Michael C. Hall Biography

Moving effortlessly from an uptight funeral director on Six Feet Under to a Miami blood-spatter analyst and serial killer on Showtime's hit series Dexter, Michael C. Hall illuminates the humanity and intelligence in transformative, challenging characters.

A formally trained stage actor, Michael made an indelible impression as younger brother David Fisher on HBO's groundbreaking series Six Feet Under. During the series' five-year run, he garnered nominations for an Emmy Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Drama Series and the AFI Male Television Actor of the Year Award. Michael and the Six Feet Under cast received 2003 and 2004 Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, for which they were also nominated in 2002 and 2005.

Based on Jeff Lindsay's cult novel "Darkly Dreaming Dexter," Dexter is an unusual exploration into the mind of a sociopathic killer who targets criminals who have essayed more conventional methods of punishment. For his performance as Dexter, Michael received five Emmy nominations, five consecutive Golden Globe nominations, and a SAG award.

A North Carolina native and graduate of New York University's Master of Fine Arts program in acting, Michael appeared in nearly a dozen major stage productions. He made his Broadway debut as the emcee in Cabaret, directed by Sam Mendes and starred as Billy Flynn in Chicago opposite then-wife, Amy Spanger, who played Roxie Hart. Off-Broadway, Michael starred opposite Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett in Macbeth directed by George C. Wolfe, and Cymbeline with Liev Schreiber for the New York Shakespeare Festival, Timon of Athens and Henry V at the Public Theater, The English Teachers for Manhattan Class Company, the Manhattan Theater Club's production of Corpus Christi, directed by Joe Mantello and with Brian Cox in Skylight at the Mark Taper Forum.

Michael made his feature film debut in John Woo's Paycheck (2003), starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman. His first lead role in a major motion picture was in Gamer (2009), co-starring Gerard Butler. On January 17, 2010, wearing a knitted cap to cover up the effects of the radiation treatments he was receiving to combat cancer (which is currently in remission), Michael accepted a Golden Globe for his work as the title role in Dexter.

Michael went on to play roles in feature films such as Cold in July (2014), the biopic Christine (2015), Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (2017), Game Night (2018), and In the Shadow of the Moon (2019).

On television, he starred on the 2018 Netflix series Safe, as a widowed surgeon whose daughter goes missing, and he is currently working on the StudioCanal TV series Shadowplay (2020), filmed in Prague.

Michael married his second wife, actress Jennifer Carpenter, who played his sister on Dexter, on December 31, 2008. They filed for divorce in 2010, after it was rumored Hall was having an affair with Julia Stiles, who played a recurring role during Season Five of the hit series. That relationship soon ended, and in 2016, he married for a third time to Morgan Macgregor.

Filmography:

Game Night (2018)
Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (2017)
Christine (2015)
Cold in July (2014)
Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Peep World (2011)
Gamer (2009)
Paycheck (2003)