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Friday, August 3, 2012

Jennifer Carpenter: "Deb Doesn't Know If Dexter Is An Enemy or a Protector"

Via: xfinity.comcast.net: Great interview. Jennifer Carpenter discusses what to expect in this explosive new season.

Where do we pick up this season?
It’s the next breath after Dexter’s, “Oh God” in the finale. So we’re right back in the church.

This discovery obviously compromises her entire moral code as Lieutenant. How is she going to deal with that conflict?
At the end of the last season I went to the church to tell Dexter that I had feelings for him, and immediately they shift — or at least are questioned. The house of cards falls. Everything crumbles. My life as I know it doesn’t exist anymore, and this person that has been influencing my life as much as my inner voice is all a lie. And a bad one! [Laughs] I think it’s the first time that she sort of turns the mirror around and looks at herself and what’s in front of her. It’s the first time I’ve thought, Okay, I’m a lieutenant. If nothing else, I have my job. But my life is s–t so I think for the first time she becomes a real threat to Dexter. And in a way a real threat to the audience because I could take their show away. No one’s going to watch him live and breathe in a cell. Read the whole interview after the jump...



Does she fear for her own life?
I think you see real fear in her early in the season about that. Then at the end of the day, there’s a part of me that thinks, Why wouldn’t this character think, Oh f–k it. If you want to end it, end it. She doesn’t even have a cat at home. What does she have to live for? But that’s not her. That’s what’s so amazing about her. She never gives up on anything. Look at how hard she beat the walls of Dexter. That’s the part where the character and I deviate. It is such a wonderful but taxing job on so many different levels to show up as the actor. But can you imagine if the stakes were as high to be responsible for public safety?

What kind of struggle is going to ensue between Deb and Dexter?
Every sentence is a struggle with Dexter. I can’t even tell you how hard it’s been to go to work. For the run of the entire series, my scenes with Michael have always been the hardest because he’s the person who can give nothing. So it doesn’t matter how hard I punch or how loud I scream or how many f-bombs I drop, there’s never a reaction. So it’s the loneliest experience to act with him. Now I have this knowing about him and I don’t know if I can trust a single word he says. I don’t know if he’s plotting it for me or against me, if he’s an enemy or a protector.

Is it possible for Deb to be recruited by Dexter? To become another disciple?
No. I will not. At the end of the hiatus, I said to [executive producer] Scott Buck, “I need you to help me sleep at night and tell me that I’m not going to be Lumen [Julia Stiles] or Jimmy Smits’s character.” We’ve seen the boy and the girl version of his disciples and I don’t want to do that. It was really important to me that what they have told me is true is going to be honored. Up to this point I feel like I go in and I tell the truth. If I start lying I’ll feel too small to drive to work. I wouldn’t be able to go out in the world for fear of running into somebody who watches the show. I just don’t want to lie to the audience when they’ve kept this on the air for as long as they have. If it starts to go that way then I would have a very big problem.

What would you say is the major theme of this season?
I think what I like about this season is that there’s such an emotional underpinning that it’s almost like a huge sheet has been laid out. A nice, clean, plastic [laughs] sheet has been laid out for the whole cast. And if that’s the theme we all get to dive into it. Every character has a stake in it. The show is a slice of life this year. Everyone represents some part of the human experience but for some reason it was all stirred in the same pot. Everybody is in the midst of a big change and every character arc feels important. I live in the world with the supporting cast and they’re doing a lot of heavy lifting this year. There’s no filler.

Yvonne Strahovsky joins the show this season. What can you reveal about her character?
I don’t have any scenes with her yet but we will later on. She gets up in all of it. She comes in in the third episode. I watched that recently, and ooh, she’s good. She’s so good. There’s something like, you know how a flame burns and it looks so enticing and you can get so close to it and it still feels good, but if you put your hand in it, you get burned? That’s what her character sort of feels like. And she’s so much fun to have around. It’s so nice to have the girl energy around.

32 comments:

  1. "what kind of struggle..." It's a little unclear to me whether she is talking about Dexter or Michael sometimes! Lol. It's slightly confused. At least it is to me on reading that question. :)

    Great interview. Fab to hear Jennifer's view on things Dexter related. Wish there were more interviews with her over the past years.

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    Replies
    1. veru confused,,i agree,,,
      hate how jennifer carpenter put her ideas about deb kill trash ppl,," i dont wanna to be a lumen " deb is almost virgem maria
      this line fuck the show,,why she need now fuck the brother life? if dont accept,,him le dex go,,,run,,,

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  2. I love how she talks as Deb and then as The actor.

    I hope she gets an emmy nom this year she so deserves it

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  3. You really get the feeling that she is very deep in this character this season. So she talks mostly in First Person about Debra. A bit confusing, but still nice to read.

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  4. deb in the books = the best

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  5. I was thinking exactly the same... she is so deep in this character. It was almost like hearing Deb's voiceover onscreen :-)

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  6. hate it
    "No. I will not. At the end of the hiatus, I said to [executive producer] Scott Buck, “I need you to help me sleep at night and tell me that I’m not going to be Lumen [Julia Stiles] or Jimmy Smits’s character.”"
    debra is some kind of pure soul ,,

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    Replies
    1. Jennifer Carpenter is absolutely right.

      At no point should we ever see Deb sticking a knife in someone in the kill room. ABSOLUTELY NOT.

      That is not her character. That's Dexter's gig.

      However, could she eventually accept him and love him darkness and all, absolutely yes.

      That's the whole point, Dexter needs someone to truly love and accept him without engaging in his darkness.

      Z

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    2. ok i would love it,,but come one cops kill too
      and many ppl deserve to die ,,
      i cant belive that someone feel sorry for travis, etc

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  7. who is able to love (or accept) a killer? A criminal, a lunatic, a traumatized victim... a saint??? :-)))) Wonder how they are going to write themselves through this one :-)) Hmmm... maybe they should ask the fans :-)))

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    1. That's usually the role of family members, to love you regardless of all the stupid things you might have done, don't you think?

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    2. totally agree and in real life ppl forget and dont hate who killed inocent,,and dexter take piece of shit of strees

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    3. ahhahaha poor inocent travis,,so pure

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    4. I think it must take a very strong person to deal with the fact that your loved one (brother, son, husband, lover) is a killer. A serial one. Not a little stupid thing, not even a bigger stupid thing. A big big one. Moreover, they have not been listening to your inner voice for many years... moreover, they did not caught you red handed and they are not a cop...

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    5. No, not at all. They should never ask the fans what to write in to the show. Because as fans, we are going to have different ideas of what should or should not be in the show, and they could never please every single one of us. They need to stick to their writers formula, whatever it may be. Their process obviously works, so we should just let them be.

      P.S. Great interview from JC. This is probably the most in depth I have seen her be in a while about the show and her character. Great stuff.

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  8. Replies
    1. i hate who hate dexter

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    2. in other movies and tv shows we saw killers,,just in dexter i see so dramatic thing about he kill , and dont care his reasons
      for me he just clean the streets

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    3. Where are all the F-bombs, Deb?

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  9. i am strong, have a cold heart, and really dont feel sorry for dexter kill ppl that deserve,
    is very sucks it
    i cant belive ,,
    if this mens dont deserve to die,,he deserve? a man that killed a child deserve sorry and dexter dont???
    sometimes i prefer dexter was in HBO,,When dont care the morality

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  10. I agree with Jennifer, not wanting Deb to be another 'disciple'. That wouldn't make sense for the character. However, I could see the season long arc of Deb trying to bring down the mobster boss through legal means and each time the police get close he manages to get out of it. Kind of like Little Chino in season 2, where he kept taking out the witnesses so no one would testify against him.

    You'd have this frustration building up in Deb about her inability to get this guy behind bars, coupled with her knowledge of who Dex is and what he does. So to mix up the formula, the "Big Bad" would be more of a foil to Deb than Dex. Episode 11 has the Big Bad do something incredibly heinous, like having Quinn killed (which would finally make his character mean something), with the police unable to prove it. Episode 12 you'd have Deb give Dex the green light to make him disappear. I think that is something that could work.

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    1. Mike...

      Excellent. That would be a tight story.

      Could we be that lucky?


      Z

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    2. Please tell me you write for this show.

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  11. i hate the idea "dexter dead "because fan have so morality
    many cops in many places kill too
    is bullshit

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  12. i could kill travis,,or trinity
    if was a cop,,and dont feel nothing

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  13. I remember Michael once talked of the difference between American and European audience and remarked that while Americans tend to be sort of Ok with his "cleaning the streets" (anyway, there is death penalty in the USA, some countries), Europeans like him too, although still say: "Well, but he is a killer...". We are sort of not used to having the legal right to kill others, not to say illegal... :-))))))

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