Thirty-eight-year-old Sarah Wayne Callies  is best known for her portrayal of Sara Tancredi. She played the role in the first two seasons but her character was presumed dead in the third season. Now she has been resurrected with many layers.

How is it getting back to this characterIJ

Sarah: It was an interesting process.  I started archivally.  You know, I re-watched seasons one, two, most of four.  I went back to my notes, I went back to old scripts and everything I’d written on them.  And then I realised that it’s seven years later, and things change a lot in seven years in a person’s life.  And when we left Sara, she was neither a wife nor a mother.  And she has been both of those things for every minute of the seven years since we’ve seen her.  So, at a certain point, I wanted to really let her change, and make sure that she was a different woman, because she has to be. I’m a different person than I was seven years ago.  Hopefully, I’m a better actor.  And so, you know, hopefully I can improve on things a little bit.

So can you talk about where Sara isIJ  Because last we saw her, she had lost Michael and she had a baby.  So where’s she at when this series opensIJ

Sarah: Well, I mean, I think that the short version of the last seven years of her life is that she went down an extremely dark hole of grieving.  It’s probably a hole she wouldn’t have come out of, except that she had a son.  At a certain point she realised that her grief was the luxury her son could not afford.  So she pulled herself together and decided that her devotion to her dead husband would be manifested by the love she poured into their son. Part of that included trying to give him a stable home.  So she’s remarried.  And I think the way remarriages after a death of a spouse often happen, there’s no deep-seated passion — it’s not like this is the love of her life.  This is a man who’s willing to take what she has left to give.  And it’s comfortable, and friendly, and he’s a wonderful guy. Everything’s okay.  But then, because it’s Prison Break, then it isn’t.

How did you react when you first heard that the next Prison Break would be happeningIJ

Sarah: I didn’t believe it. I think actually very similarly to Sara being told that Michael was alive.  I just thought it was impossible. It took about a month or two to convince me that they were serious.  Because this project has been, you know, we all owe a tremendous amount to it.  Nobody knew who any of us were until Prison Break, and then they did.  So it was emotional, to think about going back into that world.

What’s the dynamic like between Sara and lincoln now that seven years have passedIJ

Sarah: Sara and lincoln were kind of all each other had, I think, for years, you knowIJ Especially for the years that we were still kind of on the run, living in Panama, living off the radar. I imagine that for years, he was really the one that helped her with her son and yet I think eventually, he went off on his own. lincoln seems to be allergic to happiness sometimes. So he found a way of getting himself back into trouble. Still there’s a lot of love and trust between the two of them, partly because there aren’t that many people alive who know the story.  It’s just the two of them.

How much of the show has stayed with you over the yearsIJ

Sarah: Well, it’s interesting.  I mean, of people who stop me on the street, one out of every two is talking about Prison Break, and one out of every two is talking about the Walking Dead or another project. I mean, the durability of the show has really surprised me. I get a lot of people who tell me they just watched it, and that’s the amazing thing about our crazy digital age right now. A show that’s been off the air for seven years is still a current show thanks to Netflix and Blu-Rays and DVDs and things like that.  So it’s never been far from my consciousness, or my experience because people are always talking to me about it. I have such a huge amount of gratitude for the show because Frank Darabont saw Prison Break and brought me into The Walking Dead.  Carlton Cuse saw Walking Dead and brought me in for Colony. Everything stemmed from that.  So I guess it’s always a part of my consciousness.

Over the years, Prison Break has evolved into a cult show.  Does this up the pressureIJ

Sarah: No, it’s amazing. The Prison Break fans have given us so much of their loyalty, love and devotion that I’ve definitely come out of that wanting to make sure that whatever we create for them for another season deserves that affection. And we’re working hard on that.

Prison Break Season 5 airs at 9 PM from April 8 every Saturday, only on Star World and Star World HD