Dexter’s Michael C. Hall: I’m ‘not all the way heterosexual’
Dexter star Michael C Hall made the revelation on November 9 (Noam Galai/Getty)
Michael C. Hall, the star of Dexter, has revealed he is “not all the way heterosexual.”
The actor, who won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Dexter, told The Daily Beast: “I think there’s a spectrum. I am on it.
“I’m heterosexual. But if there was a percentage, I would say I was not all the way heterosexual.”
Hall, who also played barrier-breaking gay character David Fisher in Six Feet Under during the early 2000s, said it was his role as the emcee in Sam Mendes’ 1999 Broadway revival of Cabaret that opened up his mind regarding his sexuality.
“I think playing the emcee required me to fling a bunch of doors wide open because that character I imagined as pansexual,” said the Dexter protagonist.
“Yeah, like I made out with Michael Stuhlbarg every night doing that show,” he added. “I think I have always leaned into any fluidity in terms of my sexuality.”
Dexter star Michael C. Hall on stage (Astrid Stawiarz/Getty)
Hall said he had never experienced a sexual relationship with a man, but had “a craving for an emotional intimacy with a man” following the death of his father when he was 11 years old.
“I’m heterosexual. But if there was a percentage, I would say I was not all the way heterosexual.”
— Michael C. Hall
The Dexter star, who said he grew up in a “repressive and puritanical” family atmosphere in North Carolina, said he didn’t want to suggest that he had a “homoerotic” relationship with his father.
“I mean an emotional intimacy or connection that at least in the milieu I grew up in was considered fey,” he explained.
Dexter’s Michael C. Hall said: “I had an appetite to have emotional connections with men” (Noam Galai/Getty)
“I had an appetite to have emotional connections with men beyond beer, sports, and fist-pumping that were considered ‘gay.'”
The 47-year-old actor, who also played the transgender titular character in the stage version of Hedwig and The Angry Inch, added that he had been “attracted to [creator] John Cameron Mitchell when I saw Hedwig.”
Is it common to be not completely straight?
The Dexter actor is not the first to reveal that he’s not totally straight.
In September, Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges said he was “not totally straight, but also not gay and not necessarily bisexual.”
Hedges, who stars in gay conversion film Boy Erased alongside Troye Sivan, added: “I felt ashamed that I wasn’t 100 percent, because it was clear that one side of sexuality presents issues, and the other doesn’t as much.”
Lucas Hedges, star of Boy Erased (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty)
Despite the stigma that exists around sexualities which aren’t heteronormative, earlier this year, a study revealed that no-one is 100 percent straight, and a survey in 2017 discovered that the majority of 13 to 26-year-olds don’t identify as heterosexual.
Earlier this year, a study of 24,000 undergraduate students found that of the men whose last hookup was with a male partner, one in eight defined as heterosexual.
This figure was twice as high among women, with one in four whose last sexual experience was with another woman identifying as straight.
