Julie Benz has been branching out beyond her “Dexter” role — and how! In “The Boondocks Saints II: All Saints Day,” due in September, “I get to play a badass. I’ve always been the damsel in distress. In this I play this really, really phenomenal FBI agent who’s smart and sexy and feminine. She can shoot a gun better than the guys. She wears pink rubber gloves and stiletto heels to a crime scene, but she can hold her own with the fellas, no problem.”
“It’s a highly-anticipated sequel. They’ve done an amazing job,” she adds. “I can’t give anything away, but it’s such a cool movie. There’s one stunt in it that is so amazing and we only had one take to do it. It’s probably the coolest thing I’ve ever gotten to do.”
Benz notes, “I didn’t have any time to train for it because I was wrapping for the last season of ‘Dexter.’ They put a gun in my hand on the first day and I had to break into a room and start firing away like a pro. That’s when your acting technique and sheer will kicks in.”
MEANWHILE: Benz has also branched out to star in the Lifetime Movie Network’s TV movie “Held Hostage,” airing July 19, in which she plays real-life kidnapping victim Michelle Renee. “Michelle and her daughter both came on set for a couple of days so I got to meet them. I was so overwhelmed when I met Michelle I started to cry,”
Benz tells this column. “Her story of being kidnapped and having a bomb attached to her and her daughter and having to rob a bank — it so deeply touched me and moved me that I was at a loss for words when I met her. She complemented me on my work and what was I supposed to say, ‘Thanks for going through such an awful thing so I could have a great role to play. No,’” she notes. “The whole thing was just very intense. There was a lot of sensitivity in developing this project and really being as true as possible to what happened, and I’m really proud of the movie.”
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