Dexter's Michael C Hall on resurrecting TV's favourite serial killer

While the original series ending in 2013 was largely panned, 2021’s Dexter: New Blood was considered the finale the show deserved.

So big was its success that prequel Dexter: Original Sin aired last year, and the main man himself has had new life breathed into him with Dexter: Resurrection… despite being shot in the chest.

Speaking to RadioTimes.com, the irony is not lost on actor Michael C Hall, who laughs as he declares Dexter "a resilient fellow".

When we speak, it’s early morning in Mexico City, shortly before the team launched Resurrection’s first trailer at fan event CCXP. Still not entirely awake (and who could blame him), Hall still has the disarming friendliness of his on-screen counterpart.

It’s not lost on Hall that Dexter is a character that will be a pinnacle moment in his career. Having first caught public attention in HBO’s director drama Six Feet Under, which ran from 2001 to 2005, he made his debut as the blood spatter analyst and serial killer a year later, in October 2006, this time leading the team rather than being part of the ensemble.

Since then, he’s captivated audiences thanks to Dexter’s self-aware inner monologue, told through voice-over as he navigated his own murderous moral code – only killing those that truly deserve to die, and have evaded traditional routes of justice. The series ran for eight seasons.

"It would have blown my mind to think that we would do eight seasons," Hall admits. "Let alone return after however many years it was and do another season, let alone be doing it again."

Read more:

• Dexter boss admits sequel Resurrection isn't "necessary" but says it's "welcome"
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So, was he in two minds about bringing the character back yet again? Yes and no, with Hall saying that once the idea to revive Dexter after the events of New Blood was proposed, it became "increasingly compelling" and hard to ignore.

"It's been the through line as far as my acting career goes for some time," he adds. "Whether I had returned or not, I think Dexter would remain in the first sentence of anything anybody wrote, if they were to write about what I've done as an actor, and that wouldn't change whether or not we did more.

"The idea of him surviving that gunshot and being given some sort of new lease became increasingly compelling once that conversation started and I just surrendered."

Hall tells us that Dexter’s resilient nature is one of the main reasons he is lured back into playing the character time and again, and by this point it’s intertwined with his career forever – in some ways, like his own version of Dexter’s Dark Passenger, which drives the character to kill even as he fights against it.

"He's remarkably capable and also remarkably limited at the same time, and I enjoy playing someone for whom those things coexist," Hall says.

"It's also a sort of family of collaborators that has developed and solidified over the years, and I really enjoy working and collaborating with those people. So that's a part of it, too. You know, it's nice to keep that family together and alive."

It’s not just the creative team that keeps the legacy of Dexter alive and well.

After all, a TV show with such longevity would not exist without the fans, who have become attached to Dexter and his twisted, often hypocritical, form of justice. The serial killer killer has become not just an iconic character, but a full franchise – with Resurrection following the launch prequel series Original Sin in 2024, plus mini-series New Blood in 2021.

"I think there's something about the character and the fascination with him that abides and people continue to lean forward and relish the chance to see him," Hall explains, adding the events of New Blood have a major effect on Dexter’s behaviour as he moves forward, and bring into context feelings not processed from the original series run.

"Finding his way through new environments, new relationships… He obviously went into some sort of exile before we rejoined him in Iron Lake, in New Blood, and went through some sort of gauntlet over the course of that season that ended with his, seemingly, being taken out by his son.

"I think what ultimately happened, given where we are now, is that it allowed him to do away with something that he'd probably been carrying like a bag of shadows since halfway through the first series proper."

Specifically, it was the Trinity Killer arc during Dexter’s fourth season. The murderer, played by John Lithgow, finally met the end of Dexter’s scalpel – but left a parting gift, with Dexter returning home to find his son, Harrison, crying in a pool of blood and wife Rita dead in the bathtub: Trinity’s final victim.

The arc has such an effect that Lithgow is set to reprise his role, albeit spiritually, in scenes during Dexter: Resurrection – forming Dexter’s mindset going forward.

Hall says: "I think he was traumatised by being, to some degree, bested by Trinity coming home and discovering that his wife had been killed. You know, after killing Trinity with some degree of reverence, to realise that he'd been double-crossed sent him reeling. He was shattered by it. I think only now is he coming out of it and able to put it behind him.

"He doesn't forget anything, any of these things, but he's maybe not carrying them with him in the same way, and maybe it was only getting to that threshold where he invited his son to take him out in hindsight, maybe he appreciates his son for having done in a preoccupation that had shackled him for some time.

"He obviously still has a life that's, in its way, pretty complicated, but I don't think he's dwelling in the same way on the past."

Dexter’s precarious balance between right and wrong is dictated by 'The Code' given to him by his late adoptive father, Harry, and has continued to be a through line throughout any iteration of the franchise.

But after so many years in his shoes, has Hall taken away any lessons from playing the killer-with-a-conscience? Hall says yes – though notes it may also be down to age and the gift of hindsight.

"I've probably moved toward a place that's less relativistic than it might have been way back when," he explains.

"That might just have to do with growing older, but spending time considering and playing a character who has a pretty significant list of givens that he honours, and at this point has plenty of experience with how things can go wrong if you deny those guide posts, it probably encourages me to consider and cultivate my relationship to my own list of givens – that thankfully don't centre around my undeniable need to kill people."

So, what does he hope viewers take away from Dexter: Resurrection that they may not have done in the previous series?

"Gosh, I don't know," he says. "I think, well, maybe a sense that growth cannot always be about moving forward, but can be about moving back and revisiting something that once was with the sense of personal wisdom that you didn't have before.

"I feel like maybe that's what Dexter is up to, and that taking responsibility for your mistakes, or your past, or the things that torment you isn't necessarily about putting yourself through hell, but putting those things down. I think maybe Dexter has finally come to a place where he's able to do that.

"I don't know if there's a shortcut to that, I think you have to go through whatever experiences lead you to that being the only choice you can make or the only thing to do."

Dexter: Resurrection is now showing on Paramount+ – get a seven day free Paramount+ trial at Amazon Prime Video.

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