HUNTING DOWN DEXTER IN DHAKA

THE MONSTER AND HIS DARK PASSENGER
After the photo shoot and after spending time with the Dexter team in Dhaka, now that I knew I had only a week before the interview with Dexter, I had to learn everything I could about the “Monster”. I watched all the movies Michael Carlyle Hall appeared in and all the interviews. By the end of the week (back in September 2013) I was ready to meet the man behind the monster and his onscreen scapegoat who he likes to call “The Dark Passenger”.  

SETTING UP THE KILL ROOM   
I went to the hotel a week later. By then the scenario had changed. There was security everywhere. None was allowed to go even on floor Dexter was on. With the local fixer I went straight into his room. There he was again, with the same clothes he was wearing the first time I saw him. If they hadn't seen him on TV, nobody would guess that this simple man with an amiable smile was the star of one of TV's biggest hit shows! I only had 20 minutes in hand. His own crew was there too, shooting away in that small room. I had to ask him what I could within 20 minutes keeping in mind the agent's code.

TODAY'S THE DAY
How many people have you killed in Bangladesh?
Haha… Zero!
Then what are you doing in Bangladesh? And where have you been hiding for a week?
I am here to do a part of a documentary on climate change. It is called, “Years of living dangerously”. The executive producers are James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think I am a part of more than 20 stories – the producer is focusing on all around the world. I have been travelling on coastal areas of Bangladesh for a week. There I have interviewed all kinds of people; some experts on climate change, people engaged with the issue from different perspectives and certainly plenty of local people. It's been a broad spectrum of people that we've met and filmed with.
A serial killer suddenly becomes a tree-hugger?   
Haha… I was contacted by the representatives of the Showtime Network because of my affiliation with Showtime doing Dexter. They gave me a choice to do two available stories. This one, when I was invited to come to Bangladesh, sounded like an opportunity that I didn't want to pass up. As far as the climate issue goes, I think it affects us all on the long term scale. But coming here, you're able meet with people who are facing it in a more day-to-day life. I wanted the experience.
 

Did Bangladesh change you in any way?   
I certainly had a more potent experience of the effects of the climate change visiting people in the south who are living at the frontline, facing the harsh realities daily. And the richness of the country and its people has been a real treat for me. I hope to bring some of Bangladesh home with me.
You have been in involved in many other charitable projects, are you getting more into these kind of things?
Yes, but it's not part of any sort of master plan that I have. As far as this goes I just was compelled by the aspiration of the documentary series, and I think climate change is an issue that affects us all and is as important as any other. The chance to be part of this is was something that I jumped at. It isn't a fictional story but it is a story that we are telling and a form of filmmaking which excites me – a different way of telling a story, a real story.
Since Dexter is done, what is your next plan?
I don't have any plans yet though I think I will be in New York in the New Year, I am doing a play there. My roots are in the theatre. Over the course of doing TV shows it has been difficult to find a project and a schedule that allows me to be back at theatres. So, I am excited to do that next.
Your characters in movies and TV shows are all different and often dysfunctional. Do you carefully choose your roles?
I don't know, I mean, maybe to a degree. But I think roles choose us too – it is a two way street. I am fortunate to have made these long open-ended commitments to two characters (Dexter and Six Feet Under), both of which fortunately had a great deal of complexity and evolution. Yes, the characters I played – in very different ways – unique and afflicted in certain way. Even the characters in the movies, “Trouble with Bliss” and “Peep World” seem like an everyman kind of people but have a hidden dimension. I guess I am interested in people who have layers or some sort of undercurrent of life that they maybe try to keep hidden. Don't worry, (Laughingly) I, myself am not a serial killer.    
HBO TV series are very demanding for any actor. How did “Six Feet Under” come to you when you were almost unknown?
I guess I was lucky. I was working in a New York Broadway show called “Cabaret”. I got the pilot script and immediately recognized how good it was, did my best in the audition and I got the job. When I was studying to be an actor, jobs like “Six Feet Under” and “Dexter” didn't even exist as possibilities in my mind because television wasn't yet telling stories in that way – stories that unfolded over a number seasons. I associated television with doing the same thing again and again. It was truly beyond my wildest dreams in terms of having a chance to flesh out a character for that long.         
Some describe you as both an artist and a businessman? Do you agree?
I have been very lucky in that the things I have done are maybe the most artistically challenging and also the most commercially successful. They have paid me well. So, I am lucky in that way.
Before you came to Bangladesh did think you would be recognized?
I did not come here anticipating that I would be recognized. It's a crazy thing to go a place that's completely foreign to you feel like you are familiar to people there. But, I was pleasantly surprised. We make the shows and hope that people would watch it. And the fact that almost on the other side of the globe there are people watching the show is kind of amazing and makes the world feel smaller.   
How do you justify the character of Dexter?
I really don't feel like it's my job to justify my character's behavior. I feel like I have a sense of being the guardian of whatever I understand to be their truth. The show really doesn't glorify his behavior as much as it invites the audience to identify with him, and then maybe reckon with their identification and the fact that they are rooting for someone who's doing reprehensible things. Well, except for the fact that he's killing people who deserves it, otherwise… you know, if he was going to playgrounds or nursing homes and killing people I don't think anybody would watch the show. But I like that it operates in a morally grey area. I think Dexter is a character who's tragic in that it's not the fact that he kills people that get him into trouble, it's his appetite to have legitimate human connections with people that gets him in trouble and he gets very much in trouble with the people most important to him.
Why does Dexter need a voice-over?
I think with Dexter its essential, because for the show to work, the audience needs to identify with him and the voice-over helps to make people feel that they are in his head. You know, they are in on secrets that no one else in his world knows about, so they are implicated in a way.

Well, I had many other questions for him but my 20-minutes were over. It was an experience I would cherish forever. I took many photos on the first day. Find rare photos of him in the most casual manner at our Facebook page: wwe.Facebook.com/Showbiz.TDS. Episode of “Years of Living Dangerously”, the documentary on climate change which brought Dexter to Dhaka, can be watched online for free, just search for it on Google.