Wentworth Miller: A trip to Cannes, France.

Well let’s continue on our adventure with Went and I would like to add it’s a question of “Where do I begin … to tell the story of how great a man ...Went is …?" [this sounds like the lyrics from the song “Love Story” [she laughs].

I couldn’t resist adding this song as the lyrics to it are so beautiful and I associate everything that's lovely with Went.

Um … getting back to business …

While filming the television series Prison Break, Went was also very busy doing promotional work for the series as I mentioned before.

He toured all over the world, well almost. [nudge, nudge, wink, wink].

Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution sent Went and the Prison Break crew to Cannes, France in 2006 to attend the largest international audiovisual content trade show, Mipcom.  

These awesome photos were taken at the Carlton Intercontinental Hotel Pier in Cannes, France and goodness me there are so many beautiful pictures that it was hard for me to choose which ones to place here.  I hope you like my choices.

I found this very humorous and down to earth interview with Went at the Cannes television festival:

 The new Brad? Not yet, Wentworth Miller tells Stephen Armstrong

The Sunday Times

Waiting to interview Wentworth Miller at the Cannes television festival, I notice something strange. The seafront outside the hotel is jammed with women. It takes me a while to work out what they are doing there. After all, Cannes is a trade fair. Actors are there to promote their programmes to the industry. The general public is not invited, and rarely shows up. So to see a swarm of semi-hysterical beach babes forcing their way past the door staff is almost unprecedented. Wentworth Miller clearly has an unusual appeal.

Since the American drama Prison Break broke onto the world’s screens in August 2005, Miller’s portrayal of the brooding lead, Michael Schofield, has catapulted him from off-the-shelf beefcake (playing the love interest in a Mariah Carey video, for example) to verge-of-superstardom, bona fide heart-throb. In series one, Scofield broke into prison to rescue his death-row brother, getting tortured, beaten and abused by most of the inmates for his pains. Miller’s “hottie du jour” status was helped by a plot that saw him tattoo the plans of the prison all over his body, and thus stand around shirtless for a large part of every episode. Even so, says Prison Break’s producer, Paul Scheuring, sex-symbol status is almost never conferred on unknown actors over the age of 28 — and Miller is 34.

"In Hollywood, there are only a few actors who could possibly be a leading man, and if they are really the guy, if they really have the chops, they’re already making movies,” he explains. “So when we were casting for a 30-year-old, there were all these journeymen actors — good-looking, quite clever, but had never really caught on. We saw thousands. Suddenly, Wentworth came in, and the room lit up. It was like, ‘Where has this guy been?’"

Miller now stands just about where Brad Pitt stood after Thelma & Louise: his next decision could put him right up in the firmament or leave him rotting as the hottest face on cable reruns. The imminent second series of Prison Break sees the gang of convicts on the run, in the style of The Fugitive, hunted by a remorseless FBI man. Given the fatality rate — a cast member is gunned down every couple of weeks — it’s hard to see the story stretching out over another four series. At some point soon, then, our boy will have to make that big script choice, and he’s fully aware of its importance. Indeed, it seems to trouble him so much so that during the series’ three-month hiatus, he opted to turn down every movie offer thrust at him and effectively vanish, driving across America from the Chicago set to LA. It proved a sobering experience.

“I thought I knew how powerful TV was, but I had no idea,” he explains. “In Chicago, I was used to people tagging us on the street, recognising us — I thought, well, we’re filming here, so of course they’re aware of us. But when you’re pulling into some gas station in the backwoods of Idaho and you find there are fans of the show everywhere you go... well, it was weird. I’ve lost my anonymity. There’s no more wandering into the next town and putting on a French accent just for show, for amusement.”

I tell him that I’ve never had to push through a foyer full of eager women to get to an interview with a television actor before, and his face briefly flickers, as if he’s grateful someone else thinks it’s crazy. “This is a new experience for me, the women over here.” He leans forward, as if it’s a secret. “I’m not sure if it’s confidence — they’re much more comfortable introducing themselves and making their needs known.”

It’s almost endearing how alarming he finds it. You’d expect an actor to crave such attention, but Miller’s private life is very private indeed. There are whole internet sites devoted to working out who he might be sleeping with. Isn’t he ever tempted to take advantage of his status with one of the sun-tanned lovelies queuing outside? He shrugs and spreads his hands out on his knees. “Right now, my work comes first,” he says, speaking slowly and thoughtfully. “I’m a workaholic, which is the sad truth of it. I did manage to go on a couple of dates over the past year, but I’m happiest when I’m on set, so I really need to get all of that out of my system before I can turn my attention to more personal matters. I try to lead a low-key life. And sometimes you just want to go to Chili’s and have a margarita and some chicken fajitas, and not have the experience wind up on a website somewhere. It’s a little bit strange, all that sex-symbol stuff. The fact is, I look the same as I’ve looked for the past 10 or 15 years. My eyes aren’t suddenly a more compelling shade of green. People go on about the ‘brooding look’ a lot, but usually I’m just squinting because my eyes are sensitive.”

Perhaps he’s so awkward with the trappings of fame because his background is about as far from Hollywood as it’s possible to get. Although he was brought up in Brooklyn, he was born in Chipping Norton, just outside Oxford. His father was a Rhodes Scholar, studying psychology amid the dreaming spires, and young Wentworth grew up surrounded by academics. It was expected that he would go to a good university, and he studied English at Princeton. Despite performing in an a cappella group, the Princeton Tigertones, he quashed his childhood acting ambitions while there.

“Princeton is very conservative, and all my friends were looking forward to Wall Street or law school or med school. If you said you were going into the arts, well, that was something you did as an extracurricular activity,” he explains. “I moved out to LA to work in film development. Just watching all our video footage got the juices flowing, so I decided to quit and give acting a try. All my father knew was that I had a lot of free time on my hands, and that’s never a good thing.” He smiles. “Let’s just say my parents had their concerns.”

It took him a long time to make it. “People have referred to me as an overnight success,” he smiles wryly, “but I’m an overnight success that has been 10 years in the making. A lot of times, being an actor in Hollywood feels like you’re pissing down a well. I’ve had 500 auditions, and I have 13 credits on my resume, so I’ve heard ‘no’ an awful lot.”

Now that he has that success, however, he actually seems worried. “It’s just in my nature not to be a part of the Hollywood scene,” he says. “It’s never held any kind of lasting satisfaction for me. I think it’s dangerous, because now there’s so much media attention — 24/7 on every cable channel, papers and online — there’s a real hunger for information, and people can get to feel as though they know you when they really don’t.”

His conversation is littered with this sense of danger, of being trapped by attention and celebrity. The project he feels most attracted to, for instance, is one he’s developing himself about Dracula. “There’s something identifiable in that character,” he says earnestly. “The Dracula story is really, in my interpretation, a story about someone schlepping through the ages trying to find love. Alone. Malformed. A social outcast. Dracula picks his bride to be, and there’s a part of us that wants them to get together. But then the blond, beefy hero comes in at the end and puts a stake through Dracula’s heart. I think it’s kind of tragic. Dracula is about wanting community, wanting to be understood, wanting some kind of connection, someone to accept you, fangs and all.”

Then our time is up, and I have to push my way through the foyer into the blinding light of a Cannes afternoon. Looking back, I see the smoked-glass door of the bar where Miller sits, waiting for the next journalist to step into his gloomy lair. The beach blondes stare at the same door, hoping he’ll come out and join them, but it’s as if the sunshine and the attention are fatal — that if he’s directly exposed to them, he’ll writhe and wither away until all we’re left with is his fangs.

http://www.mahoganycafe.com/wentworthmiller3.html

"Hey You!"

And of course I’ve left the very best for last.  Went’s wonderful interviews. Some of them however have a French translation over them and some may find it hard to hear him speak, but nevertheless it’s so nice to see Went in all videos.

"Oh-la-la....Went ma cherie!"

That sure was some trip down memory lane wasn’t it?

My bags are packed and I’m ready to continue my journey with Went. I've a feeling the next stop is going to be just as exciting and interesting as this was. Cheerio!