Julie Benz Speaks Out About Her Gruesome Exit from Dexter

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Julie Benz It’s been a full season and then some, since we witnessed Rita’s bloodbath-ending in the Season 4 finale of Dexter, and the subsequent departure of Julie Benz from Dexter. Julie Benz reveals her feelings about being written out of the show and the effect it had on her.

JULIE Benz has that rare ability to dissolve completely into a role.

One minute she’s playing Rita Bennett, loving mum and the wife of a serial killer in acclaimed drama Dexter, the next she’s barely recognisable as a stripper with a heart of gold in high-gloss soap Desperate Housewives.

However, despite her range and impressive list of credits, Julie Benz confesses she’s as insecure about her abilities and future prospects as the next actor.

When Benz discovered she was to meet a horrific end in Dexter, she had a meltdown. Julie Benz, and the show’s crew, found out she was being axed from Dexter just a week before being handed her final script.

“My first reaction to it was, ‘God, I just lost my job, I can’t breathe,” a brutally honest Benz says.

“A lot of the crew were crying while they were filming. I wasn’t looking to be taken off the show, I didn’t ask to be taken off, I want to make that clear.

“I didn’t watch the end of the show (her final episode) because it did affect me. I can’t see it again, it’s so disturbing.”

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Dexter Captures a Loyal Indian Audience

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Power Saw to the PeopleI keep a close eye on my site statistics, and this article is definitely on target. I get many visitors from India, and in fact, many international visitors in general. I believe the morality issue of the show (good bad guy, as noted below) is what makes Dexter popular worldwide.

The Dark Knight

It is the good-bad guys that are ruling television channels these days with Indian viewers ready to embrace them.

THERE is a certain method to Dexter Morgan’s madness that makes him one of the most popular characters on television. He is a serial killer, but with his own set of ethics. He is always there for his family and friends, has a respectable job as a blood-sample analyst and yet kills people by night. His schizophrenic existence has made Dexter — both the show and the character — probably one of the most intriguing ones on television in recent years. After its success in the US, India is lapping up this serial killer’s moves on Star World in a marathon run of five seasons.

Dexter, however, isn’t the only good-bad guy who is making television viewing pleasurable these days. Dr Gregory House from the series House on AXN and Patrick Jane from the drama The Mentalist on Zee Cafe are two other examples. House is a doctor and Jane is an amateur detective, and these professions have always had a certain thrill attached to them. And while House, Jane and Dexter might save the day or give justice at the end of each episode, there is no denying that all three of them are not your friendly, neighbourhood heroes. There’s none of Superman’s big-heartedness in them, but there is definitely a lot of Batman’s cynicism.

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Michael C Hall joins The Dead Circus

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Michael C Hall and James Marsden in Dead Circus

James Marsden & Michael C Hall star in The Dead Circus

This sounds like a really interesting “fictitious” film, complete with Charles Manson and the mysterious death of singer Bobby Fuller in 1966.

We just learned that he might become one of The Three Stooges for Bobby and Peter Farrelly’s long-gestating big screen adaptation, but now James Marsden is taking on an even stranger role. Deadline reports the actor will play infamous criminal Charles Manson in The Dead Circus, a drama that crafts a fictitious storyline surrounding the mysterious death of I Fought The Law singer Bobby Fuller. Joining Marsden in the peculiar film will be Golden Globe winner Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”) and Oscar winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter). Adam Davenport wrote the script and will also make his directorial debut with the project.

The events surrounding Fuller’s death are a real-life mystery, and this film aims to create a story around that event. After Fuller’s song became a hit back in 1966, a week later the 23-year old singer was found dead. Though his death was ruled a suicide, it seems a little strange that his body showed signs of being battered, and gasoline had been poured down his throat. The story follows a grieving screenwriter (a role not yet cast) who attempts to solve the mystery of the singer’s death. Meanwhile, Leo will play a Manson Family matriarch who comes out of hiding five years after the murder to reveal to the writer that the answer to his questions might be found in 16 mm snuff films buried in Death Valley. Finally, Hall is playing one of Fuller’s managers.

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Michael C Hall & Sarah Silverman chat about Peep World

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Michael C Hall & Sarah Silverman in Peep WorldIf you read closely, there are juicy little tidbits about Season 6 of Dexter. While obviously tight-lipped about any plot/storyline, Michael C Hall does say that the show may skip ahead a bit, due to an older Harrison. He also says the show starts filming next month, and will air mid-October.

In the comedy Peep World, four siblings come together on the day of the 70th birthday party of family patriarch Henry (Ron Rifkin), to deal with the ramifications of a novel that was written by the youngest sibling, Nathan (Ben Schwartz), who has exposed the family’s most intimate secrets by publishing it. To make matters even worse, the floundering Jack (Michael C. Hall), struggling actress Cheri (Sarah Silverman) and black sheep Joel (Rainn Wilson) must all deal with the horribly unflattering versions of themselves that are now being portrayed in the film adaptation of their lives.

At the film’s press day, co-stars Michael C. Hall and Sarah Silverman talked about what drew them to these roles, dealing with family secrets, and getting to improvise on set. Sarah also talked about her upcoming role in Take This Waltz, written and directed by Sarah Polley and starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen, and Michael said he begins shooting Season 6 of Dexter in May. Check out what they had to say after the jump:

Question: What is it that drew you to your roles?
MICHAEL C. HALL: The script appealed to me. The time I spend playing someone who’s so uniquely afflicted with all this darkness, it was nice to play a person around whom there wasn’t some sort of internal chaos he was dealing with, not that Jack doesn’t have his own afflictions. He was dealing with external chaos, and he was just a guy. That was appealing.

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