Did playing a serial killer in this help prepare you for joining the cast of Dexter?
HANKS: Well, no, not really. I’m still at that stage where I feel like I can neither confirm nor deny anything involving the Dexter television program, but it is a happy coincidence. I realize that there are these themes in pairs with a lot of stuff. In Orange County, my character wanted to be a writer, and in The Great Buck Howard, my character wanted to be a writer. It comes in twos. Lucky is about a serial killer, the same way that Dexter is about a serial killer. I find a theme and I play with it for a little while, and then I move on. I’m not planning to make a run at the serial killer convention circuit, or anything like that.
Are you looking forward to going to Comic-Con with the show and getting that immediate feedback from the fans?
HANKS: I am! I can’t wait! I’ve been wanting to go to Comic-Con for ages. I’ve never been able to be involved in anything there. The one time I was in something that went to Comic-Con, I couldn’t go and I was so upset. I want to go check out what that’s about, so I’m very excited about Comic-Con. But, I’m very much ready for the fact that I’ll go up there and be on a panel and no one will want to talk to me. They’re all going to want to talk Michael [C. Hall]. We’re not going to disappoint the fans. It’s going to be a crazy season. Read more after the jump...
There have been some pretty great and memorable guest stars that have made their mark on Dexter, throughout the run of the show. Is it daunting to know that and be able to make your mark among them, or is this character very uniquely his own?
HANKS: It can be daunting. More than anything else, it’s exciting because, as the season has progressed, you get the chance to see where it fits in the pantheon, with all the other seasons combined. You see what it is that (executive producer/writer) Scott Buck, and all the great writers there at Dexter, have fit this into the canon of the greater Dexter story. That’s really exciting. More than anything else, you just want to make sure that you don’t do anything that’s already been done, and the writing on Dexter is so good that there’s no way that that’s going to happen, and it really challenges you to try something new and different. For the new people coming in this year – and we’ve got me, Eddie Olmos and Mos Def, who’s also on the show this year – we get to tell a new aspect of the story, and we get to tell some new tales here that are quite exciting. Mos Def is great. He’s just a talented individual, all around, and he’s also an incredible actor. I’m pretty sure that all the fans of Dexter – and there are a lot of them – won’t be disappointed with this season. I think it’s going to be really exciting.