Penelope Ann Miller is deliciously guilty of a classic case of stolen identity.
The beautiful Tony Award-winning actress who has made a name for herself over decades of heralded performances, has completely transformed herself into the plain Jane, sex-starved prison seamstress who helped facilitate the most notorious jailbreak and manhunt of the century in “New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell” (Sunday 8 p.m. on Lifetime)
The story is a classic greeting card written in blood. Girl meets cons. Girl services cons. Girl helps bust them out of prison to terrorize the state.
“It was an exciting opportunity to dive into the psyche of a woman who would take a seemingly normal and happy life and destroy it and everyone around her because of a whopper of a mid-life crisis.”
For anybody who spent the month of June 2015 in a coma or solitary confinement, Mitchell was the married mother of three who smuggled hacksaw blades and other tools to convicted killers Richard Matt and David Sweat — allowing them to bust out of upstate New York’s maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility.
Her motive? Um, they made her feel “pretty.”
“It’s truly astonishing that someone could put themself into that situation,” says the 53-year-old actress. “It’s a truly compelling story that is more shocking than any writer could have come up with.”
Miller has her own record of playing real-life folks, including cradle-robbing criminal teacher, Mary Kay Letourneau to former First Lady of New York, Donna Hanover — but this one arrested her attention more than any other.
“This is a mom, who was in a happy, if unexciting marriage — and she threw it all away for a little attention from some very dangerous men,” she said. “Because she was lonely and bored, she allowed herself to be manipulated in the worst way possible — and now she’s lost everything.”
While Penelope had met the other real-life folks on her resume, Mitchell is currently serving her own two-and-a-half year stretch, making a chance for a casual gabfest a little difficult.
“Her actions put thousands of people at extreme risk and cost the state $3 million a day!” she says with some awe.
