DEXTER: CAST

Michael C. Hall

Michael C. Hall is a North Carolina native and graduate of NYU’s Master of Fine Arts program in acting. His most recent performance was on Broadway as the emcee in “Cabaret.” Hall has previously starred in nearly a dozen major off-Broadway plays, including “Macbeth” for the New York Shakespeare Festival, “Cymbeline” for the New York Shakespeare Festival at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, “Timon of Athens” and “Henry V” at the Public, “The English Teachers” for Manhattan Class Company, “Corpus Christi” at the Manhattan Theatre Club, and “Skylight” at the Mark Taper Forum.

Julie Benz

Born in Pennsylvania, Julie Benz’s father is a Pittsburgh surgeon and her mother is a figure ice skater. The family settled in nearby Murrysville, when Julie was two, and she started ice skating at age three. She competed in the 1988 U.S. Championships in junior ice dancing with her partner David Schilling, coming in 13th. Her older brother and sister, Jeffrey and Jennifer, were in the 1987 U.S. Junior Champions in ice dancing and competed internationally. When Julie was 14, she had a bad stress fracture and had to take time off.

By 1989, with her figure skating career over, Julie turned to acting and got involved in the local theater where she got a role in the play “Street Law”. Her first movie role was a small, credited, speaking part in in the Black Cat episode in the Dario Argento/George A. Romero co-direction horror flick, Due occhi diabolici (1990) playing in one scene alongside Harvey Keitel. A year later, she got a role on a TV show called “Hi Honey, I’m Home” (1991).

After graduating from high school, Julie entered New York University to study acting there. After graduation, Julie moved to Los Angeles to further pursue her career and landed some small roles in movies and TV shows including a guest appearance on “Married with Children” (1987) and in the Aaron Spelling TV pilot Crosstown Traffic (1995) (TV).

In 1996, Julie auditioned for the role of “Buffy” in the series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997), but lost out to Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, she was offered a small role as a vampire girl in which she did such a good job that her part was expanded to a few more episodes in playing the vampire “Darla”. With that, Julie Benz’s career had finally taken off. She reprised her role as “Darla” in the Buffy spin-off series “Angel” (1999) for two years and has had several small roles in various film productions. She also had a small, but memorable, role playing a receptionist in the movie As Good as It Gets (1997).

Even after her role on “Angel” (1999) wrapped up, Julie continued to find work on television in playing many guest staring roles in numerous popular TV shows from “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (2000), to “Supernatural” (2005), to playing the lead and supporting roles in various made-for-TV movies. Most recently, she landed another notable role on the TV-cable series “Dexter“ (2006) playing “Rita”, a troubled divorcée and lover of the title character played by Michael C. Hall.

Jennifer Carpenter

Starred as Mary Warren in the Broadway production (2002) of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, also starring Liam Neeson, Brian Murray, Kristen Bell and Laura Linney, whom she went on to star opposite in The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

She went to Sacred Heart Academy in Louisville, Kentucky.Attended the Juilliard School in New York City.

Growing up in Kentucky, frequently went shooting with her father. Husband Michael C. Hall plays her brother on “Dexter” (2006).

Lauren Vélez

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, New York among eight siblings including her twin sister Lorraine, Lauren Velez dreamed of becoming an actress ever since she played a groundhog in a school play in second grade. Immediately following high school, she received a scholarship from the Alvin Ailey Dance School which led to her first job performing in the national touring company of the musical “Dreamgirls”. Later she became understudy for actress Phylicia Rashad in Broadway’s “Into the Woods”. Her most visible role was that of “Nina Moreno” on the cop drama “New York Undercover” (1994). With her varied performances and Afro-Latin background and appearance, Velez’s success is considered — by fans and critics alike — a breakthrough for Latina actresses who do not fit the stereotypical “Europeanized Hollywood” version of Latin females. As a result, Velez deservedly has a large multi-ethnic following.

David Zayas

Former NYPD beat cop in Times Square.

Member of Labyrinth Theater Company.

One of four actors to star in the television series Dexter and Oz, along with Lauren Velez, Erik King and Scott William Winters.

C.S. Lee

C.S. Lee, also known as Charlie Lee, got the acting bug his junior year of High School while playing football. Film became his passion. He attended Cornish College of the Arts on an acting scholarship and graduated with his BFA. He continued his acting training at the Yale School of Drama graduating with an MFA. He then spent eight years in NYC acting with various theater companies, regional theater as well as TV & Film. He now resides in Los Angeles. He currently plays the role of Vince Masuka on the hit Showtime series “Dexter” starring Michael C. Hall.

James Remar

Rugged, intense character player with average-guy good looks and a slightly squinty stare, adept at vicious, sometimes psychopathic roles. Remar gained recognition as a punk who gets chained to a park bench by a woman cop in his second film, The Warriors (1979). That same year he garnered acclaim on Broadway as Richard Gere’s lover in the concentration camp drama “Bent”. Remar subsequently kept busy primarily in features, playing gangster Dutch Schultz in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984), one of the Neanderthals in The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986), and an experienced military officer who doubts the power of Shakespeare in Renaissance Man (1994). Remar has occasionally garnered roles which highlight a more vulnerable side, such as his guitarist who gets a break in the Oscar-winning short, Session Man (1991) (TV) or his artist who falls in love with a gargoyle come to life in the best segment of the horror anthology, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). Remar is, in fact, still best known for his galvanizing performances as a homicidal maniac escaped from prison in 48 Hrs. (1982) and as a no-nonsense cop in Drugstore Cowboy (1989). Remar sent up some of his earlier roles in the half-baked spoof Fatal Instinct (1993), as a killer released from prison out to get Armand Assante.

DEXTER

1/24/2011

CAST