Michael C. Hall learned of rock icon David Bowie's death while recording the soundtrack for Lazarus, the artist's off-Broadway musical. It was only then, the Dexter star said, that he fully realized working with Bowie was the "most humbling experience I ever had."
"To play that role and to take part in telling that story and helping to create something that was in the final chapter of Bowie's artistic output, it was really incredible," Hall said, according to The Huffington Post.
Lazarus was a limited-run production based on Bowie's 1976 film The Man Who Fell To Earth, in which Bowie portrayed alcoholic alien Thomas Jerome Newton. Hall, 44, played Newton in the musical, which was directed by Ivo van Hove and written by Edna Walsh (who won a Tony for the musical Once).
Over the weekend, Hall attended the Sundance Film Festival, where he said working on Lazarus was "really one of the most special and humbling experiences I've had as an actor," Billboard reports.
He said the last week and a half of shows following the Labyrinth actor's death from liver cancer Jan. 10 affected both the cast and audience members in a unique way.
"The piece, in many ways, is a part of his epitaph, along with the Blackstar album, and we always knew that it was something very important to him, but the immediacy of that importance was made all the clearer when he died. "
Hall credits stage productions Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Lazarus with helping him break from the image of the clean-cut-murderer he'd become so associated with on Dexter. "I feel like at least, for my own part, I need to put some distance between me and that guy," he said.
"It was exhilarating, but it was hard work, for sure, and a part of my 'Dexter' exorcism," he added.
