Sarah Wayne Callies (born June 1, 1977) is an American actress. She is known for starring as
Sara Tancredi
This is a list of characters in the American television series ''Prison Break''. The characters are listed alphabetically by their last name or by the name which appears in the episode credits.
Overview
: = Main cast (credited)
: = Recurrin ...
in
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelv ...
's ''
Prison Break'' and as
Lori Grimes
Lori Grimes is a fictional character from the comic book series '' The Walking Dead'' and was portrayed by Sarah Wayne Callies in the American television series of the same name. Created by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore, the char ...
in
AMC's ''
The Walking Dead''. She has also starred as Katie Bowman in
USA Network
USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Mad ...
's ''
Colony
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...
'' and Robin Perry in
NBC's ''
Council of Dads'' and has had film roles in ''
Whisper
Whispering is an unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal cords are abducted so that they do not vibrate; air passes between the arytenoid cartilages to create audible turbulence during speech. Supralaryngeal articulation remains t ...
'' (2007), ''
Black Gold'' (2011), and ''
The Show'' (2017).
Early life and education
Callies was born in
La Grange, Illinois, the daughter of Valerie Wayne and David E. Callies, respectively English and Law professors at the
University of Hawaii, Manoa
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which rou ...
.
At age one, Callies moved to
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the islan ...
, Hawaii with her family. Throughout her youth, she expressed an interest in acting through participating in various school plays at the independent
Punahou School. After graduating from high school, Callies entered
Dartmouth College where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama in 1999, with a minor in women's studies and a senior fellowship in Indigenous theology. In conjunction with her studies, Callies remained involved in theatre. She continued her education at the
National Theatre Conservatory
The National Theatre Conservatory was a three-year graduate acting school that in its last three decades was part of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Founded in 1935 as the only congressionally chartered MFA program in U.S. history, it ...
, where she obtained a
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.)
is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts a ...
degree in 2002.
Career
Callies moved to New York in 2003 and then quickly landed her first television role as Kate O'Malley, a recurring part on the short-lived
CBS show ''
Queens Supreme''. Her first starring role was as
Detective Jane Porter on
The WB
The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on terrestrial television, broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture be ...
's ''
Tarzan
Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...
''.
''Prison Break''
After making various guest appearances on ''
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'', ''
Dragnet (2003)'', and ''
NUMB3RS
''Numbers'' (stylized as ''NUMB3RS'') is an American crime drama television series that was broadcast on CBS from January 23, 2005, to March 12, 2010, for six seasons and 118 episodes. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heu ...
'', Callies gained a starring role on
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelv ...
's ''
Prison Break'' as Sara Tancredi. She played the role in the first two seasons, but her character was killed off for the third season before being brought back for the fourth season. According to ''Prison Break''s executive producer
Matt Olmstead, although the writers, the network, Callies herself, and he all wanted her to stay on the show, the character was written out due to contract disputes.
[Prison Break Exclusive: The Real Story Behind Sara's Death](_blank)
Ausiello Report, TVGuide.com, October 8, 2007, Retrieved March 28, 2008 She stated through a spokesperson to ''
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program TV listings, listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news.
The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine, TV Guide Mag ...
'' in fall 2007:

However, in March 2008, Olmstead stated that the character of Sara is still alive and would return in season four. Though the character Sara Tancredi appeared to have a violent death, Olmstead stated "...we realized that there was actually a way she could still be alive." Executive Producer Matt Olmstead admitted the fans' overwhelming response to her death had influenced the decision to bring the character, and Callies, back to the show.
''The Walking Dead''
In 2010, Callies was cast in the major role of
Lori Grimes
Lori Grimes is a fictional character from the comic book series '' The Walking Dead'' and was portrayed by Sarah Wayne Callies in the American television series of the same name. Created by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore, the char ...
on the
AMC horror/drama series ''
The Walking Dead'', based on the
comic-book series of the same name. The drama became the highest-rated show in that cable channel's history.
[
] Callies played the role from the show's start until
season three.
Other projects
Callies starred in her first feature, the independent film ''
The Celestine Prophecy'' in 2006. She also starred in ''
Whisper
Whispering is an unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal cords are abducted so that they do not vibrate; air passes between the arytenoid cartilages to create audible turbulence during speech. Supralaryngeal articulation remains t ...
'' the following year. In April 2010, she appeared on the Fox Television drama ''
House'' as a patient of the week, whose open marriage fascinates House and the team. In August 2010, Callies' first screenplay, an adaptation of Campbell Geeslin's children's book ''
Elena's Serenade'', was
option
Option or Options may refer to:
Computing
*Option key, a key on Apple computer keyboards
*Option type, a polymorphic data type in programming languages
*Command-line option, an optional parameter to a command
*OPTIONS, an HTTP request method
...
ed by French production company Fulldawa Films.
Callies starred in the Nigerian movie ''
Black Gold'' (2011) and one of the female lead roles in the Canadian thriller ''
Faces in the Crowd'' (2011). In 2015, she co-starred with
Nicolas Cage in
Uli Edel's thriller film ''
Pay the Ghost''. In 2016, she returned to television in the lead role of Katie Bowman in ''
Colony
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...
''.
Personal life
On July 21, 2002, Callies married Josh Winterhalt, whom she met at Dartmouth. On January 23, 2007, her publicist announced that the couple were expecting their first child. Their daughter was born in 2007. Their second child, an adopted son, was born in 2013.
Filmography
Film
Television
Awards and nominations
References
External links
*
*
Sarah Wayne Callies talks to theTVaddict.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Callies, Sarah Wayne
1977 births
21st-century American actresses
Actresses from Hawaii
Actresses from Honolulu
American film actresses
American stage actresses
American television actresses
Dartmouth College alumni
Living people
People from La Grange, Illinois
Punahou School alumni