Michael C. Hall plays a serial killer who kills other serial killers in the cable TV series Dexter. A native of North Carolina, Hall began his career on the New York stage after graduating from Indiana's Earlham College (1993) and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts (1996). His big stage break came in 1999, when he replaced Alan Cummings (as the emcee) in the late revival of Cabaret. Hall then made a splash on the critically-acclaimed cable series Six Feet Under (2001-05); he played David, a self-loathing, gay mortician (Hall is heterosexual), a role that brought him stardom and an Emmy nomination (2002). When that series ended Hall bounced back with a second successful cable series, Dexter (since 2006), in which he plays Dexter Morgan, a police forensics specialist whose secret purpose in life is to kill killers who have escaped justice.
Hall married Dexter co-star Jennifer Carpenter on 31 December 2008; in the show Carpenter play's Dexter's sister, Debra.
Career Highlights: Bereft, Gamer, Dexter: Season 03
First Major Screen Credit: Six Feet Under: Season 01 (2001)
Biography
Though New York City residents savvy to the off-Broadway stages may be familiar with actor Michael C. Hall as a result of his roles in nearly a dozen productions including Macbeth, Timon of Athens, and Cymbeline, television viewers are more likely to recognize the Emmy-nominated talent as the proprietor (along with his brother, Nate [Peter Krause]) of the Fisher & Sons Funeral Home on the popular HBO drama Six Feet Under. Born in Raleight, NC, in 1971, Hall graduated from Earlham College before receiving his training as an actor in the NYU Master of Fine Arts acting program. His prowess on the stage led him to appear in off-Broadway productions for The New York Shakespeare Festival, and it wasn't long before he was offered a role on Six Feet Under. Though the show's producers had originally cast Krause in the part, the subsequent difficulty they had in casting the character of Nate eventually found Krause tackling that role, while Hall took on the part of David. Of course, fate has a way of working things out for the best sometimes, and both actors hit their stride in the quirky series, with Hall's multi-layered performance as the closeted David, in particular, lending the show both some of its most poignant moments and some of its most humorous. In 2003, Hall attempted to make the leap to feature films with the John Woo action movie Paycheck, and in 2004, he began work on director Timothy Daly's low-key relationship drama Bereft.
Though, with the releases of Paycheck and Bereft, it appeared as if the actor who had thus far achieved the most fame as a closeted funeral director on HBO's Six Feet Under was moving away from television in order to focus on feature work, a return to the small screen in the Showtime crime drama series Dexter found Hall dealing in death on the small screen once again. Cast in the title role of a forensics investigator who secretly moonlights as a serial killer, Hall earned critical acclaim and substantial ratings as he made the transition from playing one who sees that the dearly departed get a respectable send-off to portraying one who helps to keep funeral homes in business. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Hall was born an only child in Raleigh, North Carolina. His mother, Janice Styons Hall, is a high school counselor of students at Wake Forest Rolesville High School 9th Grade Center in Raleigh, and his father, William Carlyle Hall, worked for IBM.[2] Hall's sister died in infancy before his birth, and his father died of cancer when Hall was eleven years old. In a 2004 interview he was quoted as saying,
“
Certainly, for a young boy, there's no good age, but I think I was on the cusp of a time in my life where I was starting to reach puberty, to relate to my father. To have him ... Something gets frozen. As you revisit it for the rest of your life, it's sort of this slow but hopefully sure crawling-out of that frozen moment.[3]
In 2002, he married actress Amy Spanger; he played Billy Flynn opposite her Roxie Hart in the Broadway musical Chicago the summer after their wedding. The couple separated and filed for divorce in 2006. On New Year's Eve in 2008, he eloped with Jennifer Carpenter, who plays his character Dexter Morgan's sister, Debra Morgan, on Showtime's Dexter.[4][5]
In 1999, director Sam Mendes cast Hall as the flamboyant Emcee in the revival of Cabaret, his first Broadway role. Mendes also directed the film American Beauty, written by Alan Ball, and he suggested Hall for the role of deeply closetedDavid Fisher when Ball began casting the TV drama Six Feet Under. "Everything I opened up for Cabaret," Hall reported in a 2004 interview, "I slammed shut for David."[3]
Hall's work in the first season of Six Feet Under was recognized by a 2002 Emmy nomination for an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and 2002 AFI Award nomination for Actor of the Year. In addition, he shared in the Screen Actors Guild nomination for best ensemble cast all five years that the show was in production, winning the award in 2003 and 2004.
In 2003, Hall toured as Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago. His only film credits are the 2003 thriller Paycheck, and the 2009 sci-fi thriller Gamer. He also appeared in the 2003 TV movie Bereft. In 2005 he returned to Off-Broadway theatre in the premiere of Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade, playing the title character, an emotionally disturbed little girl's imaginary friend.
Dexter
Hall is currently starring in and co-producing the Showtime television series Dexter, which revolves around Dexter Morgan, a Miami police blood-spatter expert who moonlights as a vigilanteserial killer. The series' first season premiered on October 1, 2006, its second season began on September 30, 2007, a third season in September 28, 2008 and the fourth season started September 27, 2009. For his work on the series, Hall was nominated for the 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a TV Drama and renominated in 2008 for a Golden Globe in the same category.[6] Hall won the 2007 TCA award for Individual Achievement in Drama.[7] Hall was also nominated for a 2008 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series for his work in Dexter. Dexter has been nominated for a 2008 Emmy in the Drama Series category.[8] Hall was nominated for a 2009 Golden Globe for Actor in Drama Series for his work on Dexter.
In a 2006 interview, Hall discussed his approach to the character of Dexter, saying:
“
I think Dexter is a man who… a part of himself is very much frozen, or arrested in a place that is pre-memory, pre-conscious, pre-verbal. Something very traumatic happened to him, he doesn’t know what that is. And I think on some level he wants to know. He denies his humanity, he describes himself as someone who is without feeling, and yet I think that he maybe suspects — in a way that maybe isn’t even conscious yet when we first meet him — that he is in fact a human being ... Dexter's a unique killer in that his father saw his dark impulses, shined a light on them, and told Dexter that he saw them, he accepted them, that Dexter is good and that he is worthy of love. And I think that's what enables him to focus his energies in this unique way.
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