Robert Knepper

Robert Knepper — Biography

Robert Lyle Knepper was born on 8 July 1959 in Fremont, Ohio, and raised in nearby Maumee. The son of a veterinarian, he developed an early interest in acting through his mother's work at a community theatre, entered Northwestern University after high school in 1977, but left before graduating and moved to New York to continue working in theatre. He began his screen career in 1986 with The Paper Chase and That's Life!, and after a recurring role on HBO's Carnivàle he landed his best-known part in 2005 as the psychopathic convict Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell on Prison Break, earning a Satellite Award nomination. He went on to play villain Samuel Sullivan in the final season of Heroes, Angus McDonough on iZombie, and Rodney Mitchum in the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks, alongside film roles in Hitman, Transporter 3 and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. In 2017, costume designer Susan Bertram accused Knepper of sexually assaulting her on a 1991 film set; he denied the allegations, she filed a defamation suit against him in 2018, and the case was reported settled in 2021. Knepper has a son, Benjamin Peter, from his first marriage to Tory Herald, and married Nadine Kary in 2013.