Charlotte’s web

Midway through tonight’s season premiere of “Dexter,” which kicks off the show’s eighth and final season, we meet neuropsychologist Dr. Evelyn Vogel, played by Charlotte Rampling.

In the episode, we see Dr. Vogel, a respected expert on psychopaths known as “the psychopath whisperer,” poking a needle into an exposed brain. Talking to Michael C. Hall’s title character, Dexter Morgan, she then says to him, “We both chose murder. Maybe we’re both a little crazy.”

For the role of an acclaimed doctor whose passion for psychopaths brings up all the obvious questions, it’s hard to imagine a better fit.

Rampling, 67, has made a career out of dark choices and bold portrayals, from the uncaring mother who blithely abandons her child in “Georgy Girl,” to the former concentration camp prisoner entangled with her former Nazi minder in “The Night Porter,” to Woody Allen’s neurotic mess of a woman in “Stardust Memories.” (See sidebar.)

Given this history, Dr. Vogel was a logical next step.

“Dr. Vogel is the sum total of a lot of women I have portrayed,” Rampling tells The Post. “I felt very familiar with her. The role made sense.”

In evoking her customary roil of emotions, Rampling conveys in Vogel a dangerous sense of mystery that gives even her most playful scenes a slow boil quality.

“There is something in me that is drawn into the darker side of myself,” she says. “It plays well in cinema, because I guess I have that kind of face, that kind of allure. So people will invite me into those journeys, rather than [those on] the lighter side.”

Asked more specifically about scenes or plot points, Rampling is loath to spoil anything for fans of the show. After tonight’s introduction, a very open question will remain in viewer’s minds about how deeply Dr. Vogel goes down the psychopathic rabbit hole.

Rampling was enthralled with the role Vogel will play in bringing the series to an end.

“I could visualize how this character would be quite stunning in the final story of Dexter,” she says. “I don’t want to give away too much.”

“She is a huge catalyst for everything that is happening this year, and therefore the resolution of the series,” says executive producer Sara Colleton. “In some ways, she supplies the missing piece of the puzzle of who Dexter Morgan is. So she has a very large role.”

We do learn early on that Dr. Vogel will prove not just an expert on the serial killer Dexter Morgan, but something of his creator as well. When Dexter was young, Dr. Vogel assisted his father in developing his rules for killing, known as “The Code of Harry.”

Rampling hadn’t seen the show before being offered the role, but, upon watching it, quickly understood why the project was right for her.

“I probably wouldn’t have watched it [normally], because I might have thought, ‘Oh, serial killers, I’m not into that kind of stuff,’” she says. “But somehow, they make Dexter’s world a world of his own. Michael C. Hall personifies this creature, and makes us really care for him.”

Rampling’s scenes infuse the show with a vital new energy.

“Her performance has been breathtaking,” says Colleton. “She is so intelligent, and the camera absolutely loves her. It picks up every thought that is floating through her head, so she’s always alive on screen, whether she’s speaking or not.”

Rampling, who splits her time between London and France, has been remarkably busy in TV and film over the past few years (IMDB.com has her listed on 18 projects just since 2010) and also tours theaters in Europe — talk about perfect casting — reciting the poems of Sylvia Plath with a cellist accompaniment.

At this point in her almost 50-year acting career, a role like Dr. Vogel not only shows her to be one of our most intriguing actresses, but also demonstrates how Rampling fills roles that few others could play with equal depth.

“My desire and my inner world are getting richer and bigger. That’s one of the advantages of getting older — you get more powerful inside,” she says. “There’s so much said about being frightened of growing older — and I’m as frightened as everybody else — but if you have your world that goes along with you, you find how appreciated it is. Because I’m often asked to do things not only because of what I do, but because of who I am.”

DEXTER

Tonight, 9 p.m., Showtime

Rampling on film

Woody Allen once said that Charlotte Rampling, who played his ideal woman in “Stardust Memories,” has an “interesting neurotic quality.” In this case, Allen was a master of understatement.

We asked Rampling for her thoughts on some of her iconic films.

“Georgy Girl” (1966). Rampling played Meredith, the girlfriend of Alan Bates (left). “That [film]was very strong. it showed the wildness of women at that time — and that was the way I was — who really wanted to live their own lives. Meredith was able to, in a way. She threw away her baby. That film was very much a film of the 1960s.”

“The Night Porter” (1974). Rampling played a concentration camp survivor who is reunited with her Nazi guard. “The challenge you take on when you’re very young is that if it’s a strong film, like ‘Night Porter,’ it forges your path. After ‘Night Porter,’ it was never the same.”

“Stardust Memories” (1980). Rampling was one of Woody Allen’s girlfriends. “That was my finest American film. Woody Allen and I bonded in a fantastic way. You meet people along the way who give you the opportunity to move on creatively. That’s what Woody did in ‘Stardust Memories.’”

“The Verdict” (1982). Rampling plays Paul Newman’s treacherous girlfriend. “Sidney Lumet was one of the great American directors at that time. That [film]was a sort of masterpiece and a powerful expression of American filmmaking. It wasn’t studio-based; it was New York-based, which is what I liked. There was a kind of independence there.”

“Under The Sand” (2000). Rampling plays a French woman whose husband vanishes. “The woman in ‘Under The Sand’ is me — [director] Francois Ozon built it around me. The story was about grieving, and I’d had a big process of non-grieving for things that had happened. This film became an opening out into the next part of my life. I was in my 50s, and that sent me on my way again.”