PEDESTRIAN.TV has teamed up with Paramount+ to bring you up to speed before Dexter: Original Sin drops.
If you’re looking for a slice of nostalgia, I’ve got just the show for you. Dexter: Original Sin is taking us back to the ‘90s, because it’s a prequel, baby!!!
I loooove a good prequel, with writers able to answer all sorts of questions about your fave characters while introducing some new lore. Getting to see how and why the young Dexter (Patrick Gibson) turns into the slick, clean killer we know now? Sign! Me! Up!
The cast is filled with horror greats, including the one and only Sarah Michelle Gellar, who has been in iconic spooky films The Grudge, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 2. Heathers and Interview with a Vampire star Christian Slater, Scream 3 and Thanksgiving star Patrick Dempsey also have starring roles. It’s safe to say my ‘90s dreams have all come true with this stacked cast!
Slater gave some hints during an interview with Variety about what we can expect, and it sounds sooooo intriguing.
“It definitely compliments the original show but it also gives more insight into those characters… even Dexter didn’t know certain things had happened prior to him being born,” he teased. “It is Dexter, but we are in our own universe here so we don’t have to do an imitation of anybody. We’re free to bring what we want to bring to it in order to make it original.”
The show takes us back to 1991 when Dexter makes his first ever human kill, and while we had a lil’ flashback in Dexter, we didn’t actually get to see him do the deed. I reckon in this new prequel we’ll get to see what happens in all its gory detail.
If you can’t quite remember what kicked off his killing spree, let me refresh your memory. Basically, Dexter found out that his adoptive father Harry was being poisoned by a nurse, so she became his first victim.
Dexter: Original Sin will go into detail about how Dexter learned to abide by The Code, with the help of his father Harry (Christian Slater). He’s also ~conveniently~ working as an intern at the Miami Metro Police Department, so he can learn how to cover his tracks.
With such a fun and interesting concept, it’s no surprise the show has managed to nab such an iconic cast for this new show. Here are some of the familiar names that will pop up on your screen when you watch Dexter: Original Sin, streaming only on Paramount+.
Christian Slater: Harry Morgan
Christian Slater plays the adoptive father of Dexter, Harry Morgan. He’s a homicide detective who works at the Miami Metro Police Department, and does his very best to help Dexter manage his urge to kill. In Dexter, it’s revealed he takes his own life after seeing Dexter dismembering a body. He appears throughout the show in flashbacks and as a ‘ghost’, so it will be interesting to see if his suicide is depicted in Dexter: Original Sin.
Slater doesn’t need much of an introduction, as he’s been starring in movies since the ‘80s. His breakout role was as Jason ‘J.D.’ Dean in Heathers, and he followed that up with Interview with the Vampire in 1994. He’s still super relevant today, most recently starring in Zoë Kravitz’s psychological thriller Blink Twice.
For Dexter: Original Sin, he actually reunited with his Heathers director, Michael Lehmann, and former Mobsters co-star Patrick Dempsey.
“[Dexter: Original Sin] has been great. The writing is incredible. [Showrunner] Clyde Phillips, who developed the original show, is amazing, and… I’m loving it,” he told ET. “I hadn’t seen Patrick in about 30 years, and the director Michael Lehman… so it’s been nice to come back around. A lot of time has passed, a lot of growing, a lot of experience. We were different guys in our 20s.”
Patrick Gibson: Dexter Morgan
The young version of Dexter Morgan is played by Irish actor Patrick Gibson. He’s not *quite* as well known as some of the other cast members, but he’s one to watch! He has big shoes to fill — with fans being extremely attached to the OG Michael C. Hall — and boy, does he know it.
He told TheWrap that he studied Hall’s voice to learn his “specific kind of tone and intonation”, even admitting that he would fall asleep listening to Hall’s voice. He didn’t want to become an exact replica, but was committed to making his character believable as a younger version of Dexter.
“If Dexter was like a mirror impression, you would lose all of that kind of charm that Dexter had,” he said. “So it was really just about having it not bump with the voiceover and sound like the same person, but 10 years, 15 years earlier.”
You might have seen Gibson in The Tudors, The OA, or Shadow and Bone. Orrrr you may have seen him lurking in some sweet social media snaps with Euphoria’s Maude Apatow! The pair have been dating for a wee while now, going Instagram official in June 2024.
Sarah Michelle Gellar: Tanya Martin
My Buffy QUEEN! Sarah Michelle Gellar sounds like she has the most iconic role of the show, a forensics expert working at the Miami Metro Police Department. She’s Dexter’s boss, and while she’s trying to teach him the ropes… she’s accidentally teaching him how to be the perfect serial killer who never gets caught. I am obsessed.
She told Variety that her role is as a bad-ass powerhouse of a woman, which I’m living for.
“We’re playing in the ‘90s. I’m used to playing these formidable women and she’s no exception, but she’s almost an even bigger exception because women didn’t run departments in those jobs. They certainly didn’t run the science departments, and they certainly didn’t do it in Miami,” she said.
“You gotta realise she’s gotta be pretty tough to hang with the guys, although it’s great for me. I’m on set all day long and I’m the only girl. It’s actually my dream job!”
Gellar kinda exploded onto the scene as Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer back in ‘97, and she went on to star in movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, Cruel Intentions and Scooby-Doo. I’m so excited to see her back in a starring role in a gory TV show again, it’s what she deserves!
Patrick Dempsey: Aaron Spencer
McDreamy himself is totally in his horror era, with Thanksgiving being one of the best black comedies to hit our screens in 2023. He’s taking on the role of Aaron Spencer in Dexter: Original Sin, Captain of the Miami Metro Homicide department. He has a close relationship with Dexter’s father, Harry.
He told Entertainment Weekly that the friendship between himself and Slater, who plays Harry, was natural after starring in Mobsters together. “It’s funny because Christian and I worked together in the early ‘90s, so we were laughing and reminiscing about still being survivors in this business after 30 years,” he said. “We laugh at our former younger selves and how ridiculous we were and where we’ve come from. We’re going back to a time when we were, I guess, about the same age as young Dexter.”
Dempsey is best known for his role as Dr. Derek Shepherd in Grey’s Anatomy, along with his rom-com roles like Enchanted and Made of Honor.
Michael C. Hall: Narrator
Yep, Michael C. Hall is back as the voice of Dexter for Dexter: Original Sin! He’s also an executive producer, which makes total sense.
“The scripts they’ve executed are fantastic… I can’t wait, like as a fan, to watch it, and as an actor, to spend time seeing real footage of things that I’ve sort of tried to imagine for myself when I imagine what Dexter’s early days [were like],” he told EW.
Fun fact: while Hall is known for his roles in Dexter and Six Feet Under, he’s also the lead singer for Indie-Rock band Princess Goes.
Molly Brown: Debra Morgan
Debra Morgan is the adoptive sister of Dexter, and while she goes on to have a lengthy career with the Miami Metro Homicide department, she’s a teenager in Dexter: Original Sin.
She acted as an antidote to Dexter in the original show, pursuing killers to bring them to justice rather than seeking out their deaths. Molly Brown hasn’t had a lengthy career yet, but she had a small role in Senior Year and Billions.
There you have it! That’s the list of the iconic cast and where you possibly recognise them from. Now you can close Letterboxd and pop your phone down while watching, so you can focus fully on Dexter: Original Sin.
Dexter: Original Sin is streaming only on Paramount+ from December 13.
Lead image: Paramount+ Australia
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