Michael C. Hall

Michael C. Hall

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Birth name: Michael Carlyle Hall
Date of birth: 1 February 1971
Place of birth: Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Nickname: Mike
Height: 5′ 10½” (1.79 m)
Spouse: Amy Spanger (1 May 2002 – 2006) (divorced)

Famous Quote: “I think anybody would be hard pressed not to relate to at least one of the characters, because there’s so many different multifaceted people populating this crazy world. There’s nothing like it. There is an added sense of pressure because of that, but there’s also nothing like the thrill you get being in the same space with that audience right there and then. And when you do it, it’s over.”

Contact Address and Autograph: Addresses and fan mail information

Michael C. Hall
Jon Rubinstein Ltd.
740 Broadway, Suite 201
New York, NY 10003, USA 

Biography:  Michael Carlisle Hall (born February 1, 1971) is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominated American actor, best known for his roles as David Fisher in the HBO drama series Six Feet Under and the title character of the Showtime series Dexter. Despite a resume consisting of experience exclusive to the theater, Michael C. Hall quickly became a recognizable figure on the small screen, establishing himself in chameleon-like fashion in diverse and often contradictory roles that earned the young actor a strong and loyal following, particularly with his breakthrough performance as the uptight gay mortician David Fisher on “Six Feet Under” (2001-05). 

Prior to HBO’s darkly comic take on dysfunctional families, Hall was a vaunted thespian best known for taking over Alan Cumming’s role as the sexually insinuating emcee in a Broadway production of “Cabaret” a stark contrast to his part on “Six Feet Under” and to the actor himself. Hall’s penchant for playing conflicting characters enabled him to engage his imagination and breath life into unique creations far different from most others seen on television or in film, making him a much-sought after actor.

During his run on “Six Feet Under,” Hall found little time to do other acting, though he did occasional work on stage. In 2002, Hall was cast in a brief stint as Billy Flynn in a Broadway production of the always-popular “Chicago” opposite wife Amy Spangler. He had a thankless role as an FBI agent hunting a computer engineer (Ben Affleck) trying to recover his erased memory in John Woo’s uninspired “Paycheck” (2003). In 2005, Hall said goodbye to “Six Feet Under” when the show finished its fifth and final season. 

Though unsure of what his next step was, Hall was certain he didn’t want to jump right onto another television show until he read the script for “Dexter” (Showtime, 2006- ), a darkly comic drama about a blood-splatter technician in the Miami Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer who hunts other killers who have managed to slip through the judicial cracks. The challenge of playing such a complex and seemingly unsympathetic character piqued Hall’s interest right away, particularly Dexter’s inability to express authentic human emotions, giving him the opportunity to portray one of the most controversial and talked-about television characters in recent memory. 

Michael C. Hall is a North Carolina native and graduate of NYU’s Master of Fine Arts program in acting. His most recent performance was on Broadway as the emcee in “Cabaret.” Hall has previously starred in nearly a dozen major off-Broadway plays, including “Macbeth” for the New York Shakespeare Festival, “Cymbeline” for the New York Shakespeare Festival at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, “Timon of Athens” and “Henry V” at the Public, “The English Teachers” for Manhattan Class Company, “Corpus Christi” at the Manhattan Theatre Club, and “Skylight” at the Mark Taper Forum. 

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Hall grew up an only child, a sister having died in infancy before his birth. When he was 11 his father died of cancer, and in a 2004 interview he recalled, “ Certainly, for a young boy, there’s no good age, but I think I was on the cusp of a time in my life where I was starting to reach puberty, to relate to my father. To have him … Something gets frozen. As you revisit it for the rest of your life, it’s sort of this slow but hopefully sure crawling-out of that frozen moment.” 

Hall attended Ravenscroft School in Raleigh, graduating from high school in 1989. He graduated from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, in 1993. He later attended New York University’s Master of Fine Arts program in New York City. In 2002, he married actress Amy Spanger; he played Billy Flynn opposite her Roxie Hart in the Broadway musical Chicago the summer after their wedding. The couple separated and filed for divorce in 2006; it was widely reported in 2007 that Hall is dating his Dexter co-star Jennifer Carpenter.

Hall’s acting career began in the theater. Off-Broadway, he appeared in Macbeth and Cymbeline at the New York Shakespeare Festival, and in Timon of Athens and Henry V at the New York Public Theater, The English Teachers at the Manhattan Class Company (MCC), and the controversial play Corpus Christi at the Manhattan Theatre Club. He also performed in the workshop production of what was then known as Sondheim’s Wise Guys, which has metamorphosed into Bounce. He sang the role of Paris Singer; this character’s songs and function in the play were transferred to the character Hollis Bessamer in the final version of the play. In Los Angeles, he appeared in Skylight at the Mark Taper Forum.

In 1999, director Sam Mendes cast Hall as the flamboyant Emcee in the revival of Cabaret, his first Broadway role. Mendes also directed the film American Beauty, written by Alan Ball, and he suggested Hall for the role of deeply closeted David Fisher when Ball began casting the TV drama Six Feet Under. “Everything I opened up for Cabaret,” Hall reported in a 2004 interview, “I slammed shut for David.”

Hall’s work in the first season of Six Feet Under was recognized by a 2002 Emmy nomination for a Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and 2002 AFI Award nomination for Actor of the Year. In addition, he shared in the Screen Actors Guild nomination for best ensemble cast all five years that the show was in production, winning the award in 2003 and 2004.

In 2003, Hall toured as Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago. His only film credit is the 2003 thriller Paycheck, and he also appeared in the 2003 TV movie Bereft. In 2005 he returned to Off-Broadway theatre in the premiere of Noah Haidle’s Mr. Marmalade, playing the title character, an emotionally disturbed little girl’s imaginary friend.

Hall is currently starring in his own Showtime television series, Dexter, which revolves around Dexter Morgan, a Miami police forensics expert who moonlights as a vigilante serial killer. The series’ first season premiered on October 1, 2006, and its second season began on September 30, 2007. For his work on the series, Hall was nominated for the 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a TV Drama and renominated in 2008 for a Golden Globe in the same category. Hall won the 2007 TCA award for Individual Achievement in Drama.

In a 2006 interview, Hall discussed his approach to the character of Dexter, saying: “ I think Dexter is a man who…a part of himself is very much frozen, or arrested in a place that is pre-memory, pre-conscious, pre-verbal. Something very traumatic happened to him, he doesn’t know what that is. And I think on some level he wants to know. He denies his humanity, he describes himself as someone who is without feeling, and yet I , and told Dexter that he saw them, he accepted them, that Dexter is good and that he is worthy of love. And I think that’s what enables him to focus his energies in this unique way.”

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