Dexter Morgan is still alive, thanks to Michael C. Hall—who, after clamoring for a 2021 Dexter revival titled Dexter: New Blood, decided to put all his energy into ensuring that his character’s arc would not end. New Blood concluded with Dexter getting shot in the chest by his son, Harrison. Yet Hall did not give up.
“I’m the one who posed the initial question of, what if that bullet shot weren’t fatal? What would that look like?” the actor says over Zoom. “It brought in a lot of creative collaborators who’ve been a part of the show all along, and started a conversation. But yeah, I’m the guy who posed the question.”
The answer is Dexter: Resurrection, arriving exclusively on Paramount+ on July 11. Though playing a serial killer for nearly two decades has been intense and exhausting for Hall, the truth is that he was looking forward to stepping into Dexter’s shoes once again. Perhaps it helps that all these years later, Dexter is still principled: In order to channel his “dark passenger,” he follows a moral code by which he only takes out people who don’t deserve to live.
Vanity Fair: What does Dexter have to tell us today, in your opinion?
Michael C. Hall: I think this new season shows us a character who has a second chance at life, and who’s been finally released from what’s been a burdensome relationship to his past—and all the collateral damage in his life. If we think we die, and we’re given a second chance, how do we change? Who do we become? What identity do we adopt or reclaim? Those are the kinds of things that the character is grappling with this time around.
What’s your own relationship with the idea of the second chance?
Ultimately? It’s one of gratitude. This show and this character remain vital in terms of storytelling possibilities, in terms of the appeal to an audience. I just feel very lucky to be engaged with this still in a way that genuinely feels new. I think all of us who were members of the original show, we would just shake our heads in amazement that we were on set and playing scenes. It’s really amazing.
Many actors try not to get trapped in a character. Have you ever been afraid of Dexter sticking to you?
I don’t know if I feared it. I certainly have spent a lot of time considering him and playing him. Thankfully, I’m not predisposed to act on the kind of compulsions that Dexter’s afflicted by—but yeah, I mean, certainly when we finish shooting a season, I need some time to just put it away, if nothing else.
It’s just his life is so stressful. I could never live a life this fraught with stress. I mean, I guess everybody’s life is stressful, but Dexter’s is sort of beyond. I’m not crazy; I know I’m not him. I know he doesn’t actually exist. He’s just words on a page, and a character, and an idea that remains a mysterious one for me. I don’t feel that I necessarily have any more of a hold on the character than I ever did. I intuitively know how to play him, but I don’t know—he’s probably done a number on me that I couldn’t even tell you about because the lines are so blurred. But I don’t think I’m him, thankfully.
Dexter lives with a dark passenger. Who is your dark passenger?
[Thinks about it, then looks straight into the camera]
None of your business.
There’s a lot of talk about death in the series. Does it scare you?
I think there’s nothing we hold more in common as human beings than our common mortality and reckoning with the fact of it, and the inevitability of our death is a fundamental part of one’s spiritual journey in life. Fearing death is a pretty futile fear. I mean, what’s the point of fearing something that’s an inevitability? I think it’s more reconciling yourself to that inevitability. I don’t want to die, but I know it’s inevitable. So I think we all live our lives with the knowledge that will be the fundamental threshold. What you do about that is, I guess, up to you.
Original story in VF Italia.
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