Michael C. Hall almost said no to ‘Dexter‘. After playing a mortician for five years on ‘Six Feet Under‘, he was not excited about spending more time with dead bodies. “I didn’t roll my eyes, but I did think, ‘Do I want to be surrounded by dead bodies for another indeterminate number of years?’” he said back in 2013.
However, his mother, Janice, knew better as she had seen the signs way back in first grade.
Michael C. Hall’s Mother Saw the Signs in a First-Grade Shoe Incident
Hall is back as the famous serial killer in the new show ‘Dexter: Resurrection‘. In an interview, he told the story that his mother loves to bring up, which starts with a pair of shoes.
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“I think I was in first grade… I’d gotten a new pair of Zips, they were like running shoes, blue with a yellow stripe,” Hall said. He was really happy about those shoes, but that did not last long. Out on the playground, he got mud all over them. “I was really upset, so upset that I started to cry,” he admitted. Then an older kid, a second or third-grader, started making fun of him for crying. Hall did not think twice and went after the kid.
His mother, who works as a mental health counselor, uses that story to explain why her son was perfect for the role. Hall says she always tells him, “Remember when you attacked that kid when your Zips got muddy? You had it in you!“
‘Dexter: Resurrection’ Came From a Casual Conversation
Hall has built a career on playing characters who walk the line between dark and human. After ‘Six Feet Under‘, he took on Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter analyst for the Miami police who also happens to be a vigilante serial killer. He won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award for the part.
In case you missed it: ‘Dexter: Resurrection’ Season 2 May Have Already Teased Major Character Returns
Now, almost twenty years later, he is still figuring out who Dexter is. He said the idea for the new series came from a casual talk with director Marcos Siega. “I just said, ‘What if he didn’t die? Is that crazy? I mean, he’s a resilient guy,’” Hall told The Late Show. From there, the Bay Harbor Butcher came back to life.
Michael C. Hall on His Return to ‘Dexter’
Hall said playing characters surrounded by death was “never part of any mission statement I had… It’s just sort of how it went down.”
Working on the prequel series ‘Dexter: Original Sin’, where he voices the inner thoughts of a younger Dexter, helped him understand the character better. “It just gave fully-fleshed out colour to what had probably been a notion, an outline, or a line drawing,” he said. That experience also helped him get ready for Resurrection.
His mother might have been right all along. The kid who protected his muddy Zips grew up to protect Miami, just in a much more permanent way. The lesson is simple: do not make fun of a boy and his sneakers, or you never know who he will turn out to be.
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