Kennedy in the made for TV film “Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot” (2001). He landed guest spots in television series such as “Seven Days” (2000, as Major Gene Hastings), “Profiler” (2000, as Martin Lewis), “ La Femme Nikita” (2000, as Henry Collins), “The West Wing” (2001, as Morgan Ross) and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (2001, as Dr. Peter Kelmer). However, the actor did not return to TV series as a regular until he was cast as Special Agent Shue in the ABC short lived drama “Thieves” (2001), opposite John Stamos and Melissa George.

Knepper had a recurring role as Sean in the short lived CBS drama series “Presidio Med” (5 episodes, 2002-2003) and then as Tommy Dolan in HBO's “Carnivàle” (12 episodes, 2003-2005), while also taking guest spots in “Haunted” (2002), “CSI: Miami” (2004) and “Point Pleasant” (2005). He also co-starred in the Irving Schwartz film “Swatters” (2002), Eric Simonson's “Topa Topa Bluffs” (2002) and the direct to video “Species III” (2004), as Dr. Abbot. He portrayed Mark 'Moe' Popernack in the ABC telefilm “The Pennsylvania Miners' Story” (2002).

Knepper's big break arrived when he was cast as Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell on the Fox hit series “Prison Break” (2005-2009), created by Paul Scheuring. The actor debuted as a guest star in the show's second episode, “Allen,” and subsequently moved on to become one of the regular cast members. For his performance, Knepper received a 2006 Satellite nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television and a 2007 Teen Choice nomination for Choice TV: Villain. Telling about his character on the show, he said, “I tried to play him smart, cunning and a true survivor; just the same way he had to survive when he was a little kid. That’s someone you have to deal with and is not going to very easily go away. I’ve had several technical advisors on our show, who are actual prison guards, say, “Oh yeah, I totally know the T-Bag in our prison. There is a T-Bag in every prison. Be ware of the T-Bag because these guys are very cunning. They will lure you in, be so sweet to you, they can get anything out of you and then before you know it, you’re turning around going, “Where’s my wallet? I, honestly, just let that guy walk down that hall in the restricted area!” He’s that charming.”

During his stint on “Prison Break,” Knepper worked in several films. He played Wil Bechler in the film adaptation of Robert Crais' novel, “Hostage” (2005), starring Bruce Willis and directed by Florent Emilio Siri, Don Surine in “Good Night, and Good Luck” (2005), a drama film directed and co-written by and starring George Clooney, and Yuri Marklov in Xavier Gens' “Hitman” (2007), which is based on the video game series of the same name. He provided the voice of Chichak in the direct to video animated film “Turok: Son of Stone “ (2008), portrayed a kidnapper named Johnson in Jason Statham's “Transporter 3” (2008) and appeared as a colonel in the science fiction movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (2008), starring Keanu Reeves.

After “Prison Break” came to its demise, Knepper joined the cast of the NBC hit serial drama “Heroes” for the fourth and final season as Samuel Sullivan, who has the ability of terrakinesis (2009-2010). From September to November 2010, he had the recurring role of Simeon in Syfy's “SGU Stargate Universe.” 2010 also saw Knepper guest star in “Chase” (as Jack Druggan) and “Criminal Minds” (as Rhett Walden) and have the titular character in a crime film, “Burning Daylight,” directed by Sanzhar Sultanov.

Recently, in 2011, Knepper played the role of John Streich in the made for TV film “Earth's Final Hours,” opposite Hamza Adam, Julia Benson and Cameron Bright, and had a two episodic arc in Showtime's “Shameless.” He also reprised his role as Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell in an episode of A&E's series “Breakout Kings” called “The Bag Man” and starred as Stan Bakely in the film “The Mourning Hour,” helmed by Susan Cohen.

Knepper will play Frank Sinatra in the upcoming biopic “Cloclo,” which reunited him with director Florent Emilio Siri. The film is set to be released in France on March 14, 2012. Besides, he will work with Ray Liotta and Kevin Zegers in Olivier Megaton's action film, “Into the Americas” (2012) and with Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon and Jeff Bridges in Robert Schwentke's “R.I.P.D.” (2013).

Awards:

• Joseph Jefferson: Actor in a Principal Role in a Play, “Class Enemy,” 1982