‘Dexter: Resurrection’ Victim Speaks Out: “It Was a Striking Visual I’ll Remember For Some Time”

[This story contains major spoilers from Dexter: Resurrection episode four, “Call Me Red.”]

After a brief bout of death, Michael C. Hall‘s Dexter Morgan has wasted little time getting back into the business of killing.

Four episodes deep into showrunner Clyde Phillips‘s Dexter: Resurrection, the titular serial killer has already put a couple of fellow killers under the knife — with plenty more still to go, based on what he uncovers in this latest outing, “Call Me Red.” The episode sees Dexter posing as the late Red Schmidt, alias “The Dark Passenger,” a New York City killer whose name just so happens to be the same as Dexter’s own internalized code. Taking on the guise of Red, Dexter infiltrates a clandestine meeting of the serial killer minds, hosted by Leon Prater, a massively wealthy serial killer admirer played by Peter Dinklage. Prater, working alongside security operative Charley (Uma Thurman), regularly assembles a cadre of killers to trade notes back and forth: Lady Vengeance (Krysten Ritter), Rapunzel (Eric Stonestreet), and the Gemini Killer (David Dastmalchian), to name a few.

Let’s name one more: the Tattoo Collector, played by Neil Patrick Harris, for one night only. No stranger to the horror genre (and admittedly a big fan of it), Harris exits the Dexter lexicon as quickly as he enters it, becoming the first member of this elite killer club to find themselves at cross purposes with Mr. Morgan himself — the first, but not the last, if Dexter gets his way.

Below, Harris speaks with The Hollywood Reporter to look back on his brief-but-memorable turn on the historic reboot series, how it all came together and how it all wrapped up — in his case, quite literally.

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Were you a Dexter fan before joining the show? Was it an opportunity you sought out, or did it come to you?

It came to me. I am a Michael C. Hall fan. I watched most of season one of the initial show and then lost track of it, and all of a sudden it hit a multitude of seasons. So I wasn’t a diehard, but my husband [David Burtka] had watched all of them and then I got an email saying this was coming around, and, “Would you read it? We think you’d be great for this.” I read it and I was so flattered and was like, “Yeah, let me live my Matthew McConaughey realness.”

What was it about the role that spoke to you? There’s obviously a lot to chew on, even as a one-off appearance.

It was just that: there was a lot to chew on. I’m a big fan of the drawing-room mystery where you have an ensemble of people together and you’re not sure who’s going to go first and who’s going to survive, a la Agatha Christie or the Scream movies. When I was imagining Peter Dinklage in a drawing room with all of these actors and serial killers and getting to be one of many, that was exciting enough.

It’s one thing to imagine Peter Dinklage and the drawing room of serial killers, then another to live it. What was it like on set?

It was surreal. I’m a fan of everyone in that room. Uma Thurman, who is fantastic always, just having her entering and exiting was the best. I felt a little bit of imposter syndrome because of the level of talent everywhere. We were all making sure that we didn’t fuck it up and that we were on our A-game as much as possible. But it was great and everyone got along really well. It wasn’t a set where the actors all went back to their trailers between takes. It was a very nice communal feeling, and I think that starts with Michael and Clyde.

These dinners are designed for serial killers to trade notes of their craft. What was it like for all of you on set? Similar deal, albeit acting secrets instead of killer instinct?

I remember it mostly being deeply comedic. Eric and Peter hit it off, and Michael’s really funny too, and Krysten was there and David, so everyone was cracking jokes between takes and setups and I was not expecting that. I thought it would be much more serious and drama laden, but no, everyone’s cracking each other up. So there were lots of callback comedy and improvising in these deathly sets.

It’s such an interesting set piece, because through eleven different iterations of Dexter, we’ve never quite seen a set-up like this, an almost Knives Out-ification of the show, with Dexter around so many culprits, there’s something so absurd about it.

One hundred percent. f you’re taking it too seriously, I think it loses a little of its charm. But if you’re not taking it seriously enough, then it loses its gravity. But the Knives Out-ification? I love that. Rian Johnson [Knives Out director] is a big bucket list [director] of mine. So hopefully I’ll get to do more drawing room mysteries in my future.

Someone tag Rian Johnson on whichever one of these social platforms he’s still on.

Yes!

So you’re keeping it light at the dinner. What about at the kill table, one of the most iconic Dexter set pieces imaginable: How do you keep things light when you’re wrapped up in plastic and under Dexter’s knife?

I enjoyed that scene a lot because I was playing someone who was killing others, and then getting killed. So there was not an element of, “Please, please don’t do this. You don’t need to do this!” I liked the resignation that they wrote of the “Checkmate!” “Shit,” of it all. That was fun when we were filming. Everyone was taking everything super seriously, because they have done lots of killing and wrapping people in cellophane over the years and have recognized that it’s a fairly claustrophobic experience for the performer. They don’t just wrap you up in the stuff they make. They measured my body and made pieces that fit over, because you are sitting there for hours and it does start to get sweaty and warm in there.

They don’t do the magic trick where it’s a fake body on the table, and you’re sitting somewhere cushy with your head poking out?

That would’ve been nice. That was not the case.

Bummer.

But I also didn’t want that. It was fun to be able to actually exist in it, and it wasn’t annoying at all. I just valued that everyone was taking it seriously. So it was a quiet set that day and Michael was super locked in, and I got to be there in flagrante — get wrapped up, do the thing for some hours and marvel at how your body can act strange when it’s not moving at all. It was nice to check that off the list.

I’ll tell you, laying on your back, looking up at lights and seeing Dexter tracing a knife and carving it into your chest cavity? It is a striking visual that I’ll remember for some time. I felt like I was the camera in every Dexter promo, where you see him raising his arms operatically and stabbing down at you — except this time, the “you” was me!

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Dexter: Resurrection new episodes stream Fridays on Paramount+ for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers, before an on-air debut Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Read THR’s season coverage.