After spending season three locked up in the slammer down in Panama, Wentworth Miller and the fugitive cast of Prison Break are headed north of the border to Los Angeles for the fourth season of the popular Fox series. Although the overarching season storylines were mapped out in advance prior to the show's explosive first season premiere, the writers of Prison Break have always found new and unique ways to keep inmate siblings Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows on the lam for the past three years. When Prison Break makes its two-hour season four debut on Monday, September 1, it appears fans will be in for a completely different ride, as Miller himself recently echoed when we talked to him this week, "We’re taking it to a whole new level... fasten your seatbelts!" That also includes the addition of actor Michael Rappaport, too.

With less than a week to go before Prison Break returns to the airwaves, we broke out of our The Deadbolt digs and tracked down Wentworth Miller on conference call where he filled us in on what's up with Michael and Mahone, whether we'll ever see the return of C-Note, and what the future holds for the show at large.

THE DEADBOLT How is the relationship between Michael and Mahone going to change in season four?

WENTWORTH MILLER: Well, in a strange way I feel like they kind of resolved their issues throughout the course of season three, because they did in fact have to work together. Yes, Mahone is still the man who killed Michael’s father, but in a way I think Mahone is the latest in a series of surrogate fathers for Michael. First season - we had the character Westmoreland. We also had the warden and I think Mahone is a reflection, whether Michael realizes it or not, of what he could one day be. If he continues to walk down this very dark road, Michael might wind up very much the man that Mahone is today. Someone who started out as a good man doing good things and then became a good man doing questionable things, and then became a questionable man doing evil things.

THE DEADBOLT: Now that we Sara is returning this season, is there a chance we’ll see C-Note coming back as well?

MILLER: C-Note, the one character in Prison Break who got a happy ending. [laughs] I wouldn’t be surprised. We do love the unexpected twists and turns on this show and I think Rockmond [Dunbar] would be a great addition. I always thought that his contribution to the show was a very cool one.

THE DEADBOLT: So even though he’s free and clear, there's a chance he could get pulled back into this thing?

MILLER: You never know. You can’t really say for sure.

Other Conference Call Highlights:

Wentworth Miller on getting the tattoo removed by a laser:

"The good news is that characters on Prison Break tend to heal very quickly. It’s quite possible to be shot in one scene and sprinting across a corn field the very next, so the precedent has been established. But I did have my concerns about the tattoo. It was a laborious process putting that thing on throughout season one and parts of two, and I was interested in sort of addressing it. I knew it was this open ended question. The fans were wondering when it would come back, how it would come back. I knew that it probably wouldn’t really fit with the plot at this point, so I went to the writers and said, ‘How can we address this issue in a way that feels satisfying and gives some closure to people who were constantly on the lookout for it?’".

Miller on whether the other characters will end up in L.A. with Michael:

"Yes, we do have an assemblage of old friends and foes standing together to take on The Company. And I think, if anything, that’s what remains the same about Prison Break season in and season out. We do change the playing field, but at its core the show is about six or seven alpha dogs shoved in a cage fighting together at each other’s throats but still having to work together to achieve some common goal."

On shooting around Los Angeles instead of a sound stage:

"We have done a lot of shooting downtown. One of our first episodes was at the Roosevelt Hotel. I think that’s important to the general atheistic of the show; it’s always been about the environment versus the characters. The first season we had the Fox River State Pen, second season it was on the run in Dallas, third season it was Panama, and now we’re in Los Angeles. I’d say on average, the eight days it takes to shoot a particular episode we’re on set for maybe three and the other five we’re on every street corner you can imagine."

Miller on if it was possible to bring back one character, who would it be and why:

"I think I’d bring back Paul Adelstein. I thought he was a fantastic Agent Kellerman. I thought he was symbolic of the kind of character that the show does best, which is someone living in the shades of grey, not entirely black, not entirely white, not entirely good, not entirely evil, but someone who is complicated, as we all are in real life. And I think Paul really did a beautiful job of defining a character who could be vicious one minute and entirely sympathetic the next. He’s very much missed."

On whether he leaves the character at work:

"I never quite leave the character behind. I am a workaholic, have always been. I’m always thinking about the character even when I’m not on set, so it has become part of the air I breathe. With that said, I’m so used to his ways and his relationships with the other characters that I don’t have to do the kind of homework I once did. All I have to do is show up on set, stand in front of Robert Knepper and I get instinctively what Michael’s relationship is with T-Bag, because they got this great, rich, fully fleshed out history. And now that we’ve established all of this beautiful mythology, we’re really free to play.

Miller on the future of the show:

"Well, it’s not CSI, it’s not Law & Order, and it can’t run forever. I do feel as though we may be on one of our final laps around the track and it is something that weighs on my mind from time to time. You know, telling a story correctly necessitates knowing when to end it. And at this point in the series, Michael and Lincoln between them have intentionally or unintentionally killed so many people and yet they're still running around with T-Bag. [laughs] It’s really a testament to Robert Knepper that his character has survived through four whole seasons. But the man is a maniac, a psychopath and a child killer and a rapist, and yet he and the boys are still, you know, digging ditches together. Eventually you have to wonder when is enough enough, because it really makes my character look bad. [laughs] These are the questions that I think eventually we have to answer or suffer a fall-off in terms of believability and quality."

Wentworth Miller on whether they’re walking a fine line of believability in this season:

"I think we not only jumped the shark long ago, I think we’re inventing new sharks. [laughs] We’re taking it to a whole new level... fasten your seatbelts!"