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Whittaker as the aptly named Icepick; and Manny Sosa and Joe Nuñez as two of the
toughest Chicano convicts Rossmore State Penitentiary could attempt to hold—all a big
bonus for the Naperville-native director.
Berenson laughs, “I think we might have even had some extras who served time
in Joliet.”
Life Behind Bars:
Design and Style of the Film
In searching for an actual prison in which to set the film, the filmmakers looked
for an active holding facility in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and New York that could serve
as their Rossmore State Penitentiary. Ultimately, they settled upon Joliet Correctional
Facility, a 148-year-old institution that opened and shut its cell doors for the last time in
February 2002. When originally built, it was America’s largest prison, and it held a
record 1,300 inmates in 1999-2000.
The façade is well known as the prison that Jake Blues is released from at the
beginning of The Blues Brothers, and it has recently hosted productions from the 2005
Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston thriller Derailed to the Fox television series Prison
Break, in which Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows plot the same escape that
Lyshitski and Biederman stage. Legend even states that Bob Dylan’s tune “Percy’s
Song” tells the story of a person attempting to get a friend’s 99-year Joliet sentence
commuted.
Many famous residents have passed through or found their permanent addresses
behind the bars of Joliet. With distinctly nonfunny inmates such as Al Capone, Jeffrey
Dahmer and Ted Bundy having served time there, Biederman and Lyshitski had big shoes
to fill to get their street cred. Producer Berenson notes of the location, “When people
think of prison, they think of Joliet. It has this Gothic quality to it and has been home to a
rogues’ gallery from John Wayne Gacy to Richard Speck.”
“We had to look for a prison that we could do the film in,” adds Odenkirk, who
grew up in nearby Naperville. “This stone monster lurked in my nightmares ever since
the day my dad drove my brother and I right by the stone wall in front, slowed down, and