Put in a good word or two

SOMETIMES having a dirty mouth is all a lady needs.

Jennifer Carpenter, the young actress who contorted herself acrobatically in “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” had never worked in television, but she really wanted to play the overly gung-ho cop sister of a serial killer who kills serial killers on Showtime’s most-watched series, “Dexter.” The night before her audition, Carpenter started feeling nervous when she was given 15 script pages to learn. Then, during the test, something happened that unintentionally forged a connection between the actress and a character who often resorts to foul language when she feels threatened or aggravated.

“I just got kind of frustrated and I went, ‘Ugh,’ and I think I cussed, and I think they saw something in me in that moment that was a lot like Debra getting frustrated with something happening,” said the 26-year-old actress over a late breakfast at Hugo’s in West Hollywood recently. “I just remember seeing pink, pink, pink.”

After two more auditions -- the last one with the show’s formidable star, Michael C. Hall, who plays Dexter Morgan, Debra’s unusual foster brother -- Carpenter got the part. What she didn’t know was that no one else even had a shot. Neither the producers nor the network had a second choice, according to executive producer Sara Colleton.

“The role of Deb is a woman who is good at her job, wants to be great at her job, is in a situation in which it still is difficult for a woman,” Colleton said. “She’s absolutely modern and feminine and yet tough and sexy. It’s a hard thing to pull off, that whole range, because usually you get one or the other.”

When viewers met Debra in the pilot, she was a Miami Police Department vice cop working undercover as a hooker, with ambitions of being a homicide detective, just like her deceased father, Harry Morgan (James Remar). Unbeknownst to Debra, Harry taught the teenage Dexter, now a Miami Police Department blood spatter expert, to channel his lust for blood and murder into killing only those who have escaped justice. Debra grew up jealous of their close relationship.

“She doesn’t know why Harry needs to go off on these trips alone with Dex, and you see how conflicted Dex is over it because it has, and rightly so, made Deb insecure,” Colleton said. “And Dexter, as an adult, is very aware of that and tries to compensate. He carries an extra burden with knowing that Harry saving him caused Deb to have less of a father.”

In the pilot, Dexter tells viewers that he is void of all emotion but says, “If I could have feelings at all, I’d have them for Deb.”

The show’s fans now know better; Dexter unquestionably loves Debra.

“He’s a lot better brother than a lot of brothers,” Colleton said. “What’s great about Deb is that Deb roots Dexter in a familial way that is very important and fundamental for the series.”

Dexter and the rest of the Miami Police Department, including Debra, who was promoted to homicide early in the series, are after the elusive “Ice Truck Killer,” who drains the blood of prostitutes and cuts their bodies into pieces. What they don’t know yet -- but viewers do -- is that the seemingly sweet surgeon Debra has fallen in love with appears to be the psychopathic murderer himself.

“My heart bleeds for her,” said Carpenter of Debra. “She’s trying to be a good architect of her own life, and things just keep falling in on her.”

To prepare for the role of an enthusiastic and green detective, Carpenter said, she read a few forensics books and learned to rely on fellow cast member David Zayas, who was a New York City cop. When it came to weapons, Carpenter had knowledge to fall back on. Growing up in Kentucky, she frequently went shooting with her father.

“I get that she’s a fighter for what she believes in, like her destiny is always on the horizon and she’s chasing it with all her might,” Carpenter said about Debra’s striving. “She doesn’t always have the vocabulary to say what she means, which is why she has a bad mouth. But her heart is in the right place.”

Carpenter attended the Juilliard School in New York and performed in the Broadway revival of “The Crucible” with Laura Linney before she moved to Los Angeles four years ago.

Although Carpenter received critical praise for 2005’s “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” the actress says she still feels insecure sometimes and has learned to deal with it by accepting what other actors have to offer. She recalled a difficult scene in the season finale of “Dexter,” which airs Dec. 17, in which Debra needs to lean on her big brother.

“I try to make that voice in my head that says, ‘It’s not perfect, it’s not perfect,’ be quiet long enough just to see what happens,” she said. “But in that scene, I was having a hard time because I’d been going 100 miles per hour all week and I just said, ‘I don’t know how to do this.’ And Michael just said, ‘Deb doesn’t either.’

“And for some reason, that was all I needed.”

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maria.elena.fernandez@latimes .com