Robert Knepper

Early life

Knepper was born in Fremont, Ohio, to Pat Deck and Donald Knepper. He was interested in acting from an early age, due to his mother's involvement at a community theater. He was raised in Maumee, Ohio, near Toledo, by his mother and father, who are veterinarians. Knepper spent many years of his youth working in community theater and high school productions. After graduating from Maumee High School in 1977, he attended Northwestern University to study drama. During this time, Knepper also obtained professional roles in plays in Chicago. Nearing the completion of his degree, Knepper quit Northwestern and went to New York City, where he continued to work in theater.

Career

Although Knepper never intended to work in film and television projects, he began his television and film career in 1986 with The Paper Chase and That's Life!. Knepper went on to have larger roles in such films as Wild Thing, Young Guns II, When the Bough Breaks and Everyone Says I Love You. He made appearances on well known television series such as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek: The Next Generation, ER and Law & Order. In 2005, after a recurring role on the HBO series Carnivàle, Knepper was cast in his most well known role, as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in Prison Break. The series received positive reviews upon release, and "T-Bag" is often considered to be one of the greatest television villains of all time. During his time on Prison Break, Knepper also starred in a number of films; Good Night, and Good Luck, Hitman, Transporter 3 and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

After Prison Break ended in 2009, Knepper was cast as villain Samuel Sullivan in the fourth and final season of Heroes. After this, he went on to have a recurring role in Stargate Universe in 2010. He guest-starred on season six of Criminal Minds as Rhett Walden, a serial killer. The same year he played the titular character in the film adaptation of Burning Daylight.

In addition, Knepper was cast as Honolulu Police Internal Affairs detective Rex Coughlin in the 2010 show Hawaii Five-O.

In 2011, he reprised his role of T-Bag in one episode of the A&E series Breakout Kings. The next year he played Frank Sinatra in My Way, biopic of Claude François, a French pop singer who wrote the song "Comme d'habitude", the original version of Sinatra's song "My Way".

Knepper was cast in the 2013 television series Cult as Roger Reeves, an actor playing Billy Grimm on a show called Cult The show was canceled after only one season. The same year, he appeared in R.I.P.D., Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters and guest starred on the television series The Blacklist (episode: "The Courier"). At the end of 2013, the TNT series Mob City premiered, in which Knepper played gangster Sid Rothman. In 2014, Knepper guest starred in episodes of Arrow and The Flash as master hacker and time-and-motion study expert William Tockman a.k.a. Clock King.

Since 2015, Knepper had a recurring role on iZombie as Angus McDonough, the estranged and abusive father of Blaine DeBeers (David Anders).. It was announced in July 2017 that Knepper would be promoted to the show's main cast for the fourth season.

Theatre