The Michael C Hall interview | ‘I didn’t know if I could be Dexter again after eight years. But he was still there.’-Entertainment News , Firstpost
Michael C Hall talks about playing the ‘good serial killer’ again in Dexter: New Blood, the conflict he is battling at this stage of life, and how the response to Season 8 finale fuelled and shaped the revival.
American crime show Dexter may have arrived in 2006, long before the streaming era, but it boasted of all the traits that are required to make viewers stay glued to it. Having run for eight seasons, the show ended with a finale that let its protagonist, an addicted serial killer, off the hook. Eight years after that polarising finale, the show returns with a revival, Dexter: New Blood, that will see Michael C Hall reprise the titular role and resume 10 years after the events of that finale.
In an interview, Hall talks about playing Dexter again, the conflict he is battling at this stage of his life now, and how the response to the finale fuelled and shaped the revival. Edited excerpts are below:
Dexter returns to our screens after eight years. Why do you think we needed so much time away from the character to be able to meet him now, after all these years?
Something could’ve potentially worked in 2015-16. But I don’t think this (Dexter: New Blood) could’ve worked then. He’s obviously familiar to us but there’s something significantly, if not fundamentally, different. The show leaves a lot of decided blanks that the audience is expected to fill in. Those blanks are a little more substantial now than they would’ve been had we gone in earlier, which is a good thing. I don’t think we’d have believed he’d have arrived in this newly crafted persona. He’s living under an alias, and making an earnest and legitimate attempt at living as a normal person. So the time was required to give him space, psychologically and spiritually, to become the person he has. It’s allowed him to create an imaginable landscape that’s sort of more flexible.
Was this time or space a deterrent for you in terms of slipping into the Dexter shoes all over again?
That’s not something I spent much time consciously thinking about. Once I was on set and we started doing scenes, I found I was instinctively doing certain things, moving in certain ways that felt eerily familiar. I don’t mean to say I was possessed. But he (Dexter, the character) was still there. One of the first scenes we shot included a moment when Dexter unexpectedly comes upon a pool of blood in a barn, and is affected. I felt my body respond in a way that was very him. It was a relief, it had been a long time. I didn’t know how it’d be like to be him again. But he was still there.
How do you think the new (fictional) setting of Iron Lake, New York, an unforgivingly cold place, informs the headspace Dexter is in now? Is he more in sync with his environment, as compared to the contrast Miami brought in previous seasons, with its warm and bright palette?
Ya, I think it is symbolically resonant. He’s someone who, among other things, is an addict at the end of the day. The fact he’s removed all familiar, and as a result triggering factors, like his name and physical environment, helps him maintain his abstinence. There are other rituals that have emerged, like chasing white deer through the woods. But there’s no mistake he’s landed in this place that’s so antithetical to the place we discovered him, and he discovered himself.
Dexter was nominated for 18 Emmy Awards under the leadership of Clyde Phillips, who returns to New Blood as the showrunner, a position he opted out of after Season 4. How has his return shaped the revival storyline?
Clyde has such an appreciation for the fundamental DNA of the show, in spite of the fact that it’s in a different context. The show is different in so many ways, and reframes the character in so many ways, but there needed to be some sort of connective tissue to the show to the character and the show we remember. And there was no one better, and maybe no one else who could have appreciated it in the way that he has. We realised entering into the show that it’s more fleshed out than before but it was only when we started breaking down the script with Clyde that we realised that we were on the beam.
Dexter’s fatherhood seems to be a major catalyst in New Blood. How did you tap into that side of the character?
It’s really Dexter’s indulgence in his impulse to have the cake and eat it too, or have the cake and kill it too, or have a normal life and relationships while keep killing people. That gets him in trouble, and causes collateral damage to all these people he cares about, as much as he’s capable of. When we shot the pilot, I didn’t imagine Dexter could be a father. Then within three seasons, he was! He’s always trying to catch up with the emergent circumstances of his life, and the result of this indulgence.
A son is a father’s only flesh-and-blood evidence of his existence. When Dexter looks at his son, it becomes all the more difficult to deny that he’s a flesh-and-blood person himself.
I think his ultimate decision at the end of the series to forsake that relationship and distance himself is maybe a way to cop out, but it’s also a penance he feels he necessarily has to pay. Because he thinks his presence in his son Harrison’s life will do him in, like it did his wife and sister. One of the manic elements of the new show is that you can’t turn your back on your past, and that you’ll have to face the consequences of your life in one way or another. His relationship with his son is what reveals his darkest and lightest sides. When he looks at Harrison, he’s like, “God, please don’t let him be like me,” and simultaneously, “Oh god, please let him be like me!”
The finale of last season got an underwhelming response. Did that prod you in any way to take Dexter’s story forward?
It had a great deal to do with the motivation to return to the show. Had the finale of the series been deeply satisfying for people, we may not have seen any reason to return. This revival is a silver lining to the grey cloud of that mystifying, confounding, if not infuriating, ending.
Dexter and Breaking Bad started out at the same time but when they neared their respective finales, it was often said, “Breaking Bad did almost everything right that Dexter did wrong.” Is New Blood a way to correct that assessment?
If Dexter had ended like Walter White, I certainly wouldn’t be talking to you now (laughs). I think in spite of it being so open-ended, confusing, and dissatisfying the way we ended, it did open a door to tell a story that couldn’t have been told back then. And for that, I’m thankful. As far as where things are heading now, I wouldn’t want to give you any indication. But having returned to the character, I’m glad I was able to. I’m glad he didn’t die eight years ago.
It has been widely debated whether Dexter is a superhero, since he borrows the traits of punishing bad people and possessing a secret identity. Do you think this observation is too far-fetched?
It’s all a matter of perspective I guess. It’s fair to claim he’s a superhero on the basis of the reading that he shares certain characteristics with superheroes. I don’t know what superpowers he has, other than the ability to pick all locks (laughs), and apparently carry very heavy dead weight. He seems to have these logistical superpowers. But I don’t think of him as a superhero when I play him or that he thinks of himself as a superhero.
If not a superhero, let us agree that Dexter has always been positioned as a ‘good serial killer.’ What are the pressures that come along with that tag?
It’s hard to know whether he ultimately fancies himself as ‘good’ because he kills ‘bad’ people. Or does that make him feel more ‘exceptional’ or ‘unique’ among serial killers? I think the challenge is to allow seemingly opposite facts to coexist. He lives and operates from a pretty grey space, in spite of the fact he’s able to do very decisive things. Whether they’re ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ whether a light is emerging from his fundamental darkness or whether he’s a less savoury soul, it’s hard to say. Maybe finding someone who thinks he’s plausibly acting decisively without ignoring the grey murkiness from where he’s emerging is the most challenging thing.
Dexter: New Blood premieres in India on Voot Select on 8 November at 7:30 AM.
