PB-Ep5 Discuss v2 021624-mast ===

Paul Adelstein: [00:00:00] All

Sarah Wayne Callies: right, hello, everybody. And welcome back to Prison Breaking with Sarah and Paul. I'm

Paul Adelstein: Sarah. I'm Paul. And today we are diving into a really, a real fan favorite of season one. Also a personal favorite, English Fitz or Percy, which is episode four. Or five, depending on who you ask. We still can't figure that out.

Sarah Wayne Callies: It's actually a good thing they have such, like, good, strong, memorable titles. Right. Or we might be in big

Paul Adelstein: trouble. Yeah, English Fitz or Percy, uh, Cute Poison, those are all such great names. Do you think they ever considered doing, like, the thing they did on Friends? Where each one, you know, each title was like, the one where Ross Yeah, the one where Michael gets his toes cut off.

The one where Kellerman kills somebody.

Sarah Wayne Callies: The other one where Kellerman [00:01:00] kills somebody. The one where Kellerman kills more people. The other one where The one where a guy falls down a well.

Paul Adelstein: The other one, yeah.

Do

Sarah Wayne Callies: you think they do that? Maybe they should just all be titled The One Where Michael Gets an Insulin Shot.

Right. Um,

Paul Adelstein: the one where the plan goes awry

Sarah Wayne Callies: and then the very end, the one where they actually break out of prison. Right.

Paul Adelstein: Um, I don't know if we'll have time to do this in this episode, but, uh, because you're so, you were so, you're such a nerd and so good at holding onto your old scripts and stuff like that.

I was doing a little digging through my own personal detritus last night and I found some. Crazy stuff that will blow your mind that I would love to show you, uh, and talk about but I would show you on video and then we can use it like in bonus materials for people like that are, um, getting those, is that what we call it?

Bonus materials? What do we call it?

Sarah Wayne Callies: Excellent. Bonus. Um, [00:02:00] we'll also put it on our, um, at prison breaking, no, at prison breaking podcast.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah. Yeah. We can do a little, we can do a little show and tell video and put it on the Instagram. Okay. So without further ado, let's jump into English Fitz and Percy. Let's get to the Kallistein index.

Uh, English for some Percy original air date, September 19, 2005 directed by Randy Zisk. Um, who is. A very well known TV director who's, he and his brother Craig Zisk are fixtures, have been forever. We can talk about those guys later. It was written by Zach Estrin. We should take, who is, uh, crucial to the success and creation of Prison Break's entire run.

And we should take a moment here to acknowledge that Zach passed away very suddenly last year. That's right. Young, 51. Father, a son, just a beloved guy all around and it's, we're going to have to, uh, talk about Zach at length at

Sarah Wayne Callies: some [00:03:00] point. Yeah, I think, you know, we'll probably talk about it more when we have some of the writers on.

That's right. That's right. Because he deserves a long conversation. He was a really extraordinary human being and, you know, was there from the beginning all the way through. Um,

Paul Adelstein: and just a beloved guy all around. Very sad.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Yeah, that's right. Um, so what? I mean, I guess we just say. Zach, we love you. Uh, and we're super grateful to you.

You know, I mean, we lost a few people on this show, um, including Deshaun Brown, uh, who played Nurse Katie. Uh, John Hurd, who played the great John Hurd, great John Hurd, who played the governor of Illinois. Um, so I think we, what we acknowledge them with love and we will keep doing them, keep doing that as we see their work this season.

Paul Adelstein: He gave us this, this great writing. I mean, this episode is so excellent in so many ways and the writing is so sharp and [00:04:00] we're going to dive into that with joy. And in that way, we will honor his memory in that way a little bit. And then before we talk about the guy himself with some of the letters, okay, continue with the calisthenics.

Yeah. Yeah. What was the schedule, Sarah? Who are we up against?

Sarah Wayne Callies: Well, do you want to give us the

Paul Adelstein: recap? Oh, shit. So, back to the Calestine Index. Um, TV Guide said, Kellerman, that's me, leverages Pope to get Michael transferred. Nick finds flaws in the surveillance tape, fingering Lincoln, and Michael makes a test run through the hole in his cell.

Also, the link between Michael and Lincoln What I love about that recap is it doesn't really tell you anything about what's going to happen in the show. Which is on purpose, obviously.

Sarah Wayne Callies: By the way, someday I want to talk to the people who write recaps for TV Guide, because that's got to be a very specific, um, [00:05:00] skill set.

Um, by the way, remind me to tell you a Walking Dead story.

Paul Adelstein: Sidebar, on Impostors, we got to write our own. Really? Well, for like the net, for like Netflix and Bravo, like when it, cause it was streaming, like when it would come up on the screen, like we got to, we got to write them, which was really challenging, but fun.

Sarah Wayne Callies: That's actually very, very smart. Because I remember at one point during Walking Dead, we were, I think it was season two. And we were told over and over and over, like, no spoilers, no spoilers, no spoilers. We had to give our sides up at the end of the day. And then on the back of the DVD. For season two, it was like bonus footage of Shane's death and we're like, wait, okay.

Yeah. Anyway, back to, um, back to the index on the schedule side, uh, Prison Break was up against original shows this week. The summer reruns were over. So Two and a Half Men on CBS and Las Vegas on NBC were new episodes. Uh, over at ABC, Monday Night Football [00:06:00] was still going strong, with the Redskins beating the Cowboys 14 3 in a racist team name irony so blatant it feels like bad writing.

Paul Adelstein: Now the Commanders, by the way.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Is that right? Okay. Yeah. Well, this

Paul Adelstein: is It's only been two years though, so. Okay. It took a long, that was a tough, that was an intractable one. Okay, go on. Way

Sarah Wayne Callies: to go, Washington. Um. Yeah. Anywho, uh, ratings dipped this week against new shows, uh, to 7. 96 million because I imagine fresh Charlie Sheen is just too much to resist.

Paul Adelstein: It's better than, what's the opposite of unfresh? Uh, funky? Dirty? Okay, okay. In other news, moving on, How I Met Your Mother premiered this night. Uh, and became obviously a monster hit. I will also tell you, never seen an episode. Um, Kanye West's I have! It's cute. It's [00:07:00] cute, right? Yeah. It's cute. Yeah, I was It's no animus on my part.

I just never Uh, Kanye Kanye West's Gold Digger took over the top of the charts, replacing Mariah Carey's We Belong Together. Mm hmm. Are we going to have Kanye on or

Sarah Wayne Callies: no? Um, I mean his people said he might be interested. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we're all gonna get free shoes. It's gonna be great.

Paul Adelstein: Great And uh, texas the state of texas began evacuations for hurricane rita.

I'm noticing a pattern

Sarah Wayne Callies: And that'll take us to the rewatch.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah, let's do it. This is

Sarah Wayne Callies: a fun one. Two, one, rewatch, go!

That's gonna get me every time. That toe! The toe, the toe, the toe. That's a very nice rack. Excuse me? That is not sexual harassment. I meant rack focus to the drip of water. Oh, thank you. To create dramatic effect. Paul. So if somebody had looked at that [00:08:00] grate, they would've gone, That's a way that you could've gotten out.

Right. I

Paul Adelstein: thought he went out the back door. Um I am paying attention, I swear to God.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Wait, it's hard because we talked through a lot of this, but there was something that he did with the grate. Okay. Is that, maybe that's how he got back in. Okay. Oh, the fans are gonna know better than we do. And that Yes. Is English Fitz or Percy.

So many, uh, kind of iconic lines from that one.

Paul Adelstein: Things that we all just we got a runner. We got a runner. Uh,

Sarah Wayne Callies: we're not making out of a jamba juice. Gentlemen is my favorite line of the entire first season. Oh yeah. And the, uh, just have a little faith. Oh my gosh. We have so much to talk about. Um, that was fun.

And now we will be right back to talk about the episode.

Paul Adelstein: Okay. Welcome back. Wow. That is an episode of television. I have lots of notes on that one. I have lots of things to touch on. Okay, where do we start? I [00:09:00] think, uh, can I jump in? I asked a question. I'm answering it. Um, I want, this is kind of the first big Stacey Keach episode. And uh, let's talk about him. I mean, uh, if our, he could take up three episodes.

Yeah. If I, if our listeners don't know, I mean, he was a big deal. He was a B it was a big deal to have him on that show. It was a big deal to him. Yeah. I mean, he, his film career, we did some research so we could talk about it specifically. He started acting in films in, in the late sixties, hard as. Heart of the Lonely Hunter, he worked with Paul Newman, he worked with George F.

Scott, Faye Dunaway, he was an animator for Golden Globe for playing Ernest Hemingway, he portrayed Wilbur Wright, Napoleon, and Oppenheimer.

Sarah Wayne Callies: By the way, that's a great, that's a great dork actor joke. What do Wilbur Wright, Napoleon, and Oppenheimer have in common? Oh,

Paul Adelstein: obviously Stacy, he played them. [00:10:00] By the great Stacey Geach.

Uh, he's a renowned Shakespearean actor. He's played Hamlet, he's played Falstaff, Scrooge, King Lear, Richard III, and Macbeth. That's just the tip of the iceberg. He played King Lear at the Goodman, which is a huge Chicago theater, while we were shooting season two.

Sarah Wayne Callies: And I was supposed to be in that production.

So, he called me, uh, well, I mean, he was like, do you want to play a daughter? Cordelia's not in this one. Um, Oh no, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. That's Regan Goneril Cordelia. Yes. I think Cordelia. He called me towards the end of season one, I think. And he was like, I'm doing, um, I'm doing Lyra the Goodman.

Do you want to play one of my daughters? And I was like, what's, what's the English word for yes. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, I was insanely excited about it.

Paul Adelstein: You're like, oh no, I'm shooting Prison

Sarah Wayne Callies: Break in Dallas. Then they pulled the show to Dallas and it [00:11:00] broke my heart into a million pieces. My mom's a Shakespeare scholar, right?

So like.

Paul Adelstein: Were you actually going to try to do Lear while shooting Prison Break?

Sarah Wayne Callies: He was going to try and do Lear while shooting Prison Break,

Paul Adelstein: absolutely, because. Well, but season one, I mean, is he in season two

Sarah Wayne Callies: much? He's not, well, he's not in it much because he was doing Lear at the Goodman. Um. But also they're out of the prison.

They're out of the prison, but you know, I mean, season two for the first half a dozen episodes, almost everything I'm doing was on second unit or it was two days. You know, you just say to them, Hey, I gotta be, I gotta be able to be at the theater by six. Um, and I was in my twenties and I had all kinds of energy and it would have been great.

And no, well, although I did get pregnant season two, so it might've been a little tricky. Oh man. Okay. But you wrote down some more amazing stuff here. That he is an award winning director, a brilliant pianist. I

Paul Adelstein: didn't know the pianist part, but okay.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Yes. I neither. I think that was a [00:12:00] Wikipedia. Okay.

Wikipedia never.

Paul Adelstein: I was so excited to work with him and this is the episode. I got to work with him and he couldn't have been more fun to work with and, you know, easy to work with. Sometimes, you know, people have been who have been around forever and have done it forever a little bit over it. He was in no way over it.

He was, he was in it. Deanna Donegan, who played his wife in the episode had not done much. film work. She went on, by the way, to win a Tony Award for Augustus H. County. Oh, wow. That's a hard play. Um, which originated at Steppenwolf and then moved to New York. Um, and he, the scene in the house with me and him and, uh, Deanna and, and Danny.

Uh, Danny McCarthy played Danny Hale. Um, God, we had so much fun that day. And I got to see Stacey kind of do his thing up close and kind of how he paced himself during He was always doing it during [00:13:00] rehearsal and blocking. He was always in it. And then when the cameras rolled, there was just like an extra 10%.

of energy, like he just tapped into this, you know, it's always in film acting, it's, it's a challenge to, to not get too relaxed that you can't get yourself going in time and or stay so hyped that you burn out and exhaust yourself. And he just, you can just tell he was this kind of well calibrated machine and he just, you know, he's asked to do some crazy stuff in this episode.

There's a thing when we're watching the episode that we both comment on where he does this thing where he sits down. After getting some hard news and it's like, it's like a hard thing to do without being cheese ball and indicating a thing an actor doesn't want to do right is indicating I'm having this thought as opposed to just actually experiencing it.

He's just, he seems really able to do the scene in [00:14:00] the gracefully.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Two things really stood out to me. Number one, in the way he talked to the chaplain in the way he greeted him. instantly created a 20 year friendship. And that's an amazing thing to do. And then his little, you know, the moment, not true, but his moment of breaking was so effortless and so grounded and so contained.

Um, you know, it's, it's a very different skill to be able to deliver that in an extreme closeup and leer on the Goodman stage. So for people who know Stacy as the old guy from Prison Break. Um, By, I mean old, because everybody else was in their like twenties and thirties, uh, dig into him. Watch some of his old stuff because the man,

Paul Adelstein: yeah, fat city was the one I would

Sarah Wayne Callies: recommend.

We call it big [00:15:00] boned now. So good.

Paul Adelstein: We, we,

Sarah Wayne Callies: uh,

Paul Adelstein: wow. Wow. Big bone city. This episode also, and you know, again, shout out to Zac Estrin. This episode has so many lines and moments that became kind of anthemic and repeated over and over again. First of all, I would just like to say it has your favorite

Sarah Wayne Callies: line from all season one.

We're not breaking out of a Jamba Juice, gentlemen. Which is.

Paul Adelstein: We're not breaking out of a Jamba Juice, gentlemen. Which is

Sarah Wayne Callies: so great. Because also 2005 was possibly peak Jamba Juice. I mean, it was. It was, right? It was everywhere. We haven't had any Jamba

Paul Adelstein: juices in Chicago yet. Oh, that's interesting. No, we must have.

We

Sarah Wayne Callies: must have. I mean, it was, I, I remember what I used to order. Like those, Jamba juice was giant. Yeah. Um, that's my favorite line. I remember thinking

Paul Adelstein: it was so good for, so healthy. Yeah,

Sarah Wayne Callies: sure. There's fruit in it. Um,

Paul Adelstein: [00:16:00] have a little faith is introduced in this episode for the first time we see that we first we see young Michael and young Lincoln for the first time, we kind of see the dynamic played out, I think, which is a great move on the writer's parts to say, here's the dynamic between these two kids.

This is how they kind of, this is a little peek into the psychology here. And part of that. Is that line, have a little faith, that then kind of becomes Michael's mantra moving forward. And it certainly becomes a huge deal between Michael and Sarah in subsequent seasons,

Sarah Wayne Callies: right? For sure. And I think that and when he leaves the paper crane on his pillow for Sucre when he thinks he's being transferred, what we learn is.

Because we've seen him drop the paper crane, uh, through the drain to see, you know, the [00:17:00] mechanics of it all. But I think we start seeing him using it sentimentally, and we start realizing that Michael Schofield is somebody who like, forms attachments to people, cares about them, is sentimental. Because remember, he's only been in prison for like, a week.

I mean, I think all of season one takes place in like, 24 days or something. Like, it's kind of bonkers. Wow,

Paul Adelstein: really? I think so. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I mean, is that the food floor? Um, you said something Yeah. Yeah. You said something interesting during the rewatch, which was that there's a, he throws a Hail Mary in this episode, uh, emotionally.

That there's, that there's, for somebody who's presented as being so calculated and analytical, he's a structural engineer, he kind of [00:18:00] has Uh, maybe, maybe he's a little neurodivergent in his, you know, analysis and memory or all that. Is that he does end up doing things, uh, motivated by emotion, um, and almost irrationality.

Things that are dangerous, things that make, I mean, even, you know, rescuing Sarah from the riot and, um, I mean, obviously breaking into, getting thrown into jail to take your brother out in and of itself is a hugely emotional thing, but that there are also these moments where he succumbs to that, right? And, and, and, and he has this big heart, which he doesn't kind of present as having.

Sarah Wayne Callies: No. And I think that's, you know, look, my, like a lot of people, one of my favorite filmmakers and one of my favorite films is Shawshank Redemption and Frank Darabont, because Frank is [00:19:00] unrelentingly Sentimental. And I love that. I love the, I love that for all of his like, we're not breaking out of a job, a Jewish gentleman.

And that's the voice he used to do for his lines. Sometimes he would do the like 40s and be like, but we got beyond these walls. See, like it was kind of a joke. And for all of that hard boiled, as you put it, cynicism, this show and I think this episode specifically are super, um, There's a sentimentality.

There's a heartfeltness. I mean, the, the story behind this show, this episode specifically, but I think in some ways the show more broadly, but certainly this episode is, it's, I mean, it's very ethical, right? The need for good men to make difficult choices that will cost them something is what is required to stand against the forces [00:20:00] of evil.

Thank you. Nothing personal. None. Um.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah. And that, I mean, that's obviously the Pope storyline in a nutshell. Yeah. I mean, that's the church. And he, and it's interesting the way they construct that in that he's had to make this tough. He did this, uh, he made this mistake and he has kind of repented for it, but only

Sarah Wayne Callies: kind of.

He's. There's a lie of omission going on there.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah, yeah. His wife already knows. Sort of. But she doesn't know the whole story, which is kind of a prison break theme keeps coming back is that you don't really see the whole picture. Keep zooming out and keep zooming out and getting more and more information.

You know that Caroline Reynolds is, but you don't know that Stedman is her brother and then you don't know that. She's actually into something else, and you don't [00:21:00] know that Kellerman and she go back to here, and you don't know that Sarah, uh, was an addict. And then you see how that, everything starts kind of, yeah, all that stuff starts, um, coming into focus.

Um. Yeah.

Sarah Wayne Callies: I mean, because it's, because it's the, it's, it is the story of the show, right? That like the story of Lincoln Burroughs not getting assassinated, not, sorry, not assassinated, not getting, uh, executed is the story of a good man, his brother. being willing to make sacrifices that will cost him getting thrown into prison in order to Make a material difference in someone's life.

And there's, you know, there's something beautiful about that. Like, in an age where television is sometimes, I think, a race to be the bleakest, most cynical.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah, or even just driven by plot. I mean, one of the, you know, one of the reasons that Michael is doing this is because this is payback [00:22:00] for sacrifices that Lincoln made for

Sarah Wayne Callies: him.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, that's a really good point.

Paul Adelstein: You know, you see that he learned this from Lincoln, who kind of was always like, you're the one who can get out, I've already fucked myself up. And Michael kind of never wanted to accept that, but like, Michael Getting a leg up, getting to get out and get an education, all these things because of some of the mistakes that Lincoln made and some of the protection that Michael provided for him.

And that this is a moral code, if you will, that he learned from Lincoln that's now coming back

Sarah Wayne Callies: to him. Yeah, they're like, there is such a thing as an ethical way to live your life. And I, like, it's weird at the time that did not feel like a somewhat revolutionary thing to say. Um, I know it was something Zach Estrin, the writer, believed in deeply, but also when in 2005, what I saw in the show was this is violent.

This is gritty. This is, [00:23:00] um, this is pushing television in a direction of Maybe less wholesome, but sitting where we are now, it feels like there's, it feels like the message of the show is actually somewhat moving.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah. I wonder if that's because we're older, or if that's society, just every culture has changed so much that, I mean, I, like you said, I didn't.

It's a flashback, it gives us plot information. I never would have caught it as theme until later. Um, you know. Um, also this, you know, this episode has We Got A Runner. We Got A Runner! Which is one of my favorite deliveries of the line because there's something about him, and I said this in the rewatch, about Bellic when Michael's running, or you think Michael's running.

Sarah Wayne Callies: He's excited. He's so happy.

Paul Adelstein: He's like, I get to beat some ass now. I'm going hunting. [00:24:00] Right? I'm going hunting. Yeah. It's real, it's real menacing in a really fun way.

Sarah Wayne Callies: And tells you something about Bellic. Like, oh, he's a bit of a sadist.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah. Um. It also brings up something interesting that you said just about the time, about 2005.

So this is right, just like really almost at the peak of peak TV in retrospect, right?

Sarah Wayne Callies: I think it's, no, I think it's early.

Paul Adelstein: Still on the rise. Early on the bell curve. Okay, so Sopranos has been on, the Sopranos has been on

Sarah Wayne Callies: for four or five years. Sopranos and Oz have been on. Lost just started.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah. Yeah. And Breaking Bad hasn't started yet.

Nope. Mad Men hasn't

Sarah Wayne Callies: started yet. Walking Dead hasn't started yet. So what are the 24 was going on. And Walking Dead hasn't started yet.

Paul Adelstein: Game of Thrones 24, which is different. Oh, yeah. Game of Thrones wasn't even a Twinkling Damon Lindelof's. Um, Yeah. Is that Lindelof? No, Lindelof.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Oh, no, no, that's not

Paul Adelstein: Lindelof.

No, I always, I always confuse those two names. No, Lindelof was

Sarah Wayne Callies: lost. Um. He's married to Amanda Peete. Um. [00:25:00] Right. David Benioff. Benioff.

Paul Adelstein: And D. B. Weiss. Um. Yeah. And D. B. Weiss. Um. I wanted to talk about, because we talk about a lot when we're watching the episode, the filmmaking. Was beautiful. It was. Beautiful. Uh.

Okay, so there's a lot of, like, slow motion, there are extreme close ups of water dripping off of pipes, there are, there's a helicopter shot of him coming out of the top of the thing, and then, of the prison, and then seeing all these cars drive up, before the early 2000s, television did not You Look like that.

You did not make films. You did not make films. It was, I mean, the reason why Television was written the way it was and the reason it was shot the way it was was because our fucking TVs were small Yeah. Close up, close up, close up, close up. You gotta hear what people are saying, otherwise you can't, like, I remember, like, Hill Street Blues [00:26:00] was such a revolution because, like, four people would be talking at once.

And everyone was, like, freaking out. It was so naturalistic and da da da da. Well, you know, in 2005, our TVs were flat and bigger, and they were 16 by 9, and people started saying, oh, we can make little movies. The resolution was better? And this was before, I mean, I think. You can see more detail. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And even like The Sopranos, which obviously was such a revolution was early more revolution in writing than it was visually. It still looked like the first couple of seasons of that show before they had those crazy budgets and stuff. It looks very much like a standard TV show, it's just the content is so incredibly different.

But Prison Break, I mean, 24 kind of started it, Prison Break, I don't know what else on television looked like that. I mean, and then Breaking Bad, obviously incredibly filmic, and then Breaking Bad just blew it all up in terms of like, those are [00:27:00] just, that's

Sarah Wayne Callies: incredibly cinematic. It's the intersection between technology.

And

Paul Adelstein: just them using, using the, I mean, you're still in a prison, but Randy Zisk is such a great shooter. And just telling those really tense moments, the Spider Man thing where he's holding himself up like it's shot in such a way. Yeah, that's

Sarah Wayne Callies: a really good point. People did not shoot television this way.

You know, I mean, the A team and Magnum P. I., like, great shows, super fun. Yes, that's right. There was a choice to take this seriously. And I'll be honest, at the beginning of my career, when I got out of grad school in 2002, you didn't want to do television because television was shit. You know, it might pay okay, but like, there was no Well, we

Paul Adelstein: weren't in peak television yet.

I mean, we're getting there, but No, no, no, too,

Sarah Wayne Callies: yeah, I mean there, there was no honor in like, nobody was like, Ooh, you got this great television show. It was like, right, yes. For HBO,

Paul Adelstein: you're doing this until you're doing this, until you get a [00:28:00] movie. Yes.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Or in between like Uhhuh plays, which was your real work.

Paul Adelstein: Which brings us back to something that I wanted to talk about. Um, in terms of Stacy, which we were kind of talking about, which is that unlike film, TV does have this thing from the old days that is still being used, even though we were shooting very cinematically, that the actor's face in close up has to do a lot of storytelling.

And almost we kind of, we talk about it when we're rewatching the episode, almost every act is on Wentworth. It's just an extreme close up on Wentworth's face. You know, and it's, and it's, it's a hard thing to act. And he does just an absolutely magnificent job. I remember, you know, not that many years later, but a few years later when I was on private practice, um, where there were very dramatic act outs.

But a lot of times, because it was a medical show, if I'm getting too far, uh, down some other corridor, let me [00:29:00] know, um, usually, you know, a lot of the, there was interpersonal stories and sometimes we would be very affected by them, but a lot of times they were happening to the guest stars and you were reacting to them as a doctor, but because we're the ensemble of the show, the act out goes out on us.

Right. So you would get directors, sometimes the very experienced directors, the ones from way back, who would say to you, This is an act out. Can you give me a little more? Can you hold that look longer? Can you be a little more, and if you like, It's

Sarah Wayne Callies: hard to do without feeling eggy. You

Paul Adelstein: had to, you're really eggy, and you'd say, well, and you learned quickly, I hope I'm not telling tales out of school, that it's sometimes, okay, well, it's totally unnatural, and I know it's a little heightened, but it's totally unnatural.

Okay, just do one where you give a little hint of a smile, a little twinkle in your eye. Just one. Okay, and you do that. Yeah, [00:30:00] just one. Always use that one every time and so I remember I wasn't the one who would say this and some I wouldn't because it's a little snarky, but there was somebody on the show and they'd say this is an act out and they go.

That's your problem. Not mine, which

Sarah Wayne Callies: I have to say is I think I

Paul Adelstein: would just never put it that way, but I think it's true. Oh, it's 100 percent true in prison break. I mean, I'm sure that Wentworth was told that Almost. Oh. Weekly. If not daily. This is an act out. We're zooming in on your face. Hold it longer.

Let me see those baby blues.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Et cetera. Okay. My inner director right now is a little bit screaming because I think, I hate saying that to an actor and you know, like you, I've directed a fair amount of broadcasts. Now listen. You've never said that to an actor. Well, okay. So here's, so first of all. Okay. Okay.

On a lot of shows now, you don't have to because on a streaming show, I went through two episodes of Firefly Lane. I never once had to say to Katie Heigl, this is an act out, hang in there [00:31:00] with me, right? But my approach to it, and this is probably because I've had people say it to me and I find it very eggy, is usually to give them something to do to hold their attention.

Do me a favor, let that surprise you. Long enough to hold your attention. There you go. That is much better than it's an act out. Because

Paul Adelstein: I mean, sometimes speaking in conclusions to an actor is necessary.

Sarah Wayne Callies: I get it. There are also some actors who want that. I've had actors that are like, can you just give me the fucking result note and tell me what I need to know?

And I'll be like, oh, okay, sure.

Paul Adelstein: Right. A lot of people don't. Like that, where they find it disrespectful. It also depends, the delivery system is a huge part of it. How you're, how you're told something. But yeah, most of the time you want Do you know that book? Do you know the Actress Thesaurus book? Oh right, I forgot your Yeah.

Yeah, I forgot you went to Dartmouth and only studied jewelry. Which is actually something that I wanted to get to. What is that? In the, in the podcast you're [00:32:00] like, Oh, I took jewelry making a couple of semesters. In college, at

Sarah Wayne Callies: Dartmouth. Wait, let's get back to your book. I was like, what? Let's get back to your book.

I will tell you about jewelry making. No. Less, much less interesting. Okay, we've got time for both. Tell me about your book. Not your book. You didn't write it. There's

Paul Adelstein: a book called The Actor's Thesaurus. It's a weird slim volume and there's an introduction by a Shakespeare, it's not John Barton, but it's some other, uh, Royal Shakespeare Company director.

And it's basically talking about how every actor, what you really need is an action. Always playing an action, right? It's a Meisner thing. Verb, verb, verb, verb, verb. Verb, verb, verb, verb, verb. So what this is, is literally like a thesaurus where you can look up an action and it has seven other synonyms for that action.

So that you can think about it with a little more subtlety or depth. Give the, it's also great for a director. Like I think [00:33:00] maybe Tommy, Tom Verica had it, was the first person that had it, while he was directing. He's like, I always want to use action words with actors and I run out of them. So I have this thesaurus.

Wow. There's also a cross reference in it, a cross reference in it, that's just like emotions broken down into actions. Huh. Yeah. Okay. Now, back to Dartmouth. You went to an Ivy League college and how much jewelry did you,

Sarah Wayne Callies: what? So it wasn't a class. There was, so the Hopkins Center is this big arts complex and it had several theaters in it and it also had a woodworking studio and a jewelry making studio.

And somewhere my sophomore summer, which was a required term, uh, so my legit grandfather, my, my biological father's father was a jewelry maker in Chicago. And so I grew up with all these cool jewelry making tools and like boxes full of jewelry that he'd made and they're, you know, they're all paste, right?

They're all, uh, fake, but they were replicas [00:34:00] of what would be real gorgeous sets and I've worn them in a couple of, um, a couple of photos on red carpets and stuff. Oh, I can tell.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah, I can

Sarah Wayne Callies: tell. They're all these like very fifties when they had the earrings and the bracelet and the necklace that were all the same sort of gemstone thing.

Oh, that's so cool. And so I thought, well, I would love to do this. So I just wandered into the jewelry studio one day and I said, what do I do? And they were like, you just walk in. And you pay for your materials and we teach you how to do it. So I made, I remember making a ring for my mom and a necklace for myself.

And then I fell in love with this boy and I made him a ring. Is that boy your husband? Yes. And he, of course, you know, because he was. At the time, a man in his young 20s lost the ring eventually. But, um, but it was, no, I don't know. I mean, it happens, but it was an amazing thing to do because as you know, what we do as actors, you, you can't touch it.

It, you stop doing it and it stops [00:35:00] happening. And the cool thing about television is there's a record of it happening, but it's still not really what you did. And there was something so satisfying about going in and soldering a piece of silver wire. And creating a bezel, and soldering it on, and having a ring that I could touch and say, pickle pot.

I made this thing. That was the thing we used too. Yeah, it was just amazing. It was, it was a, there's something called a pickle pot that you use in jewelry making. I think you anneal things in it. I haven't taken chemistry in a long time. Wow. We

Paul Adelstein: should stop now. So many terms. This is, is there, is there a, uh, jewelry makers thesaurus that we can also add to the actors thesaurus?

No, but we can

Sarah Wayne Callies: answer some bad questions.

Paul Adelstein: Yes. Let's do that. Let's, let's, uh, take a quick. Break and then we'll come back and we'll answer some fan questions. Here. We

Sarah Wayne Callies: are back and better than ever to answer some fan questions These are the questions that y'all left on at prison break podcast our IG handle.

Thank you for that [00:36:00]

Paul Adelstein: Yes, it's such great. It's really blown up

Sarah Wayne Callies: okay, so Let me see. What do we have here? We have Alex Romhat, R O H M A T, Romhat. I apologize for pronouncing your name badly. Um, what was it like working in an appropriated space to make the prison feel alive? Did you feel like you were a real person or did it feel like a TV set or neither both?

No.

Paul Adelstein: Did you feel like you're in a real prison? Oh, sorry. I

Sarah Wayne Callies: hope you felt like a real person. Sorry. I'm a little under the weather and a little brain foggy. Did it feel like you were in a real prison? We were in a real prison, Alex. We were Yeah,

Paul Adelstein: so it did. But sometimes those appropriate, well, it's a good term.

Appropriated spaces are so full up with lights and, um, they're painted a different color for the scene and all the things that they don't feel like, uh, what they maybe originally were, but boy, it certainly did at And, and you spent a lot more time there than I did, but it [00:37:00] was, it is an imposing place and it, you feel it on screen.

I think

Sarah Wayne Callies: so. You know, I think because the prison was bigger than our film crew and bigger than our set, it did feel like a real prison because it kind of. took over your awareness. I've, you know, I've been in places where you're shooting in a house and the house ends up being engulfed by work trucks and grip equipment and cables and it sort of feels like the set has taken over the space.

But in this case, the space took over the set, and I think that's part of why it felt real.

Paul Adelstein: It's absolutely true. That's right. It's really well said. Um, at gelen. anna, G E L L E N. A N N A, asked, Who did you both have the best relationship with on set? Uh, in season one, [00:38:00] uh, it was with Danny. Yeah, cause we had, we had a great time together and we had a really fun relationship and then in season two, when I got to work with you, it became you.

I mean, we became friends in season one, but I didn't really see you on set ever. Nope. Never. And then, uh, literally had no scenes together. Until season two. Until you choked me.

Sarah Wayne Callies: I feel like I remember saying. If we ever have a scene together, it's because one of us is going to die. Like, that was the joke. I was like, You did!

I hope I never work with you because it means one of us is going to die. I did not realize that you would go undercover as a gay, pie loving addict, um, which was so much fun. I can't wait till we get to those episodes. Oh my god. But like you. You know, season one, I had the best relationship with Wentworth for any number of reasons, but one of them was that he was 99 percent of who I worked with.

I mean, it was me and Wentworth in the infirmary. Um, but I also just adored him and he brought out in me, [00:39:00] uh, something that I don't know is necessarily healthy, but a sort of like deeply protective, I knew he was out. No one else Or at least he'd come out to me, he hadn't come out to anybody else. I felt very protective of his identity in this hyper masculine space of the fact that he was alone in Chicago, and I had my husband, and I had friends, and you know, like, so that also brought

Paul Adelstein: out.

And then he became a huge star. While we were shooting. In a matter of, in a matter of minutes, it felt like. He went

Sarah Wayne Callies: from, like, making coffee. As a temp, months before the Prison Break audition. Being on the cover of GQ. Yeah, to be on the cover of a magazine. Um, which has got to

Paul Adelstein: Oof.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Yeah, that'll hurt.

Paul Adelstein: Um, I don't like this.

At Prison Break. I don't At Prison

Sarah Wayne Callies: Break. I wonder if [00:40:00] that's the prison with two Ns. Somebody has at Prison Break. No, I think it's two Ns. Because the one without it is The Fox. Um,

Paul Adelstein: yeah, they're not asking us a question. How does it feel to be sued by the Fox Corporation? Um, is there an actor either of you wish you got to do a scene with that you didn't get the chance to?

Yes, Peter Stormont. Never got to do a scene

Sarah Wayne Callies: with Peter. Um. Yeah, I mean, I didn't get many scenes with the guys. Muse, I would have loved me some more Muse, um, I would have loved some more scenes with some more ladies. Uh huh.

Paul Adelstein: Did you have any scenes with Lane? No.

Sarah Wayne Callies: I'm thinking. I don't know if he, well, he gets briefly brought into the infirmary when he's faking barfing, but like.

Oh,

Paul Adelstein: right, right, right, right, right, but you're just kind of rolling a, rolling a gurney. Yeah.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Um, who's acting were you so impressed by? By AsksOmar. com. Seven underscore. I feel like that's the Stacey Keach [00:41:00] conversation that we entirely yeah That we we've been sort of gushing about over and over and over and over and over

Paul Adelstein: Here's a good one.

And then we're kind of running out of time at MJ h4192 It was a serious show Were there any scenes which had you laughing and you needed to do retakes because you were giggling? Um, do

Sarah Wayne Callies: you, do you remember? And I think I've told this story before, but there was, Michael gets burned at one point, uh, way down the line, season one, and he gets burned and it becomes a problem because of his tattoos.

But Sarah's debriding the wound, and then he wakes up, and my line was, we had to perform a procedure. I don't know why that struck us as funny. Okay, I can see by your face, it just struck you as funny,

Paul Adelstein: too. [00:42:00] It's very, it sounds very general. I'm sure it's accurate, but it

Sarah Wayne Callies: feels a little general hospital, um, we had to perform a procedure.

Uh, it also sounds like something that the alien overlords may say to the abductees. I'm not sure. Um. Oof. But, I said it, Wentworth. was supposed to be very serious. He couldn't hide a smile. And that was it. That was like the next 20 minutes of our lives until whoever it was, I can't remember, director came over and was like, Hey guys, this is fun.

We have a whole day to shoot. If I could possibly prevail on you to do your effing jobs. Um, yeah. How about

Paul Adelstein: you? I honestly don't, I mean, me and Danny laughed a lot, but I don't feel like we were, we broke much. You're too professional for that. I don't feel like we did. I don't know. I was, maybe I was not, not such a, I don't know, smart ass yet.

Um, I think that's going to do it for English Fits and Percy. We're [00:43:00] pretty much out of time. Please drop your fan art, drop your questions on our Instagram at Prison Break Podcast, and we will, uh, share it if you have any, because this is such a good, uh, Warden Stanley Pope, uh, Henry Pope episode. If you have any Pope Art Pope Henry.

Sorry,

Sarah Wayne Callies: not Stanley Pope. Pope Art Henry Pope Pop Art, not pop Art. Pope Art. Sorry. Pop art. Sorry.

Paul Adelstein: Pope Art. I'm just saying. I get it. Just, and then don't forget that we now have, okay. Have we

Sarah Wayne Callies: already announced this? No, this is brand new. Okay. So. Okay. Guys, uh, we got ourselves a phone line, right? We figured out that a show from 2005 should have an answering machine where you can dial us on your rotary landline or your smartphone, but please use a rotary landline if you can, or a phone booth.

Um, however, however you do it, okay, so the way this is going to work, you're going to drop some questions. We're going to cut them into the show a little bit downstream. So some thought starters for you guys. When did you start watching the show? Were you an original? [00:44:00] Did you watch it live? Did you come to it later on streaming?

Who were your watch buddies?

Paul Adelstein: Like, did you watch the show? Some people I've heard, oh, we watched this with my family, or, oh, I watched this with the entire, uh, first floor of my dorm, freshman year of college. You want to know all those things, and we will use your actual voice recording and put it on the show and then give you our comments on it.

Like, uh, you know, like in the olden days. Like a radio call in show.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Or are you 14 and you just binged all five seasons last summer and you just want to hear a couple of old people talk about the good old days?

Paul Adelstein: The number for you to call and leave us your message is 401 372 7325, which is 401 3 P BREAK.

Sarah Wayne Callies: That's the letter P, followed by B R E A K, and it stands for prison break. Get your mind out of the gutter. [00:45:00] Um, and I do want to say, like, part of this, Part of the why of this, it's not just that we think it's cool, but I've met a bunch of you guys at conventions and I've always been mind blown by the relationships that you built with each other through the fandom.

And it's one of those things that we didn't plan on, uh, none of us planned on, not the writers, not the creators, anything. This community of people coming together through the show. And so I want to hear about that because I'm sentimental, and it's moving, um, so call us, let us know about your experience with the show and who you met and who you love, and, uh, and I guess that's it, so.

Paul Adelstein: Yeah, so let me ask you this question, Sarah, not ask a question, let me put, let me just tell you this one thing, Sarah, before we sign off. Remember, don't go to prison, but if you do. Always.

Sarah Wayne Callies: Uh, take a pee break. Sorry, that's all I've got. Do you have anything better? No. Always.

Paul Adelstein: It's about my [00:46:00] relationship with the Pope.

We'll see you, we'll

Sarah Wayne Callies: see you next week. I'll try and have a better answer for that, guys. Sorry. All right. Bye, everybody.

Paul Adelstein: We miss you. We can't live without you. Bye. Prison Breaking with Sarah and Paul is a Caliber Studio production. Your hosts have been friends, but not besties. Sarah Wayne Callis and Paul Edelstein.

A prison warden has been producer Ben Haber, keeping us slim and trim in the prison yard has been sound designer and editor Jeff Schmidt keeping us up to date on the outside world as production assistant through Austin. Letting the world know what's been happening to us in prison is Social Media Manager Emma Tolkien.

Our music was done by Paul Stein, our prison artist logo and brand designer is John Nunzio and Little Big Brands. Check 'em out at www little big brands.com. Follow us on Instagram, The Prison Break Podcast. Email us at prisonbreakingatcaliberstudio. com and call us at 401 3P BREAK. Prison Breaking with Sarah and Paul has been a Caliber Studio production.

Thank you for listening.