Emmy nominated actress Julia Stiles has shown fans a different side of herself with her recent guest arc on Showtime’s Dexter, and the same goes with a recent interview the Bourne actress sat down for.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Stiles’ response to questions about her dark character Lumen, going into the series with few details about her alter ego, and those gruesome murder scenes was interesting.
“I actually knew very little,” Julia shared about her entrance into the world of serial killer Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall). “I met with producer John Goldwyn, and he gave me the broad strokes about what the arc of the character would be. I did ask if I would end up killing anyone, and he said yes. At that point, I decided to do it. He told me that when you meet her for the first time, she’s been victimized. I was more interested in how she would become more active. The revenge part of it is what intrigued me.”
The thirty-year old Stiles also admits that playing Dexter’s partner in a ten episode arc in the series affected her life off of the set of the show. “I never think of myself as an actor who takes work home with them, but I was surprised, especially toward the end of the season — around episode 10 — when some of the details of what Lumen had experienced became really harrowing, and I started to realize that it was affecting me outside of work. One scene in particular, in episode 10, when the detectives have found DVDs showing what has happened to the victims — it was really dark. It made it more difficult for me to sleep.” How does one prepare to delve into the deep dark role of a killer? “On one hand, it was difficult to prepare because I couldn’t see much of where it was going when we first started the season. The details of what she had experienced were really important to me; everything that she had experienced before the attack and abduction was irrelevant because she became a different person. I met with the writers a lot and grilled them for details about what she had experienced — the sensory experience of her trauma — because that would affect her behavior when you first meet her. I read a lot about trauma victims and rape victims, but for me, that was very intellectual, and I wanted it to be more visceral and emotional. I had to use my imagination a lot, and that was pretty harrowing. I wanted to do the character justice, in terms of the reality of how she was affected and to justify her revenge later.”
In the end Julia Stiles finished out her role as Lumen Pierce, and surprising fans, managed to walk out of Dexter‘s life officially done with her killing streak.
