SOMETHING has to be said about Michael C. Hall’s facial hair.

It looks soft, so soft, that you’ll find yourself wanting to touch it. Then you remember that the guy plays a calculating serial killer on TV, so you think twice.

In reality, Michael looks harmless. Sitting beside him in the Hollywood room at the Sofitel Los Angeles, you don’t believe he can whip out a scalpel anytime to add your blood to his collection of slides. He looks like he’s about to make a pitch for a romantic comedy. But he isn’t.

Funny how this actor keeps playing characters who are surrounded by death. After playing David Fisher on “Six Feet Under,” Michael charmed audiences around the world as Dexter Morgan, the serial killer of serial killers.

Charmed is hardly a description for a “serial killer,” but that’s Dexter.

Elusive appeal

Everybody loves Dexter, countless websites declare. The show’s IMDB.com and TV.com ratings reflect that. But why?

Perhaps it’s good timing—Dexter was born to a generation of people who love the anti-hero; he was introduced on TV around the time teen girls are lusting after a crazy-haired vampire, and when Joker is more loved than Batman.

Or maybe the character really has magic. There is something interesting about a forensic blood spatter analyst for the Miami-Metro Police Department who likes to mete out his brand of justice on the guilty.

It doesn’t hurt that the show isn’t lacking in hype. Last September, Dexter’s face was the image all over the US—in New York subways, in the streets of Los Angeles. There were even makeshift newsstands in major cities, selling all kinds of things Dexter, from shirts and CDs to red Gatorade and fake magazines.

All this was to push the show’s third season. To promote the series’ second season, Showtime turned city fountains red.

Or perhaps the secret is the mystery itself. Even Michael, who’s played the character for three seasons now and is ready to do two more, couldn’t explain Dexter fully.

“I’ve spent the most intimate time with Dexter [but] my character’s truth is elusive. He’s a tough one to consider sometimes.”

What can you tell us about Dexter?

He’s a very cunning guy, a very capable guy and yet has these emotional blind spots. If somebody pushes the right buttons, he’s so vulnerable to what is his unacknowledged appetite for connection.

Did you work closely with the guy who created the character, Jeff Lindsay?

Yes. Jeff wrote the books and the first season was based on the first book. He was around for the first season and I did speak with him about the character, but he really left us to interpret it.

This is a unique structure creatively, because it was a book bought by someone independent who in turn took it to people who wrote spec scripts. One of those pilot scripts was selected, but that guy went away and they brought somebody in to run the show. It’s sort of a many-headed creative monster.

It’s really remarkable that we maintain any sort of cohesiveness. (laughs) But I think it’s because everyone is there to serve the world of the show certainly, and the character specifically.

We’ve seen you transform into Dexter. Are you the kind of actor who wants to really be in it?

I guess so, yeah. I like to be in it for a good five years. (laughs) I’m in the midst of my TV decade now coz they picked us up for the fourth and fifth seasons. We actually shoot on the same lot we shot “Six Feet Under”—Sunset Gower. I keep driving down the street to Sunset Gower. It’s unbelievable.

Does the show take a toll on you?

Yeah, sure. If I’m being perfectly honest, I caught myself the other night having a conversation with a friend and I had also just seen the production of “The Seagull” on Broadway. I was watching Trigorin’s speech about feeling like he’s a fraud. I was talking about aspects of my own life and feeling fraudulent, and I stopped and said, “Would I be having these thoughts as potently if I weren’t dedicated to simulating this person who claims to be without the capacity for authenticity?”

I think there are ways it creeps in. It’s an occupational hazard. If you’re aware of it, it’s a real opportunity to learn and maybe transcend some of those things you wouldn’t otherwise. But yeah, it’s nice to take a break.

I don’t think anybody’s played a serial killer for as long as you have.

I know, it’s always been a movie, you’re in and out. The season ends and there’s not a sense of “we’re done with that,” it’s more like, “okay I’m gonna put that back in the oven on simmer and just take it out and see how the flavor’s changed when we go back to it.” It’s tricky.

Do you ever get the chance to just shut it off?

Because there’s so much material we move through so quickly, I’m always preoccupied with what’s on the horizon, how to play it, how it might need to be modified, so you never completely switch it off.

What kind of fun do you have in your life?

Umm, renovating my kitchen. (laughs) It’s fun.

What else do you do for fun?

I’m certainly spending some time looking into what I might be able to fit into the hiatus, maybe take on another character with a discernible beginning, middle and end that I can put away when I’m done.

I’m hoping to do some travel. There are many press tour opportunities, perhaps go on a press tour and just have an open-ended ticket and do some traveling on my own after that. I hope to do that in early spring.

But I do actually have a new house. I moved in right before we started shooting so there’s a lot of attention that it’s craving.

How important is theater to you?

I’ve been focused on the roles on these two TV shows over the past couple of years and sometimes when hiatuses come, it’s difficult to fit in a play. But I can imagine that I will find myself back onstage in the not-too-distant future. I don’t have any specific commitment.

Have you stayed in touch with your “Six Feet Under” cast mates?

Well I saw Rachel (Griffiths) at the Emmys and some of the surrounding parties. I’ve been in touch with Peter (Krause) periodically over the past couple of weeks, and he actually shoots his show (Dirty Sexy Money) not too far from us. I was on the phone with Lauren (Ambrose). She’s back in New York so I don’t see her much. The three of them I’ve seen a bit in the past months.

You seem to keep ending up with dark roles on TV. Would you want to do something completely different? Like Gossip Girl? (laughs)

(laughs) Yeah, I keep trying. I keep knocking on their door but they’re just not interested. I didn’t have a mission statement that I would only do things where I was surrounded in one way or another by dead bodies, but it worked out that way. I find that Dexter has its lighter elements. But undeniably, even in the lighter moments, there’s a pretty dark underbelly. But yeah, I certainly hope to tackle lighter fare and I’m confident that will happen.

In the first season, people decided that Dexter was a good guy. But in the second and third seasons, he kind of got darker. Do you think this season will change their opinion?

I think the first season went a long way to enlist the audience’s sympathy and identification with him. Once that was achieved, I certainly think it’s interesting to push the envelope somewhat and to see Dexter—while he’s moving toward more human behavior in the third season—also moving into murkier and darker territory in terms of his relationship to his compulsion and the way he kills.

It’s very interesting to me—it’s not like a shift occurs that he moves more to the light and the darkness follows. It’s more like he moves to the light and the darkness goes this way, so the spectrum becomes broader.

I’m certainly all for challenging the audience’s affection now that it’s been earned. I don’t think Dexter should go out and indiscriminately kill innocent old ladies, but to see him play faster and looser with the tenants of the code, I think it’s compelling for the audience.

How do you feel about Jimmy Smits now being part of your show?

It’s such a shot in the arm for us to attract someone of his caliber. It’s really gratifying. And he is a talented and a genuinely generous actor.

What will happen to Dexter’s relationships?

What’s interesting about the whole shiny happy side of season three is that for Dexter, considering how he was brought up and encouraged to think of himself, all of those things are an act of rebellion. For him to think about becoming a father and being a husband—they’re things that his father told him were never possibilities for him and were forbidden, that they would result in disaster.

They’re very conventional choices that for him are an act of defiance. I think those things will come to fruition. I don’t want to give too much away.

What’s your reaction to people who say that the show encourages people to empathize with serial killers?

I would say that the show encourages people to empathize with Dexter. I don’t know that I would take it beyond that. I don’t think it means that you should re-examine your relationship with Jeffrey Dahmer, you know. (Laughter)