Dexter Morgan is alive in 'Original Sin,' as young serial killer falls in blood lust
LONG BEACH, Calif. – Playing the young version of TV's most infamous vigilante serial killer in "Dexter: Original Sin," Patrick Gibson is surrounded by a bevy of big-name Hollywood co-stars: Christian Slater, Patrick Dempsey and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Yet when filming a scene in September as youthful Dexter Morgan, the Irish actor, 29, is positively starstruck by the silent stuntman posing as a filthy body lying in the chalk-covered dirt of a cavernous gypsum facility near the Long Beach industrial pier.
The gloved Gibson ("Shadow and Bone"), portraying Dexter as an upstart police forensics intern, slowly removes a plastic bag from the murder victim's head to reveal gruesomely wide eyes.
"It's the dustiest place that I've ever been," Gibson recalls. "And during one take, I somehow dumped a pint-full of dust onto the actor's face and open eyes. He didn't even flinch. He just took it. I thought, 'This guy might be the best actor I've ever worked with.'"
"Original Sin" (streaming Fridays on Paramount+ and Sundays on Showtime, 10 EST/PST) will need a multitude of award-worthy stiff performances for the origin story of Dexter Morgan, the Miami Metro Police Department blood-spatter expert who moonlit as an avenging mass murderer who was played by Michael C. Hall in the original 2006-13 "Dexter" series. While a new serial killer clearly caused this gruesome gypsum-covered death, Dexter snuffed out scores of criminals during eight seasons of the show and a "Dexter: New Blood" season (2021-22), Showtime's most popular series.
"I just discovered that Dexter had 149 kills in his career," Gibson says. "Which is a pretty solid number, especially not to get caught."
These lethal Dexter dispatches were conducted under the strict Code of Harry imparted by the serial killer's father (played by James Remar in "Dexter" flashbacks), who recognized and harnessed his adopted son's "Dark Passenger" alter ego (the term used to describe his homicidal urges). Only evildoers proven guilty of murder were acceptable game to satisfy Dexter's bloodlust. And Dexter took pains to cover his tracks, constraining his naked victims in plastic that also covered the kill room, allowing for sterile cleanup.
Sporting a cop haircut and a furrowed expression, Slater, 55, who plays a younger Harry Morgan in the new series, tutors his crime-solving prodigy by inconspicuously telling him not to drop too much serial-killer knowledge at the gypsum-covered crime scene.
"But Dexter was born to do exactly what he does," Slater explains, reclining in his trailer between scenes in compression socks, his dusty cop shoes left outside. "There would be many more serial killers in this world if not for Dexter Morgan. We don't hear about these killers because Dexter dealt with them in his own way."
Set in 1991 Miami, "Original Sin" explores gory crime scenes and delves into Dexter's early home life with Harry and his sister Debra (Molly Brown). Dexter's only sibling (played by Jennifer Carpenter) protected her brother's secret life in the original "Dexter." But as teens, they bicker and breakfast together to a soundtrack of infectious '90s pop music.
"We never saw all these characters in a domestic setting," Gibson says. "They seem like a perfectly conventional family, with all smiles."
"Original Sin" heralds the return of beloved "Dexter" characters like the Panama-hat-wearing cop Angel Batista (James Martinez) and pivotal behind-the-scene players like original executive producer and writer Clyde Phillips. Even Hall, whose Dexter was fatally shot at the end of "New Blood," is miraculously revived. Once very dead, Hall's Dexter voices his younger character's inner voice from a hospital operating table and is set to star in "Dexter: Resurrection" on Showtime next summer. Old Dexter's prognosis went from zero to extremely optimistic.
Christian Slater and Patrick Dempsey have 'Dexter' reunion
Slater is part of a Miami metro police force featuring Capt. Aaron Spencer ("Grey's Anatomy" star Dempsey ) and CSI Chief Tanya Martin ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer" star Gellar). Slater's reunion with Dempsey is particularly poignant after the two rising bucks "butted heads," Slater says, while filming "Mobsters," a box-office flop released the same year as the setting for their new show.
"It was over 30 years ago; we were young, competitive nuts. It was crazy," says Slater, now a father of four, including a newborn son. "Now we're buddies. We're these settled parents who go home at night to wake up early for our kids. We make each other laugh every day."
Slater, who also starred as a high school sociopath in 1988's "Heathers," was surprised to get the call to play mild-mannered Morgan.
But there's more to the character, who was revealed to have died by suicide in "Dexter" Season 6. "There's a dark past. And you have to wonder, 'Does Harry have his own Dark Passenger?'" Slater asks with an arched eyebrow. "I believe that he does. But (Gibson) certainly spends more time in darker waters – and swamps to get rid of bodies."
To get to full Dark Passenger, Gibson loses his Irish accent and chillingly channels Hall's emotionless Dexter voice. His preparation is so intense that Gibson still listens to line recitals on his AirPods when he shows up for work and during downtime on the set.
"I've watched 'Dexter' now more than any show, just picking up on things, like Dexter's lip wipe," Gibson says. "He has such a distinctive movement quality. It's fun imagining what that would have looked like 15 years before."
Gibson, known familiarly as Paddy, has boyishly charming good looks and showed viral adorableness in June, when he Instagram-announced his relationship with "Euphoria" actress Maude Apatow in an eyes-closed Knicks courtside cheek-kiss photo. Yet he's often cast as a troubled soul, like the drug-dealing high school student in Netflix's "The OA."
"For some reason, I've played a lot of pretty bad guys," he says with a smile to make it clear he's joking. "Maybe that's when I can finally be myself and feel at home in a kill room."
He has already gleaned that playing a murderer sure beats lying in the dirt as a dead man with a plastic bag over his head. "One thing I am learning," Gibson says. "Is that I do prefer to be the killer than the victim."