It takes one heck of an actor to be able to portray a serial killer on television each week and still have the audience rooting for him not to get caught. But that's what Michael C. Hall manages to do each week on the Showtime series "Dexter," a show that I found out last night will be returning for a third season next year.
Hall took on the role following the end of his five-year run on HBO's acclaimed "Six Feet Under" where he played David Fisher, a gay man dealing with his partner and running a funeral home with his brother.
'Six Feet Under' ended and I thought, 'Well, that's it for TV. I'd been spoiled rotten and lightning doesn't strike twice," he said. "The last thing I thought I'd do was another television series. I feel like I left David behind by nature of the way 'Six Feet Under' ended where we all got to simulate our own deaths."
When we talked last night, was a bit jet-lagged after flying in from a film set in Australia for an Academy of Television Arts and Sciences event where most of the cast gathered for a screening of an upcoming episode and a discussion after.
I didn't mention the irony of interviewing Michael at the Academy headquarters in North Hollywood (and his appearance on the cover of Emmy Magazine) given that he was snubbed for a much-deserved Emmy nomination this year. Not only should he have been nominated, but he should have won!
I wondered if it's been tougher to play Dexter this season now that the show has moved beyond establishing his character and has him juggling his duel roles as serial killer (he only kills bad guys!) and forensics specialist for law enforcement in Miami in addition to personal issues galore.
"It's all been a challenge and one that I've welcomed as an actor," he said. "I think some of the twists and turns that the character has taken this season have presented new challenges for me because as he experiences himself in more what could be called human ways, it's my responsibility to honor the fact that he does remain, fundamentally, sociopathic or compelled to kill. So yeah, that's tricky. It's not boring, thankfully."
Last season, we learned that Dexter and his brother has watched as their mother was murdered. He had buried the memory of the mother and of the brother. But when a rival serial killer begins taunting him, it is discovered that he is his brother. While Dexter kills evil folks, the brother killed more for sport and his arrival put Dexter through an emotional ringer that penetrated his carefully constructed emotional walls.
"I think the show is moving forward and evolving. I think the second season really honors the gaping wound that Dexter is carrying around after he lost his brother, a person he never imagined could even exist and he's reeling a bit in a way that he's not even consciously aware of. I think the storyline of the second season honors that reeling and honors the vulnerability that sort of goes along with that. His susceptibility to certain things is exploited in certain ways and he's really on a road to a kind of recovery from that trauma."