Early life
Miller was born in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England; the son of Roxann, a special education teacher, and Wentworth Earl Miller II, a lawyer and teacher.Miller's father, a Rhodes Scholar, was studying at Oxford at the time of Miller's birth. Miller has stated that his father is of African-American, Jamaican, English, German, and Jewish descent; his mother is of Russian, French, Dutch, Syrian and Lebanese ancestry.[2][3][4]
His family moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, when he was one. He retains dual citizenship. He has two sisters, Leigh and Gillian. Miller attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was a member of SING!, an annual musical production that was started by Midwood. He graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in English Literature. While at Princeton, he performed with the a cappella group the Princeton Tigertones.
Career
In 1995, he went to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career,He has stated about his rocky road to stardom that "it was a long time in the coming and there were a lot of upsets and a lot of failures and roadblocks, but I couldn’t walk away from it. I needed it like I needed air, it was just something I had to do."
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, he moved on to co-star in the 2003 film The Human Stain, playing the younger version of the Anthony Hopkins character, Coleman Silk. He identified strongly with the core dilemma of the movie, being that of a man struggling with his heritage. “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.” Miller worked extensively on the role, not only in researching Anthony Hopkins, but by embarking on a 4 month regime to accurately portray Silk as a boxer. All in all, Miller has extremely fond memories of the experience, quoting from Toni Morrison’s novel BELOVED... “Definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined.”
Miller's first TV appearance was as student-turned-sea monster Gage Petronzi on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ("Go Fish", 1998).
In 2005, Miller was cast as Michael Scofield in Fox Network's television drama Prison Break. He played the role of a caring brother who created an elaborate scheme to help his brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) escape death row after being found guilty of a crime he did not commit. His performance in the show earned him a 2005 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series.[10]
Miller appeared in two Mariah Carey music videos, "It's Like That" and "We Belong Together" as a party guest. Director Brett Ratner, who directed the pilot episode of Prison Break, was signed on to also direct the two Carey videos. Ratner brought up the idea to Carey about using Miller in the videos. After showing her Miller's picture, she agreed to use him. Since both the videos and the pilot episode of Prison Break were being filmed at the same time, a special set was constructed on the set of the videos, so that Miller would be able to work simultaneously on both projects. He says, "Mariah's an international icon. The two days I spent working on her video did more for my career, gave me more exposure, than anything I had done before Prison Break. I'm grateful for the opportunity
