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Cover Story
Liz Braun
September 2009
Movie Entertainment
He sees dead people.
Michael C. Hall, known for TV roles that see him dealing with the deceased in one way or another, is white-hot this month. He’s back on small screens with the much-anticipated fourth season of Dexter on Sept. 27. And he stars opposite Gerard Butler in the sci-fi thriller Gamer, which opens in movie theatres Sept. 4.
With another Emmy nomination under his belt for Dexter – to add to the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nods for the show – everybody’s favourite blood spatter expert and serial killer returns with a special new adversary.
Walter Simmons (played by John Lithgow) is the infamous Trinity Killer, a murderer who tends to take his victims in threes. He’s so good at what he does that he’s been dodging the FBI for 30 years. When bodies start to pile up in Miami, Dexter becomes obsessed with the Trinity Killer and his remarkable abilities.
Of course, Dexter is now a husband and father, too. The new season will address how he’s going to juggle family, work and that bloody little hobby of his. So many to kill, so little time.
“I love the way this show turns so many things on its head,” Hall said. “That’s part of the appeal for me, for sure. … Dexter is a compelling character to consider, as an actor, because he himself is an actor.”
The route to taking on such a complex role began in the theatre, where Hall, a North Carolina native, appeared off- Broadway in various productions, including Macbeth and Cymbeline for the New York Shakespeare Festival. On Broadway, he was the emcee in Cabaret.
As for early influences, Hall told an interviewer that Tender Mercies was one of his favourite movies, and that Robert Duvall’s performance in that film “got me excited about the possibility of pulling off an acting career for myself.”
Hall became a household name when he was cast in Six Feet Under, the HBO series about funeral directors that saw him play the closeted proprietor of the funeral home, Fisher & Sons. He also appeared in the feature films Bereft (2004) and Paycheck (2003), and he’s got a film called Peep World coming up later this year. He was cast in Dexter in 2006.
His personal life made the news when Hall married his Dexter co-star, Jennifer Carpenter, last New Year’s Eve. They play brother and sister on the show. Hall has said that he enjoys the moral ambiguity of Dexter, but he is looking forward to appearing in some lighter fare: “I can’t seem to get away from the dead bodies.”
Lucky for the rest of us.
Related Article:
Screen Time with Dexter’s Real-Life Counterparts
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