How the Original ‘Dexter’ Cast Helped ‘Original Sin’ Stars Prepare for Their Roles

Although Dexter: Original Sin features an all-new cast — save for the return of Michael C. Hall as narrator — fans are going to see a lot of familiar faces and places in the Showtime prequel series, which premieres Friday, December 13.

The show is set 15 years before the events of Dexter but features many of the characters fans watched for years and grew to love in the original series. So it’s natural that fans would have some expectations about how they all might look, behave, and sound. Fortunately for members of the new cast, many of their counterparts were totally willing to share some insight into their own portrayals.

Patrick Gibson, who takes over the titular role, already has an “encyclopedic knowledge” of Dexter’s many mental monologues, but he still seized on the opportunity to pick Hall’s brain about how to approach his Emmy-nominated role.

“I first met Michael on Zoom on one of the table reads that we did, and we exchanged some emails, and that was the first time that I’d like been Dexter in front of him, which was pretty nerve-wracking for the first time,” Gibson told TV Insider. “He was very generous in kind of welcoming me to the character, and he said he felt Dexter was in good hands, which was a relief. And he kind of passed the torch … because I had so many questions and I wanted to honor and support what he did, but he really kind of gave me the permission to make it my own to a degree and just had so many unbelievable insights. He’s lived with this character for a decade or more, and I think what that does just to your understanding of who they are, he had some very cool things to share.” Like what, you ask? So did we.

“I think one of the things that most resonated with me was that for Dexter, it all feels like an act. He is trying to fit in and trying to be this normal person, and in an odd way, even though that’s because he’s a psychopath, that is one of his most relatable qualities,” Gibson explained. “I think it’s fascinating that this character, who is a psychopath, and he does these things that we could never dream of doing, has so many relatable elements, too. I found that was my way in because otherwise you can never play a character from the outside in and be like, ‘He’s this bad guy’ or ‘He’s like this.’ And I think the more of those things that you could connect with, the easier it was.”

Patrick Wymore / Paramount+ with Showtime; Randy Tepper / ©Showtime / courtesy Everett Collection

James Martinez and Alex Shimizu also looked to their character counterparts, David Zayas and CS Lee, for pointers. 

“We had some history together in the theater world in New York,” Martinez said of the man who originated the portrayal of the beloved Det. Angel Batista. “I chatted with him a little bit and picked his brain, and just being around him informed me so much. David and Angel have so much in common — same kind of heart, sympathy, leads with their heart, even hugs like Angel. So just being around him helped me a lot. And I watched a lot of hours of Batista footage to capture his walk, his vocal cadence, just his personality, who he was at its core. But meeting Dave helped me immensely to kind of start off on the right track.“

“I slid into CS Lee’s DMs, trying to meet up. He was kind enough to meet up with me a few times, and we partied together,” Shimizu added. “He gave me a lot of great insight into the character, like despite the fact that he has these wild jokes and antics all the time, he’s coming at it from a place of wanting to connect with people, wanting to make friends. So deep down, he is a good guy. To have that as a foundational element for the character was really helpful.”

While Molly Brown didn’t directly speak with Jennifer Carpenter, she heard plenty of her in her preparation — too much in fact. The actress explained, “I feel so lucky that Jennifer did such an amazing job at establishing who Deb is in the original show. Honestly, I think it was a bigger struggle to then let that go when I got to set because if you’re just trying to mimic a performance, I remember when I was reading the scripts. I would hear them in Jennifer’s voice. It was so clear with a lot of them, and I was on set one day and the scene was a quarter of a page. I had one line and the only line that I had to say was, ‘Well that was f**king great.’ And I could hear Jennifer say it, and it was my first day on set, and I remember I was trying to just do that, and I was told to, ‘Stop, make it your own because if you’re mimicking someone, there’s no life behind what you’re doing.’ And that was the bigger struggle: to get comfortable with accepting that it’s my performance now, and it’s informed by this amazing performance, but to step into it and make it my own.”

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One person who did not manage to get in touch with her character’s originator was Christina Millian, who takes over as then-new Detective Maria LaGuerta, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort on her part: She reached out to Luna Lauren Valez on Instagram, but it’s still sitting unread.

“This DM message that’s sitting there that hasn’t been opened,” Millian explained. “Now she’s got this really beautiful letter that I’ve written there about how much I admire her, and I’ve seen her, and I’m thanking her for what she’s done, and for allowing this, being the blueprint for me to become this character.” She hopes that after seeing the new series, Velez might finally give it a look-see. “This is a challenge I just wasn’t expecting, but I was excited about it, and hopefully at some point I see her and I meet her, and we could just share beautiful words, maybe cry.”

Dexter: Original Sin, Series Premiere, Streaming, Friday, December 13, Paramount+ with Showtime, Sunday, December 15, 10/9c, Paramount+ with Showtime