Lukas Gage is getting into politics.
Not really, but he’s playing on aspiring politician on TV.
The actor is starring in Hulu’s upcoming “Prison Break” as a politician running for the first time for Congress. He tells me he prepared for the role by primarily studying former West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.
“I’ve watched Joe Manchin, who was running for Congress in West Virginia forever,” Gage told me at the premiere of his new movie, “Voicemails for Isabelle,” on Tuesday at Netflix’s Tudum Theater in Hollywood. “He’s been like the template of who I’ve been watching, but a lot of people that I admire, like Obama — not as much Spencer Pratt — more Obama vibes.”
As Variety previously reported, the lead cast also includes Emily Browning and Drake Rodger. The pilot is set in the same world as the original “Prison Break,” which aired on Fox from 2005-2009, but will tell a new story with new characters.
Elgin James is writing and executive producing the reboot pilot, with Dawn Olmstead, “Prison Break” creator Paul Scheuring, Marty Adelstein and Neal Moritz also executive producing.
“It’s gritty and it’s dark and it’s scary,” Gage said, adding, “We definitely pay homage to the old series, but it’s a very new take on it, and Elgin has such a personal connection to the story and a personal take on it that is very different. So it’s a right balance of not trying to recreate the magic of what was the original show, but it’s on Hulu, too. It’s not Fox, so we can get really gritty on this one.”
In “Voicemails to Isabelle,” Zoey Deutch stars as a culinary school student who faces her sister’s death by leaving her voicemail messages about her daily life when she starts falling in love with her seemingly too-good-to-be-true boyfriend (Nick Robinson). Gage plays a fellow student with a neck tattoo, pompadour and mustache. “The pompadour was really important to me,” Gage said. “That’s all my hair. That’s my hair on my head, but not on my face [because] I can’t grow a mustache.”