Sarah Wayne Callies has recalled the “rampant misogyny” she faced on set of Fox’s five-season drama Prison Break.
The 46-year-old actor, who starred as Dr Sara Tancredi on the series – which ran from 2005 to 2017 – currently co-hosts the Prison Breaking rewatch podcast with former co-star Paul Adelstein, who portrayed Agent Paul Kellerman.
During a recent appearance on Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen’s Broad Ideas podcast, Callies admitted that before she started her podcast, she had difficulty rewatching the show.
“I don’t recognize that girl. She’s so young, she’s so new in the business... it’s like watching another person,” she said.
Callies was 28 when Prison Break premiered.
“I couldn’t get beyond the parts that were toxic and painful,” she added.
She explained that the podcast has provided “the sort of medicine to go back” and rewatch the show despite “the rampant misogyny, despite all of the challenges, despite being on a show like that, the only woman around”.
Allen jumped in to reveal that she used to feel jealous watching Callies on Prison Break. “I was always like, ‘That could be me,’” she remembered.
“There are two edges to that sword,” Callies responded, adding: “I’ve had an actor on that show spit in my face. And I was like ‘Holy s***!’
“We will get there on the podcast; we will talk about it someday,” she teased. “There were things, like, I would go home some nights and have to spend an hour talking my husband out of going to hospitalize somebody.”
She clarified that her experience wasn’t all negative. “Some of the guys were great, and some of them were gentlemen,” Callies said. “So much of it was also great, and I made lifelong friends.
“But I wasn’t ready to look at it... because I didn’t want it to send me into a spiral of like, what did I let them do to me, what did I let them say to me, what did I put up with, what did I not report.”
Following her time on Prison Break, Callies went on to star as Lori Grimes on AMC’s hit zombie show, The Walking Dead.
She most recently featured in ABC’s The Company You Keep, which was canceled last year after one season.
