‘Dexter Original Sin’: How Young Batista and Masuka Actors Prepped for Prequel Series

[This story contains spoilers from Dexter and Dexter: New Blood.]

When Dexter: Original Sin viewers see the fedora and hear the giggle, they know who’s coming.

For eight seasons on the original Dexter, the audience of Showtime’s hit serial killer series became familiar with the main players on the Miami Metro Homicide team where Michael C. Hall‘s starring Dexter Morgan worked. Two of those characters were Detective Angel Batista, played by David Zayas, and forensics expert Vince Masuka, played by C.S. Lee.

Prequel series Dexter: Original Sin, which arrived on Paramount+ last week, heads back to the 1990s to show how Dexter (played here by Patrick Gibson) became the blood splatter analyst by day and serial killer by night who viewers were introduced to in the 2006 series. James Martinez and Alex Shimizu take on the Batista and Masuka roles in the prequel, bringing back their signature fedora and giggle, respectively.

Shimizu wasn’t familiar with Dexter when the role came his way, so he says he binged the original series in a weekend and watched hundreds of clips of Lee as Masuka, both on the show and in interviews. Then, he decided to reach out.

“I was able to slide into C.S. Lee’s DMs and party with him a little bit, talk with him, and he’s been super supportive and cool,” Shimizu tells The Hollywood Reporter. “He’s helped me to have an even deeper understanding of Masuka.”

Shimizu was in Miami when he says he first got a response from Lee.

“He was like, ‘Yeah, let’s go party!’ So we went to Intercrew in Koreatown and he gave me so much great advice on the character, mainly that despite all his antics and bizarre behavior and his wild jokes, he’s coming from a place of wanting to connect with people and make friends,” shares Shimizu, whose night out was documented by Lee on social media. “I always knew that Masuka deep down is a good guy. He means well despite everything. He has a slacker quality to him, but he’s very good at his job.”

He continues, “But not only was he very great about letting me know about the character and giving me insight, C.S. also let me know about being an actor in Hollywood, about being an Asian American actor in Hollywood, and just wanting the best for me, which he didn’t have to do. So I was very supportive and grateful for all of his help.”

Shimizu stresses the rarity of getting a role like Masuka. “He’s so out there,” he says. “He’s so bold and crazy and at the same time has such a big heart. He’s like a slacker Asian character, which is very rare to play in Hollywood. I just loved it.”

Martinez, on the other hand, says he did not slide into Zayas’ DMs. That’s because he already knew the actor from both of them having been in the theater community in New York.

“I’ve always been a fan of his stage work,” Martinez tells THR. “I had a sense of who he was already and he has a lot of similarities as Batista. So when you talk to him and you get to know him, you really get who Angel is at his core and that to me was the most important part.”

He, too, received key advice on how to play Batista for Original Sin.

“He said that Angel doesn’t have a cynical bone in his body, which was something I could really hold onto and run with,” shares Martinez. “He just has a really optimistic attitude towards life, work and love, and he leads with his heart. Looking like him was important; capturing his mannerisms and his physicality. But capturing that was more important, who he was at his core, and meeting him helped me do that.”

Original Sin creator and former Dexter showrunner Clyde Phillips told THR that he hopes Original Sin runs for multiple seasons, simultaneous to the upcoming Dexter: Resurrection series, which will see Hall reprising his role as Dexter in present-day. Since Original Sin resurrected Dexter in its opening scene, viewers now have a better understanding of where the Resurrection series will pick up.

“You could almost consider Resurrection the next season of New Blood,” Phillips had clarified to THR.

Zayas’ present-day Batista appeared in New Blood, and was last seen in an unfinished moment where he was beginning to understand who Dexter really is, and that his former friend and coworker may actually be the infamous Bay Harbor Butcher serial killer (Dexter was also present when Batista’s wife, Detective Maria LaGuerta, played by Luna Lauren Velez, was murdered by Dexter’s sister Deb Morgan, played by Jennifer Carpenter).

Martinez is apprehensive at the thought of watching his future counterpart reconcile that truth.

“With Resurrection, I can’t imagine the heartbreak that we’re going to see for Angel, the sense of treachery. It brings a tear to my eye because I know David and I can imagine him playing that revelation of who Dexter is and ‘wow, this guy is not who I thought he was,’” he says. “He leads with his heart so the pain he’s going to feel, I’m gonna watch for sure.”

While Masuka didn’t appear in New Blood, he did get an Easter egg in the finale when an email arrived to Batista’s inbox from Masuka, telling him he got married and inviting him to his bachelor party.

“I’d love to see C.S. back for Resurrection,” says Shimizu. “If they need an eye [of someone] who knew Dexter from way back when when he worked at forensics just a few feet away, Masuka is your guy.”

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Dexter: Original Sin streams new episodes Fridays on Paramount+, with linear releases Sunday nights at 10 p.m. Read THR‘s in-depth feature on the return of Dexter.