Fashionistas may have noticed that purple hues showed up a lot at Saturday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards and Dexter’s Julie Benz showcased the trend nicely.
Hours before the awards ceremony, she gushed about her “glam swat team” coming over to whip her into red carpet shape. Their efforts paid off with this glowy, gauzy look:

Benz, whose character was killed off in the Dexter Season 4 finale, next appears on Desperate Housewives.
Images: Bauer-Griffin

Hey there, Showtime fans. Big night at the Golden Globes, eh?
Along with wins for Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall and John Lithgow, we saw lots of Showtime stars looking great in spite of the rain that dampened the beginning of Hollywood’s awards season.
We’re still on the hunt for red carpet photos of some of your favorite actors and actresses (Did no one photograph Edie Falco? Seriously?), but here are a bunch of paparazzi pics from the event.
Some quick thoughts:
- The guys from Dexter look like they love hanging out together
- David Duchovny, who must’ve been in the lobby when …read more

Not long after she left Dexter, Julie Benz has found another TV role to keep her busy.
Benz’s new character takes her in a different direction than Rita, the abuse survivor turned suburban mom she played on the Showtime series.
EW’s Michael Ausiello reports that Benz will play Debbie, a (cliche alert!) stripper with a heart of gold and a master’s degree in education, on at least three episodes of Desperate Housewives.
Benz, who got whacked in a most gruesome manner on the Dexter season finale, spent the weeks following the end of Season 5 on a spa vacation. She celebrated the New …read more

Since her work on Dexter ended with the Season 4 finale, Julie Benz is in the market for a new job. She took her exit from the series with grace, but Benz recently told The New York Post’s PopWrap blog that she’s sad to leave such a strong cast and crew. Here’s what she’s up to now:
Benz recently filmed a rom-com called Uncorked that airs on the Hallmark Channel on March 6.
“It’s a fun, nice, light, easy romantic comedy,” she told PopWrap.
The film pairs Benz with Men in Trees hottie Scott Elrod. He plays a handsome widower/winemaker who helps her …read more

She had her bright spots, her brief infidelities and her nagging wife moments, but through it all Rita never gave up the guy she loved. That’s why Dexter will be a lot darker for her passing.
In his relationship with Rita, Dexter learned to love, to become a parent, and to form the human bonds that he claimed only to mimic when the series began. Her death gives new license for him to unleash his Dark Passenger. Watch out!
Today, we pause and remember Rita Morgan in her last season on the show. Thanks, Julie Benz, for making Rita a character who …read more

Love her or hate her (and we know some of you out there hated her by Season 4), the late Rita Morgan will no longer grace the set of Dexter. After Sunday’s whopper of a finale, which pulverized ratings records for Showtime, Julie Benz is sharing her reaction to the killing off of the character she made her own for four years. Here’s some of the best from her recent interview with E!’s Kristin Dos Santos.
Will Rita come back as a ghost, the way Harry does?
“There has been no talk of me coming back to the series in any way. …read more

Dexter’s Julie Benz recently sat down for an awesome chat with Backstage, which interviewed her and three other stars from TV shows that have a strong following:  Ty Burrell from Modern Family, Jim Parsons from Big Bang Theory and Lea Michele from Glee.
The actors were singled out for creating indelible characters on the small screen, and the piece is very revealing of their different processes for earning a role and making it their own. It’s worth a read, but we’ve distilled the best of Benz’ comments here.
On Dexter, Benz’s Rita has recovered from abuse by her first husband’s hand, found …read more

She’s been kind of a nag all season on Dexter, but we forgive her since she’s so bubbly in real life.
Julie Benz was practically kvelling before the premiere of her action flick, The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (forgive the yiddish, kids, gotta do my Jewish grandma proud). She sent a stream of cute-as-a-button tweets before the LA premiere, at Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood.
Among her updates before the event:
“Parents have arrived in LA for the BDS2 premier tomorrow night! Excited to have them be a part of a very special night!”
“starting the prep for the BDS2 premier…@kdeenihan is on …read more

Earlier this week, Dexter co-stars Michael C. Hall and Julie Benz were spotted on set in Long Beach, Calif., which stands in for the series’ Miami location.
According to Benz, this week was a wrap on filming Season 4, and we have a lot to look forward to on the season finale in December.
On Monday, the day these photos were shot, Benz posted on Twitter that it was the second-to-last day of shooting for Season 4, “and last early morning in Long Beach!!!!”

Benz doesn’t look sleepy in these pics, quite the contrary, but Hall sure looks intense as he arrives for …read more

Dexter star Julie Benz brings out her badass side this month, playing a sexy gun-toting FBI operative in the action movie The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.
The film, a sequel to the 1999 cult hit The Boondock Saints, follows the MacManus brothers, former vigilantes who return to Boston from Ireland to avenge the mob killing of their beloved priest.
The brothers cut a bloody swath through the city, but before they know it, they’ve got Benz’s Agent Bloom hot on their heels.

The film is directed by Troy Duffy and co-stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus as the MacManuses. …read more