Cate Cameron/The CW Art imitates life. Even if you're on a superhero show.
Something "unusual" is going to happen on The Flash tonight in its midseason return: Prison Break stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell are reuniting. Not as brothers Michael and Lincoln, but as two totally different characters, villains Leonard Snart aka Captain Cold and Mick Rory aka Heat Wave, who happen to share a very similar relationship as the Prison Break pair and the duo in real-life.
And Miller tells E! News that he was actually the one to suggest his former on-screen brother for the role of Heat Wave after getting a brief rundown of the character and storyline from executive producer Geoff Johns, "not 100 percent believing they would be able to make that happen. What are the chances? I'm not aware of too many other TV pairings where you have two actors, closely associated with one show, brought over to a second show playing completely different characters. It's special."
And Miller believes The Flash team used the actors' real-life bond to help create the dynamic between Captain Cold and Heat Wave, saying, "I think they knew and now they're digging into the potential."
Purcell, who described playing Heat Wave as "cathartic," adds, "They're also using our personalities. They know how we operate as human beings, and they've seen Prison Break, so they use that as well. It's easy for them to write for us."
Like Heat Wave and Captain Cold (and Lincoln and Michael before them), Purcell and Miller have a bit of a Fire and Ice dynamic; Miller is soft-spoken and contemplative, Purcell is pleasantly brash and unreserved.
"Heat Wave just wants to destroy and burn anything," Purcell says of the new baddie, whom Captain Cold recruits to help him take down The Flash. "[Captain Cold]'s definitely the leader, begrudgingly so. I do as I'm told…kind of. It's very similar to, on Prison Break, Wentworth's character was the intellectual genius and I was the muscle. And it's kind of the same dynamic as this. It's very interesting."
But their team-up won't be without its complications, as Miller describes Heat Wave as a "Rottweiler."
"I think Heat Wave challenges Captain Cold and keeps him on his toes. You have to watch him, he'll go off at any second," he previews. "At the same time, Captain Cold grounds Heat Wave. There's a human being in there, I do my work to remind him, ‘You aren't just a lit match. You're a man as well.'"
While Miller and Purcell clearly enjoyed their onscreen reunion, which even inspired legitimate talks of a Prison Break return, Miller admits their first day on the set of The Flash felt a little weird. " I think the first time I called you Mick and not Linc, that was weird! [Laughs.]"
"We're obviously very close friends, but we're also very intuitive of one another's rhythms and idiosyncrasies," Purcell says. "We didn't have to establish any kind of relationship. So on set it was just a big hug, ‘Let's get to business,' laughs, giggles, and it was all established. It was all there."
The Flash airs tonight at 8 p.m. on the CW.