When Robert Knepper initially broke into Hollywood, his unusual appearance -- markedly gaunt, with coal-black hair, olive skin, deep-set eyes, and a frequent goatee -- made him a virtual shoe-in as a character actor. Knepper debuted on a prestigious note, working for producer Tony Adams and director Blake Edwards in the Jack Lemmon/Julie Andrews comedy-drama That's Life! (1986). In terms of quality, subsequent efforts ran the gamut from the okay romance Made in Heaven (1987) to the awful superhero picture Wild Thing (1987) to the well-received post-noir thriller D.O.A. (1988). For better or worse, these were all generally A-list releases; as Knepper's career rolled on, he expanded his workload to include telemovies (Zelda, 1993) and direct-to-video pictures (Mugshot, 1996; Lady in the Box, 2001), with occasional work in Hollywood A-listers (such as Woody Allen's 1996 Everyone Says I Love You). Knepper is best known, however, for his series portrayals of the predatory white-supremacist inmate "T-Bag" (aka Theodore Bagwell) on the popular Fox show Prison Break (starting in 2005) and "roving reporter" Tommy Dolan on the cult HBO supernatural drama Carnivàle (2003-2005).
by Nathan Southern
biography
