Dominic Haakon Myrtvedt Purcell O'connor, B, "blank">Break Out". _Men's Fitness. December/January 2007 Issue. Retrieved on December 18, 2006. (born February 17, 1970) is a British-born Australian actor most active in the United States. He also holds an Irish passport by means of his ancestry. He is perhaps best known for his roles as the title character on John Doe and as Lincoln Burrows on Prison Break.
Born in England but raised in Australia by his Norwegian father and Irish mother, Purcell was a bored landscaper who decided to attend a drama school. He became a TV star in Australia before debuting in America as the title character in "John Doe" (2002). In 2000, he won the Green Card lottery and now lives in Los Angeles with his family.
At the age of two, Dominic and his family moved from England to Sydney's Bondi and then moved to the Western Suburbs. After becoming a landscape gardener, he soon tired of the profession and, whilst watching the war movie Platoon (1986), decided to become an actor. Due to his working-class background, acting seemed a very unlikely choice of career, so he didn't pursue it until sometime later. He studied at The Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) and then later enrolled at the Western Australian Academy of Performing arts where he met his future wife Rebecca and studied with Hugh Jackman. In 1997, Dominic scored a role in the TV series "Raw FM" (1997) and then landed a part in Mission: Impossible II (2000), which was filmed in Australia. He was soon spotted by a US talent scout and went off to LA. Since then, Dominic has been working constantly with roles in the movie Equilibrium (2002), the TV show "John Doe" (2002), Blade: Trinity (2004), and in the upcoming thriller Three Way (2004) and a new police television drama, Strut.
