The star of Dexter, Michael C Hall, is best known to British audiences as the uptight undertaker in Six Feet Under. He explains why audiences love watching serial killers and discusses the dark side lurking within us all
Dexter is the story of a forensics expert who tracks murderers during the day. At night he becomes a killer and hunts serial killers. What is your view of the violence in the show?
“I think there are plenty of things in this world that desensitise us to violence, and to suffering generally, in the world. I think Dexter is an interesting example, or maybe an exceptional example, in that violence is not detached from the affection that you're encouraged to have for the person who's doing the killing, because the people he's killing are themselves killers.
So it sort of folds in on itself which I like. I'd like to think that maybe the show takes a bit more responsibility than some do in terms of what it's portraying.
What about the more graphic scenes?
“When it comes to showing as much gore as we do, I really don't know how the public feel about it. I'm sure that it varies from person to person in terms of their relative squeamishness about that side of things.
But I think the show is interesting in its construction: because of the voice over element that Dexter provides, the audience are the only ones who are in on the real secret and as a result, they're kind of implicated. I think that is seductive to some people and makes some people squirm.
More from Michael on the next page...
