DEXTER: RESURRECTION Key Art | ©2025 Paramount+/Showtime

You just can’t keep a good serial killer down. Though considerably more personable – and with a much clearer if imperfect code of ethics – Michael C. Hall’s Dexter Morgan is on track to having as many returns as Michael Myers.

Dexter, a crime scene investigator for the Miami Police Department, spent his spare time tracking down and terminating other serial killers over the eight seasons of Showtime’s DEXTER, 2006-2013. In the series’ final episode, Dexter faked his own death.

Then, in 2021’s DEXTER: NEW BLOOD, Dexter was living under an assumed identity in Iron Lake, where he was found by his long-separated teen son Harrison (Jack Alcott). Between Dexter’s instinctual vengeful nature and Harrison’s own homicidal tendencies, it wasn’t long before bodies started dropping. The show ended with Harrison shooting and apparently killing Dexter –

But, in 2024’s DEXTER: ORIGINAL SIN, we learn that Dexter survived this incident. As he is on the operating table, he reflects on his past, with actor Hall providing voiceover for the thoughts of Dexter’s younger self, played by Patrick Gibson, just starting out as both a professional pathologist and as a murderer. The series has been picked up for a second season.

Now there’s DEXTER: RESURRECTION, Sunday nights on Showtime, with episodes thereafter available on demand and on Paramount Plus. We find out what happens once Dexter gets out of surgery and also catch up with Harrison.

David Magidoff costarred as Iron Lake Deputy Teddy Reed in all the episodes of DEXTER: NEW BLOOD. As he explains during a Zoom conversation, perhaps no one was more surprised than he was to find that Teddy would also recur in DEXTER: RESURRECTION.

“I knew RESURRECTION was happening for a long time [before it was announced], because I know everyone,” Magidoff reveals with a laugh. “I’ve become good friends with Jack Alcott and Michael and the showrunners, and I’m pretty good about keeping my mouth shut. I did not think I was coming back. I mean, I don’t think anyone thought Teddy was coming back.

“Because when you hear ‘resurrection,’ you just imagine Dexter’s moving on from Iron Lake, more than anything else. Then I got the call, saying, ‘Do you want to be in it?’ Of course, I said, ‘Yes,’ because I’m not dumb. Who wouldn’t want to be back in that world, with those great people? And I was as curious as anyone to see what I was going to do. And it’s pretty cool. And I wish that I could say more than that, but I can’t.”

David Magidoff in DEXTER: RESURRECTION | ©2025 Paramount+/Showtime

Magidoff says his parents grew up down the street from each other in Lawrence, New York, on Long Island. Magidoff spent the first four years of his life there, before his family moved to New Jersey. “So, it’s very much a central Jersey upbringing, with a lot of Long Island sprinkled in.”

Acting wasn’t Magidoff’s first choice of profession. “If you asked me as a little kid, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I interned at Marvel Comics one summer in New York City, in the actual comic book world. They put me on a computer and they taught me Photoshop and how to clean up artwork.

“Because I’ve got over 4,000 comic books, I thought, ‘Maybe this is something beyond a hobby …?’ And then when you see the sausage getting made, you’re like, ‘Oh, I think it’s better to keep it as the hobby, maybe I don’t want to be the one making them.’”

Then Magidoff went to college at the University of Southern California. “I was doing the double major at the time, even though writing was where I really thought I wanted to go. I’ve always loved improv, but then I did a semester abroad in London, and I did theatre. I didn’t think, ‘I need to do theatre, this is my calling, in London.’ I just thought, ‘I’d love to do a semester abroad. What sounds like the most fun?’ Theatre in London sounds the most fun.’

And then when I was doing the London semester, we worked on some really fancy things, and I’d never really worked like that as an actor, because all I had done as an actor was a year-and-a-half of college before that, which was pretty minimal. So then you’re there, and you’re really doing some pretty cool stuff with some pretty cool people.

 “Helena Bonham Carter’s brother Crispin [Bonham Carter] directed me in a play, [the Greek classic] ELECTRA. It’s a drama and this is far away from anything that I had ever done.  lot of feedback from my fellow classmates was giving me the sense that I could do this, and this is something worthwhile to try, and so then I came back to USC, and I was like, ‘You know what? I think I’m going to give this acting thing a shot.’ And I guess in my head, I was like, ‘This is fun, so if I can actually get paid …’”

Magidoff’s first professional job was doing improvisation at Disneyland’s California audition. “They paid me twenty-three dollars an hour, and I thought it was the best gig in the world. And my parents were like, maybe they could stay off my back a little bit and let me try this thing for a second.

“As soon as college was done, it was like, ‘I’m going to give myself a year, and try doing the acting thing.’ I was with an improv company in L.A., and they were all going out on auditions. I always said, ‘As soon as it dries up, then I’ll think of something else,’ but it never did, and I booked a gig in my first ten auditions on an NBC show called AMERICAN DREAMS, starring Brittany Snow.”

Some of Magidoff’s other credits include regular or recurring roles on VERONICA MARS, THE MORNING SHOW, TOP ELF, an episode of the anthology series AMERICAN CRIME STORY, and cohosting two seasons of MTV’s BROKE ASS GAME SHOW “on the streets of New York City. It’s worth a YouTube deep dive, I promise. It was like Billy Eichner’s BILLY ON THE STREET, but a little more MTV.”

So far, Magidoff reports, “Things have been really wonderful. I’ve gotten to work with amazing people, and here I am with you, talking about DEXTER: RESURRECTION.”

Magidoff acknowledges being unfamiliar with the DEXTER-verse before being cast as Teddy. “It was a new world for me. It wasn’t a show on my radar. I don’t know if I had Showtime, honestly. But what a great world to be in.

“That’s what’s so special as actors, we’re just people going out for a gig and then all of a sudden, you book a gig, and everyone who ever watched that show thinks you’re an expert in that show, and you’re not, until you are.

“And it’s been a pleasure to be a part of it, and the fans are delightful and excited, and so enthusiastic about their DEXTER, and I get it, because I’ve gotten very close with Michael over the years now, and not only is he a terrific actor, and should have won an Emmy for DEXTER: NEW BLOOD, or at least been nominated, because he was excellent in that, but he’s a really great guy, truly excellent, great actor, funny, kind – I’m not just saying that.”

Magidoff adds that he thinks Hall is a key ingredient in DEXTER’s enduring popularity. “There’s a reason why that show will never die,” he laughs. “He’s so easygoing and so pleasant and so collaborative and so kind, and you would never know he’s Number One on the show. He’s just like, ‘I’m here, I’m happy to be here.’ And you’re like, ‘Wow.’

“He could be a prima donna and make a stink and chooses never to do so, and that’s why you get an Uma Thurman and a Peter Dinklage and a Neil Patrick Harris and a Krysten Ritter and a David Dastmalchian to come on RESURRECTION, because they obviously not only want to be on a gig, but they’ve heard good things, and then they show up, and they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. This guy’s great, thank you.’”

Asked to describe his DEXTER character, Magidoff opines, “Teddy is overeager and underwater. That’s probably the best way to describe Teddy. I remember in NEW BLOOD, they gave me the [suggestion that] he’s two-and-a-half weeks into being a cop. And I think he’s still two-and-a-half weeks into being a cop. That was funny. I remember auditioning for it and being like, ‘I’m not a cop,’ and they were like, ‘That’s the point.’ So, it’s a delight to be able to be Teddy, because it’s just me, wearing a uniform – no one should ever give me a uniform.”

Teddy is Magidoff’s first role as a law officer. Did he have to learn anything to do any of the action?

“Yeah, I had to cuff a guy in NEW BLOOD, and knock him down, and do it the right way, and not hurt him and hurt myself in the process. So, that was cool. Other than that, that was the only cop activity I had to do that was properly bring a guy down to the ground and cuff him.”

Magidoff feels that he really cannot say anything about what Teddy is doing in DEXTER: RESURRECTION. “I can say that I was surprised, meaning, when I read the scripts, I was like, ‘Oh! This is what Teddy’s up to? Okay.’ It wasn’t like, ‘This makes sense.’ I was like, ‘Oh! Cool.’ I feel like Showtime will come find me if I say anything more than that,” he laughs.

While plot details are off-limits, Magidoff shares what he feels safe to say about tonal differences between NEW BLOOD and RESURRECTION. For starters, “It’s very nice to not be freezing my ass off. I was completely freezing that first season.

“The tone – there’s an element going on with this season. Magidoff cites facts that are already well-publicized. “Between James Remar being back as [Dexter’s adoptive father Harry, who is] his voice in his head, and David Zayas [returning from DEXTER as Miami Metro Homicide Detective Angel Batista], and with all these stars, I just think it’s going to be one of those things where – again, I felt this way about NEW BLOOD – if you were new to the show, NEW BLOOD was wonderful. I think if you’re [familiar with] the show, I think NEW BLOOD was also really cool.

But there were just so many new characters in NEW BLOOD. Having Jennifer Carpenter [from DEXTER, as Dexter’s adoptive sister Miami Metro Homicide Detective Debra Morgan] as his voice in his head was cool, but there was still mostly new for NEW BLOOD, and I think people are really excited to see some old faces on RESURRECTION.

“I don’t want to over-speak, but I think it’s going to be a little more nostalgic this season, a little bit, than, say, NEW BLOOD was at least. I don’t think it’s a full nostalgia run. But I’d say there are just people from Dexter’s past that, I think if you’re a fan of the OG seasons, you’re going to be like, ‘Hey, I’m glad to see that person again.’

“In the same way that ORIGINAL SIN was such a hit, I think people really miss those characters. Everyone thought ORIGINAL SIN would do well – no one thought that it would be such the hit that it was. I think Showtime and Paramount know that, and I think they want to see that in RESURRECTION, where maybe you didn’t see that as much in NEW BLOOD.

“And you have all these wonderful new characters. I mean, who’s not going to be excited about Uma Thurman and Peter Dinklage and Neil Patrick Harris and Eric Stonestreet? This is a hell of a cast [laughs]. I’m very honored to be a part of it, I really am.”

What has Magidoff learned on the two DEXTER series about acting or life in general?

“I always take notes whenever I’m on shows. ‘Who’s the Number One on the show? How do they behave?’ Because I behaved that way when I was the Number One on [BROKE ASS GAME SHOW]. It was a TV game show, but it was my show, so I tried to create that [healthy] environment.

“I got to work and become genuinely good friends with Clancy Brown on NEW BLOOD, and we’re still friends to this day. We probably text about baseball every week, and he’s got good tickets to the Dodgers, so I go with him quite often. And seeing him work, and seeing all these people work, is just how to show up, how to be a pro on set.”

It’s also possible to take valuable lessons away from less agreeable experiences. “Working with some people – I don’t want to name names – who I don’t think were really great pros on set. You learn from the people who show up on set who can kill it and be professional and be kind and not get in anyone’s way and be collaborative, because there’s so much going on [on] a TV set that you can’t just show up and take up all the space in the world. It’s like you’re showing up to summer camp – and how do you have fun with everybody and walk away and keep in touch?

“But then there are some people who show up and ask maybe too many questions, or the director is just trying to get the scene done, and there’s a place where you’re being collaborative, and then there’s a place where an actor can unnecessarily be an obstacle. So, you learn from people who, you kind of keep to yourself [but think], ‘This person is maybe making life a little difficult around here.’ I don’t want to be that. So, there are lots of kinds of actors.

“But I would say they’re really great at getting great, great actors for both shows, NEW BLOOD and RESURRECTION. So, I learn from the best, and you also learn, not from the worst, but from the not-best. Again, there are great shows, and there are bad shows, and you’re like, ‘Great, that’s also how not to do it.’ So, you can always learn from both, and the key is to learn from both, and not to just learn from only the best.”

Earlier this year, Magidoff did the eighth episode of the fourth season of Fox’s THE CLEANING LADY, which is now available with the rest of the series on Hulu. “I play the role of Jay, who’s the manager for one of the kids on the show. And that was a lot of fun. I got directed by Elodie [Yung], who’s the lead, who also played Elektra in [the TV series] DAREDEVIL. It was great to be in Albuquerque and work there, and I’m actually going back, because I’m in the middle of a movie that I’m shooting right now that’s also in Alburquerque, funnily enough. Sadly, they don’t want me to talk about the movie yet.”

And what would Magidoff most like people to know about DEXTER: RESURRECTION?

“They’re going to love it. They really are.”

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Article: Exclusive Interview with Actor David Magidoff on playing Deputy Teddy Reed on new season of DEXTER: RESURRECTION

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