Prison Break viewers have become accustomed to nasty shocks and surprises over many episodes remember the deaths of Veronica and Tweener? But nothing could have prepared fans for the grisly departure of a major character in season three... Yes, it’s official actress Sarah Wayne Callies has left the show and so has Dr. Sara Tancredi... Not a dream, not a hoax that really was Sara’s head in that box... Ouch. All summer, rumours have been spreading about Sarah Wayne Callies’ involvement in the show, especially after she gave birth to her new baby. Some rumours insisted that the role was being-recast; some said that a body double would stand in for Sara’s scenes; other rumours indicated that Dr. Sara would become a recurring character, rather than a regular. Indeed, Prison Break creator/ executive producer Paul Scheuring told us last issue that, Sara is not being recast. We didn’t have her in the first few episodes because she had a baby last week. She is on maternity leave right now.But no, it’s official thing’s have changed and, both the actress and the character are gone. Seemingly for good. We went straight to the horse’s mouth a.k.a., Prison Break writer and executive producer Nick Santora to find out what’s been going on.
How long have you known that Sarah Wayne Callies was not returning to the show? Is that something that has been planned since last season?
Nick Santora: We didn’t know it was definite until sometime in the summer, so we just had to change our storylines and come up with something that was jarring, emotional, and would still drive our characters and make it clear that even though Dr. Sara Tancredi is gone from this world, she is not gone from the heart, mind, and soul of Michael Scofield. I know some people were saying she can’t be gone because the network and studio released statements that she plays an integral part in season three. Well, she does. She is a motivation for Michael who is thinking of her constantly. So Sara is still kind of alive.
Sara is ultimately beheaded as a warning to Michael and Linc. What kind of conversations did you have about her fate?
Nick: Once we realized we didn’t have the actress, and hence didn’t have the character, we just bandied around a bunch of ideas which we thought were creatively satisfying. The one thing that was never an option was recasting her with a completely different actress so that there would be someone who looked nothing like Sarah Wayne Callies, running through Panama pretending to be Dr. Tancredi. We couldn’t do that or insult our audience so we knew we had to figure out a way to explain why she wasn’t on camera.
Michael has dealt with a lot of loss lately. Will Sara’s murder finally push him over the edge?
Nick: You are going to see a side of Michael you’ve never seen before, but it is not going to be Here’s the straw that broke my back. I can’t take it anymore. It is going to be Michael turning around and saying, Enough is enough! I am going to go out there and get my pound of flesh now!
And Michael Scofield is going to do things you never imagined he could do. It is going to flip a switch. He is still going to be the same character, people are still going to love him, but we are going to sympathize with him and know where he is coming from.
Interview taken from the Official Prison Break Magazine Issue 7 on sale November 2007.