Neil Gaiman has announced the addition of four more cast members for the upcoming Sandman series on Netflix.
DEATH — Dream’s wiser, nicer, and much more sensible sister. Significantly harder to cast than you might imagine (well, than I imagined, anyway). Hundreds of talented women from all around the planet auditioned, and they were brilliant, and none of them were right. Someone who could speak the truth to Dream, on the one hand, but also be the person you’d want to meet when your life was done on the other. And then we saw Kirby Howell-Baptiste’s (she/her) audition and we knew we had our Death.
DESIRE — Dream’s sibling and everything you want, whatever you want and whoever you are. Desire is also trouble for Dream. Families are complicated. We had barely started looking when Mason Alexander Park (they/them) reached out on Twitter, and threw their hat into the ring. We were thrilled when they got the part.
DESPAIR — Desire’s twin, Dream’s sister. She is the moment when all hope is gone, the bleakest of the Endless. Donna Preston (she/her) will be playing her, and her performance is chilling and sad. You feel her pain.
JOHANNA CONSTANTINE — Eighteenth Century occult adventuress, John Constantine’s great-great-great grandmother. This Sandman character became so popular that she even had her own spin-off series. I created her to fill the role that John Constantine does in the past. When we broke down the first season, given that we knew that we would be encountering Johanna in the past, we wondered what would happen if we met a version of her in the present as well. We tried it and the script was sparkier, feistier, and in some ways even more fun. So having written her, we just had to cast her. Jenna Coleman (she/her) gave us the Johanna of our dreams – tough, brilliant, tricky, haunted and probably doomed.
Kirby Howell-Baptiste was recently seen in Why Women Kill and will next be starring in Disney’s Curella. Mason Alexander Park precioudly starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and will be featured in Netflix’s upcoming Cowboy Bebop adatpatation. Donna Preston was in The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Jenna Coleman has starred in numerous productions, but is probably best known as Clara Oswald on Doctor Who.
Other castings that were announced include Patton Oswald (M.O.D.O.K.) as Matthew the Raven, Stephen Fry as Gilbert, Sanda James Young as Unity Kincaid, Kyo Ra as Rose Walker, David Thewlis as John Dee, Niamh Walsh as Young Ethel Cripps, Joely Richardson as Ethel Cripps, and Razane Jammal as Lyta Hall.
All of these actors will be joining Tom Sturridge (Sweetbitter) as Morpheus/Dream, Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) as Lucifer, Boyd Holbrook (Narcos) as The Corinthian, Asim Chaundry (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) as Abel, Sanjeev Bhaskar (Yesterday) as Cain, Vivienne Acheampong (The Witches) as Lucienne, and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) as Roderick Burgess
No word yet on when production on Sandman will begin, or when it is targeted for release.
