My guest tonight is a Golden Globe Award-winning actor,
and you know him from Dexter and Six Feet Under.
He's currently starring in the new Netflix series Safe.
Please welcome Michael C. Hall.
(applause and cheering)
Welcome.
Thank you. Thank you.
I-I know it must get irritating,
but there are so many actors
who have a role that is tied to their face.
You know, Idris Elba is always gonna have Stringer Bell.
Daniel Radcliffe's always gonna have Harry Potter.
You are always going to have Dexter looming over you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like, do you... do you sometimes, like,
want to give people the Dexter "I'm gonna kill you" look
when they say, "It's Dexter."?
Uh, well, sometimes they ask me to give them that look,
and I'm like, "I'm actually already giving it to you."
(laughter)
It's like... it's like, "It's just my face."
Right, 'cause you never... you never know what he's thinking.
Like, I-I feel like I wouldn't trust you in real life.
-I would have to get to know you. -Yup.
I know have... 'Cause, like, Dexter does the same...
He's a nice guy in person, and then, everyone around him is
like, "This guy's cool. He should be here.
We should give him a butter knife."
-No, you shouldn't. -Right, right.
Um, so you have this character
that-that has become synonymous with your face for so long.
What do you do after that? Like, do you go like,
"I'm actively gonna try and play roles that are different,"
or do you just embrace it and then move on?
I-I mean, you know, if somebody sends me a script.
and the guy is, like, a serial-killing funeral director,
I'm probably not gonna want to do it.
But-but, you know, I don't shy away from it, either.
I mean, the first job I did after Dexter was a movie,
and in the first scene, I killed someone,
but I did it accidentally, so...
-So, you know, baby steps. -Right, I like that you're...
-You're weaning yourself off the murders. -Yes.
-Like slowly. -Yeah.
"And in this one, someone dies around me. Look at that."
Yeah, yeah. I didn't do it.
-I didn't do it. -Next one, someone gets really hurt.
This is good. We're progressing.
-Yeah, yeah. -This is nice.
Well, you're in a new show.
It's on Netflix. It's called Safe.
Uh, let's take a look at the clip.
MAN: ...are with you, and with our sister forever.
We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Sorry.
Yeah, right.
-Wow. Wow. -Case in point.
(applause and cheering)
Wow.
-Now... -Hilarious.
Now I know... I know most people will be thinking
of Trump and Melania when she slapped his hand...
-Yeah, yeah. -...but... but...
-We try to be topical. -Right.
But-but tell us what that scene was about,
and loosely what the story's about.
Don't give anything away, though.
Okay, well, that's a scene...
Those are... Tom, the character I play--
-those are his two daughters. -Right.
One's 12-- the younger one-- and the other's 16.
He's recently widowed. Six m... six months.
This is sort of a flashback, that scene.
And, uh, you know, he's a pediatric surgeon.
He's really good at his job, but at home,
-he's completely out of his depth. -Right.
He's, uh, having trouble as a single father.
And the story kicks off
with his oldest daughter going missing,
and it's very much about him figuring out what happened.
What takes everything in a direction
that people don't expect, though, is the town
where this is happening.
It's not a normal gated community.
It seems like everybody has a secret.
It's, like, when you watch the first episode,
you're like, "Oh, okay, this seems normal."
And then, very quickly, you're like, "No, this is not normal."
Yeah, what's-what's really fun about this show is that,
at any point in time,
any given character in the show could conceivably
-have been the one who did the did the deed, you know? -Right.
And, uh, also these people are living in a gated community
to try to keep the danger out.
The irony is that it emerges from within.
-Right, right, right. -You know, so there's a...
maybe a metaphor about walls and things like that happening.
-(laughter) -Oh. -Yeah.
-Yeah, yeah. -And the, you know?
-Is that about the great wall? The great wall. -Yeah, yeah.
-Which wall? -No, yeah. The Great Wall with China.
-The Great Wall of China. -Yeah, you're right.
-You're on the money. -I'm on the same page, man.
-Yeah, yeah. -I'm on the same page.
You know what was fascinating for me was the fact
that you also played a British person.
-And this is something I don't see often. -Right.
And I don't know if anybody notices it,
but you see a ton of British actors in Hollywood right now.
-Mm-hmm. -And you don't see many American actors
getting to play British roles.
Was this, like, you trying to, like, reverse invade?
-Was that what was going on? -Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm turning the tables on that trend.
-Right. -Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I don't know what it is. I mean,
you'll see, like, a Western,
and it's all British and Australian guys.
-Right. -Um, but it doesn't happen as often that American...
I mean, I guess people, you know, come to America.
That's where, you know, you want to go...
Right, right, right.
...uh, to really make it, as they say. Uh...
Right. You know what... you know what I heard, funny enough
is, I heard that, like, a lot of directors said,
for them it's because the people are not recognizable.
-So you get this British actor who's acted forever. -Right.
So they have the experience of someone who's done it forever,
-but nobody knows who they are. -Right, right.
And so, when they pop up at...
But you... you did you something completely different.
-You went like, "No, I'm gonna go from America to..." -Yeah.
Like, do British people know Dexter? Is that what it is?
British people do know Dexter,
but British people are totally cool with the phenomenon of, uh,
an actor doing a British accent. You know, they're like...
Oh, I thought you were you gonna say
they're cool with, like, serial killers. I was like...
-Yeah, yeah. Yeah. -That sounded like you were gonna be like,
-"But they're totally cool with that type of thing." -Yeah.
-Yeah. -At some point, someone has to go.
Yeah. Dexter is like... It's in a...
(laughter)
Yeah.
Dexter is like the British Friends.
(laughter)
It's...
(applause and cheering)
Yeah.
Right, and so, you're playing the role.
You're playing it in Manchester.
Did you... did you have to pract...?
Was that a Manchester accent that you have?
It wasn't. They didn't want us to have,
-um, noticeably northern accents. -Right.
Um, so it's more of a, um, home counties accent, they call it.
How do you... how do you practice that
without, like, mocking? 'Cause I know, like, my default is...
-Right. -I would start seriously in the scene. So, I'd like...
(with subtle British accent): "What has happened to my child?"
(Cockney accent): "She has gone and fallen off the bridge.
-My child has fallen..." -Yeah.
♪ Consider yourself at home. ♪
Yeah. Yeah, um...
Yeah, it's... That's the key-- to sound...
to sound not like, you know,
a-a stereotypical Cockney thing, or a really posh thing...
-Right. -...but actually a living,
breathing, everyday British person.
You know, that was the challenge.
And that, my friend, is why you get paid the big bucks.
-Thank you so much for being here. -Yeah. Sure.
Safe is available on Netflix.
Michael C. Hall, everybody.