Prison Break: Dominic Purcell Has a Surprising Explanation for the Revival

When Fox announced that it was bringing back Prison Break for a revival mini-series, many fans of the series were both excited and dumbfounded. Excited, because hey, more Prison Break! Dumbfounded, because the series ended way back in 2009 with one of the main characters dying. How -- and why -- would the series come back?

TVGuide.com caught up with Prison Break star Dominic Purcell at the Television Critics Association winter previews to ask him how the upcoming revival got approved, and according to the actor -- who played Lincoln Burrows in the show -- it wasn't suits at Fox or a money-hungry producer with no more original ideas left that got the show greenlit. It was him.

"Wentworth [Miller] and I were working on The Flash," Purcell says in the video above. "And we hadn't seen each other for quite some time, we just started to talk about Prison Break. Before we knew it we were at Fox talking to them about [revisiting] the show. And it was more or less greenlit pretty fast."

Prison Break boss explains why the show is better as an event series

Well that sounds easy!

Purcell also says that Netflix had something to do with the regenerated interest in Prison Break. According to him, Prison Break's original run is one of the most-viewed TV series or movies on the streaming service, and it's brought in a whole new generation of fans who were too young to watch the series when it originally aired.

Prison Break returns to Fox April 4 at 9/8c.