‘Dexter: New Blood’: Clancy Brown Hopes He ‘Measured up’ to Past Villains
Dexter: New Blood continued a long-standing tradition of introducing terrifying yet fascinating villains. In previous seasons of Dexter, the show’s titular character faced off against the Ice Truck Killer, Trinity Killer, and more. These “big bads” impressed fans by just how much they could send a shiver down their spines. Clancy Brown stepped into the shoes of Kurt Caldwell and hopes he did the villain role justice.
Who plays Kurt Caldwell in ‘Dexter: New Blood’?
Clancy Brown joined the cast of Dexter: New Blood as Kurt Caldwell. On the outside, Kurt seems like a pillar of the community and an upstanding citizen. Little do the residents of Iron Lake know that Kurt is a cold-blooded serial killer. Kurt has been kidnapping and killing runaway women passing through Iron Lake for decades.
Brown is no stranger to playing a villainous character. Namely, he played the tyrannical Captain Byron Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption and a deranged murderer in Shoot to Kill. More recently Brown has been in everything from the TV series Billions to the 2020 film Promising Young Woman, according to IMDb. Brown is also widely respected for his vocal talents, even lending his voice to Mr. Krabs on the Spongebob Squarepants series.
Clancy Brown hopes he ‘measured up’ to past villains
In Dexter: New Blood, Clancy faced off against Dexter like so many serial killers in the past. While there are quite a few “big bads” throughout Dexter, one man always seems to be regarded as the best.
“Certainly, the greatest among all those is probably Lithgow, but it was a pretty good group of knuckleheads to face off against,” Brown said in an interview with Collider. “And I had friends among all of them, a couple of people that I knew, and so they all had good things to say about the experience.”
John Lithgow played the Trinity Killer in season 4 of Dexter. Lithgow returned for a cameo in Dexter: New Blood and Trinity’s legacy lives on in the trauma he inflicted on Harrison. Brown was also impressed by another Dexter villain.
“I felt the first guy, whose name escapes me that played his brother that was just the Ice Truck Killer. [He] was just terrific, that guy,” Brown told Collider. “If I had thought about it at all, it was like I just hope I measured up. To any of those guys. They were all so good. A lot of that is also the writing. The writing is really terrific.”
‘Dexter’ fans have enjoyed Clancy Brown’s portrayal of Kurt
Many fans of Dexter and Dexter: New Blood are placing Kurt Caldwell near the top in terms of their favorite villains. “Curious. Where do you all think Kurt Caldwell falls in line amongst the big bads from all seasons of Dexter? I think he’s in the top 3 for sure,” a Reddit user wrote.
“Kurt’s development and characterization has been fantastic, and of course, Clancy Brown has totally owned the role. The ‘simplicity’ of his ritual is effectively unsettling, too, and he comes across as a real person and not an over-the-top supervillain. Kurt is definitely at or very near the top of the list as a character,” another Reddit user said.
Dexter: New Blood airs on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET on Sundays.
