Michael C. Hall
The actor who brought Dexter Morgan to life across multiple series.
Michael C. Hall is an American actor and musician, best known for playing the titular character in the Showtime series Dexter and David Fisher in the HBO black-comedy drama series Six Feet Under. For Dexter, Hall won a Golden Globe Award, an Actor Award and a Saturn Award. He has received six total nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, which ties the record for most nominations in the category without a win. He reprised his role of Dexter Morgan in Dexter: New Blood, Dexter: Resurrection, and performed the internal monologue in Dexter: Original Sin.
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Michael Carlyle Hall
- Born
- 1 February 1971
- Birthplace
- Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.
- Education
- Earlham College (BA); New York University (MFA)
- Occupation
- Actor, musician
- Years active
- 1995–present
Lore & Background
Hall's performance as Dexter Morgan required him to play a psychopathic blood-spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer/vigilante. The series premiered on October 1, 2006, and ended its run in 2013. After months of rumors, on April 18, 2013, Showtime announced via social media that season eight would be Dexter's final season. Hall also voiced Dexter Morgan in the animated web series Dexter: Early Cuts.
For his work on Dexter, Hall was nominated for five Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series from 2008 to 2012. He won the 2007 Television Critics Association award for Individual Achievement in Drama at the 23rd TCA Awards. Hall was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Drama in 2007 and 2008, and won in 2010 at the 67th Golden Globe Awards. Also in 2010, he won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series at the 16th Screen Actor's Guild Awards.
Reader's Guide
Hall's professional acting career began in the theater. Off-Broadway, he appeared in Macbeth and Cymbeline at the New York Shakespeare Festival; in Timon of Athens and Henry V at The Public Theater; The English Teachers at the Manhattan Class Company (MCC); and the controversial play Corpus Christi at the Manhattan Theatre Club. He also performed the role of Paris Singer in the workshop production of a Stephen Sondheim musical (titled Wise Guys at the time, and in later versions, Bounce and then Road Show).
In Los Angeles, Hall appeared in Skylight at the Mark Taper Forum. As part of the Texas Shakespeare Festival in the summer of 1995, he played Lancelot in Camelot, Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing. In 1998, Hall performed in William Shakespeare's Cymbeline, in the role of Posthumus Leonatus, which ran from August 4 to 30. In 1999, director Sam Mendes cast Hall as the flamboyant Emcee in the revival of Cabaret; this was Hall's first Broadway role.
Hall's film credits from this period include the thriller Paycheck (2003) and the science fiction thriller Gamer (2009).
More in Lore & Behind the Scenes
Elsewhere in Dexter
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