Remember Lane Garrison? He played the unfortunate Tweener in the first season of Prison Break. While it was a role that looked set to make him a star, his shot at the big time was cut short following a car crash in December 2006. Although he wasn’t badly injured, the smash left his teenage passenger dead and Lane was charged with vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence and providing alcohol to a minor. He plead guilty and was sentenced to 40 months in jail.
After being shuffled between eight prisons over the next couple of years, Lane was released for good behvavour last April and checked himself into a rehabilitation center to kick his drug and alcohol habit.
However he’s now looking for a shot at redemption by turning screenwriter on a story that feeds into his experieces ove the last few years. THR reports that he’s been handed the writing reins on One Heart, the true story of a football team from the Gainesville State School in Texas, that’s made up of kids convicted of crimes involving drugs, violence and robbery. Although they’ve apparently never won anything, their experience playing American Football had given them a new outlook on life.
Lane says that when he heard about the story, “I was moved to tears, because I knew who those kids were because I was one of them. I knew what it was to be locked away and feel hopelessness and feel like, ‘Will I ever have another redeeming quality; will I have a second chance?'” The actor turned writer managed to convince the producers he was the man for the job not just because of his own murky past, but also because he played High School football in Texas himself.
The film, which hopes to cash-in on the success of The Blind Side, looks like it could be about redemption both on and off the screen.