Dexter

Background:

Emmy and Golden Globe Award-nominated American actor hailed from New York City stage circuit Michael C. Hall had already well-known in the world of theater with extensive credits in Off-Broadway or Broadway productions like “Macbeth,”“Cymbeline,”“Corpus Christi” and “Cabaret” before hitting the big time as the high-strung gay undertaker David Fisher on the popular HBO drama series “Six Feet Under” (2001-2005). In his debut show, the North Carolina native shared two consecutive Screen Actor Guild Awards in 2003 and 2004 as well as picked up an AFI Award and an Emmy nominations. He is now enjoying huge success as the forensic diagnostician/serial killer in the Showtime series “Dexter” (2006-present), from which he has won a Saturn Award, a Television Critics Association Award, a Satellite Award and Golden Globe and Screen Actor Guild nominations. On his exceptional character on the series, he said, “I think Dexter is a man who, a part of himself is very much frozen, or arrested in a place that is pre-memory, pre-conscious, pre-verbal. Something very traumatic happened to him, he doesn't know what that is. And I think on some level he wants to know. He denies his humanity, he describes himself as someone who is without feeling, and yet I think that he maybe suspects - in a way that maybe isn't even conscious yet when we first meet him - that he is in fact a human being.”

Hall also acted in the film “Paycheck” (2003) and the TV movie “Bereft” (2004).

As for his private life, Hall is currently dating actress Jennifer Carpenter, who plays his adopted sister, Debra, an up-and-coming homicide detective, in “Dexter.” The accomplished stage performer filed for divorce from wife Amy Spanger in 2006 after having been together for four years. A source mentioned that Hall and Carpenter had been seeing each other secretly for some time and kept the relationship on their own because Hall is still married.

Lone Child

Childhood and Family:

Michael Carlyle Hall was born on February 1, 1971, in Raleigh, North Carolina. His father, William Hall, who worked for IMB, passed away due to prostate cancer in 1982, when his son was only 11 years old. After the death, his mother, Janice Hall, a guidance counselor, completed her doctorate in education. She is now lead of guidance and dean of students at a high school in North Carolina. Michael is an only child. Recalling on the death of his father, he said, “Certainly, for a young boy, there's no good age, but I think I was on the cusp of a time in my life where I was starting to reach puberty, to relate to my father. To have him ... Something gets frozen. As you revisit it for the rest of your life, it's sort of this slow but hopefully sure crawling-out of that frozen moment.”

After graduating from high school, Michael, with the intention of being a lawyer, attended the liberal art school Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, but then became more interested in performing. He started taking acting lessons and eventually graduated as a theater major in 1993. He went on to receive a mater's degree of fine art from the New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

The 5' 10½” married fellow stage actress Amy Spanger in May 2002. After their wedding, the couple performed together in the Broadway musical “Chicago.” They later became estranged and filed for divorce in 2006.

Six Feet Under

Career:

Holding a master's degree from NYC's Tisch School of the Arts, Michael C. Hall first found acting when he was in the second grade. Three years later, he joined a boy's choir, and in high school, appeared in several musicals, including “Fiddler on the Roof,” “The Sound of Music” and “Oklahoma!,” as well as toured in Austria for 10 weeks as part of a chamber choir. He went on to carry his passion for theater in college, where he assumed the role of the emcee in his school's production of “Cabaret” (1993). Hall, who saw acting as a means to break out of his timidity in addition to possessing a felling of being special, however, did not consider acting as a career until he relocated to New York.

As a thespian, Hall discovered himself performing in the off-Broadway productions of “Timon of Athens” and “Henry V,” which starred Andre Braugher, for New York Shakespeare Festival in 1996. His first major NYC stage role arrived when he was cast as Malcolm in the production of “Macbeth,” produced by Alec Baldwin, and continued to achieve extensive notice with his roles in “Cymbeline,” playing Posthumous, at the Delacorte Theater and the controversial play “Corpus Christi,”as the Apostle Peter, at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

In 1999, Hall enjoyed his big break when he performed in the workshop performance of Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Wiseguys,” which later transformed into “Bounce” for its Broadway run. Under the direction of Sam Mendes, he interpreted the role of Paris Singer, whose character's songs and officiate in the play were shifted to the character Hollis Bessamer in the play's final version. Also in 1999, Hall reunited with Mendes for the hit Broadway show “Cabaret,” where he succeeded Alan Cumming in the role of the flamboyant Emcee. He also has appeared in “The English Teachers” at the Manhattan Class Company (MCC) and “Skylight” at the Mark Taper Forum.

Thanks to his partnership with Mendes, Hall eventually made his onscreen debut when he won a regular role in the TV series “Six Feet Under,” created by Alan Ball, who wrote the script of the 1999 “American Beauty,” which was directed by Mendes. When Ball was gathering cast for the drama series, Mendes advised Hall for the role of David Fisher, the middle sibling who manages an undertaking business of his family while battling with his sexuality. Debuted in 2001, the HBO show won the hearts of audience and critics alike and enjoyed success throughout its five-season run until 2005. For his performance, Hall was nominated for an Emmy in 2002 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and a 2002 AFI for Actor of the Year. He also jointly won two out of five Screen Actors Guild nominations for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

Because of hectic schedule in “Six Feet Under,” Hall had a few chances to pursue other projects, but he has never forgotten his roots as a live performer. In 2002, he took on a small role as Billy Flynn in the Broadway production “Chicago,” in which he acted along side wife Amy Spangler. The following year, Hall made his feature acting debut in the John Woo science-fiction/ thriller “Paycheck,” which saw him in an unappreciated role as an FBI agent searching for a computer mastermind (played by Ben Affleck). He followed it up with another small role in the made-for-TV film “Bereft” (2004), starring Vinessa Shaw. In 2005, he revisited the Off-Broadway realm to have the tittle character in the premiere of “Mr. Marmalade,” by Noah Haidle, at the Roundabout Theatre Company, New York.

After “Six Feet Under” went off the air, Hall waited for over a year to appear in his next television show. Impressed by the script, the award-winning actor agreed to play the titular role of a sympathetic Miami Police forensics proficient who moonlights as a serial killer of outlaws he considers have eluded justice in the Showtime series “Dexter” (2006-present), opposite Julie Benz, Jennifer Carpenter and Erik King and others. Delivering an outstanding acting, Hall took home a 2007 Saturn and Satellite Awards, for Best Actor in Television Series, and a Television Critics Association for Individual Achievement in Drama. In addition, he was handed two Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series-Drama (2007, 2008) and two Screen Actor Guild nominations for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series (2007, 2008).

Outside of his series work, Hall emerged as a narrator for such History Channel programs as the 2006 “Civil War Terror” special, “Cannibalism Secrets Revealed” special and “Mysteries of the Freemasons” (both 2007).

The 37-year-old former “Six Feet Under” star will act opposite Gerard Butler, Logan Lerman, John Leguizamo, Alison Lohman and Kyra Sedgwick in the thriller movie “Game” (2009), jointly written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. He is rumored to play the role of William Stryker in the upcoming “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (2009).

Awards:

• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films: Saturn Award, Best Actor in a Television Program, “Dexter,” 2007

• Satellite: Best Actor in a Series, Drama, “Dexter,” 2007

• Television Critics Association: Individual Achievement in Drama, “Dexter,” 2007

• Screen Actors Guild: Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, “Six Feet Under,” 2004

• Screen Actors Guild: Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, “Six Feet Under,” 2003