Sinister Seven: Julie Benz (Part Two: Dexter)

Here’s the second part of my interview with Julie Benz, where we talk about one of my fave TV shows, Dexter, in which she plays the title character’s emotionally damaged girlfriend Rita. (Ff you want to read the first seven questions, where we talk Rambo, which she co-stars in, go here.)

Although Benz isn’t a scream queen by any means, before Dexter she was best known for playing Darla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and she gets extra cred for for growing up in Pittsburgh, where she trained as an ice skater at the Monroeville Mall, where Romero shot Dawn of the Dead. Later, her first speaking gig as an actor was as a teenager in the Romero/Argento collaboration Two Evil Eyes. And after that, she went on to marry John Kassir, the voice of the Cryptkeeper in the Tales From the Crypt TV series.

Really, though, we wanna know more about Dexter, so read on…

Buffy, Angel, Roswell, Supernatural, Dexter – you’ve ended up in a bunch of horror-ish TV projects; do you gravitate towards darker stuff?
It just happened to work out that way. I wouldn’t say I naturally gravitate towards the dark stuff. When I first got into the business, I thought it would be to do comedy, I thought I could be a romantic comedy girl. Obviously that plan changed. Joss Whedon gave me an opportunity to prove myself as a dramatic actress. It was great to have somebody believe in you to play a character like [Buffy’s Darla] and to give you a shot at something more than being the “dumb blonde.” That changed everything for me, that’s when people started taking note of me as a dramatic actress. I started getting more involved in genre pieces because of that.

Will you be out of work soon due to the writer’s strike? Is it affecting Dexter?
At the moment, no – we’re on our natural hiatus. We aren’t scheduled to go back to filming until May, our season’s May through October. However, it will start affecting us sooner than that because our writers usually go back two months earlier.

Why is Dexter so hugely popular?
First: Michael C. Hall’s performance is amazing. I think his performance as Dexter is riveting – it’s so multi-layered and it’s artistry. He’s so brilliant. As for the show itself, it does not force-feed you a point of view, and in today’s world where we are inundated with media at all times – we’re told what to feel, how to think, what to watch, what to do – Dexter is a true original in that it presents moral questions that it doesn’t answer; you have to answer them yourself. You find yourself falling in love and rooting for this guy who’s a serial killer – a SERIAL KILLER! He’s quite vicious, yet you find yourself rooting for him. So there’s that moral ambiguity – so few shows live in the gray these days.

Although Rita’s coming out of her shell on the show, she’s still quite quiet, responsible and sensible. Are you a lot like her?
I’d say that I definitely have a stronger shell than she does and I present a stronger face to the world than she does – I have a little more strength on that side. But as far as the vulnerability and the insecurity that she feels, that’s something that I relate to very much, it’s very close to me. I do have a tougher side, but for me find a balance right now in her growth, as far as her vulnerability and her toughness, is like walking a tightrope.

Could Rita still love Dexter if she discovered his little habit?
Ohhhhhh! I don’t know… I don’t think so. She has exposed her children to so much violence at this point, domestic violence at the hands of Paul, and she feels so much guilt surrounding that. She would do anything to protect her children from being exposed to more violence – she’s a mama bear first. Although… ah, I don’t know – the writers are so much more clever than me. If Dexter ever sat her down and told her, she would think he was playing a joke on her. I don’t think she would ever actually believe it because he’s so gentle and sweet.

As you know, the show’s been picked up for rebroadcast on CBS. How is this even going to work, given the its content? It seems like they have to cut Deb and her foul mouth out altogether.
Heh heh. Throughout season one and season two, we’ve always done TV coverage, for the dialog at least. It was always perceived that down the line for syndication purposes, we would do it. So that’s in the can. I think the hardest thing is that they have to cut about ten minutes out of the show for commercials. It’ll be interesting to see where they make those cuts. A lot of violence in the show is insinuated, which makes it scarier in a way, but not a lot of violence is actually shown.

You don’t think it’ll lose some of its edge?
It might lose a little bit of its edge, but I think it’s a great opportunity for a lot of people who can’t afford to get Showtime, to get pay cable, to get exposed to a show that’s really great. But ultimately, the show’s been shot, we’re not re-shooting anything, so the edge is there. It’s inherently dark and edgy.