For a while now, the only news coming out of Neil Gaiman's highly anticipated The Sandman TV show has been that the beloved author is extremely excited about how things are shaping out. As cool as that has been to witness, it's far more exciting to know that the Netflix fantasy series has finally revealed its first set of cast members. We've got two major fantasy winners on tap by way of Game of Thrones veterans Gwendoline Christie and Charles Dance, who join a handful of other solid actors in filling out The Sandman's ensemble cast.
After Starz's American Gods, The Sandman will be the second Neil Gaiman adaptation currently on the air (unless we hear about Good Omens Season 2 in the near future). And this cast is already stacking up pretty well in comparison. Joining Gwendoline Christie and Charles Dance are Tom Sturridge, Vivienne Acheampong, Boyd Holbrook, Asim Chaudhry and Sanjeev Bhaskar.
Gwendoline Christie, whose Sandman casting was previously rumored, was officially announced as The Sandman's Lucifer, which technically makes her the second UK actor to play Lucifer on a Netflix-produced series. (Can we get a crossover with Tom Ellis' Lucifer character, please?) Within the Sandman storyline, Lucifer grows tired of the stereotypical afterlife and heads to Earth. And it's gonna effing rock to see Christie take on this snazzy role in live-action, since it will be much closer to the source material than Ellis' version.
On the Road and Sweetbitter star Tom Sturridge is tackling the lead role of Dream, one of the most powerful beings in all of reality, as well as everything outside of reality. Dream, who goes by many names across the comic's storylines, is also one of the most unique and distinctly Neil Gaiman-esque characters in comic book history, so there's a lot riding on Sturridge's shoulders to bring this performance to life.
Like Lucifer, The Sandman's Lucien is getting gender-swapped for the Netflix TV show. Taking on the role of Lucienne is The Witches and Famalam actress Vivienne Acheampong. Lucienne watches over Dream's home realm known as the Dreaming, which contains a library housing all the books that have ever been written, as well as those that haven't been written. (I have always wanted to live in the Library.)
Boyd Holbrook, whose other major Netflix projects include Narcos and We Can Be Heroes, is taking on one of the most visually bizarre characters in The Sandman. He's portraying The Corinthian, an unintended serial killer who has two small additional mouths in place of his eyes. And he also eats other people's eyes. I hope they don't alter that much.
Former Game of Thrones king Charles Dance has been busy with his own Netflix projects in The Crown and David Fincher's Mank. For The Sandman, Dance will play Roderick Burgess, who rocks the nickname the Dæmon King, if that tells you anything. He's basically DC Comics' take on the esoteric magick man Aleister Crowley, and it's a role that Dance should excel at.
UK comedians Sanjeev Bhaskar (The Kumars) and Asim Chaudhry (People Just Do Nothing) are taking on the Biblically inspired roles of Cain and Abel, respectively. Within The Sandman, Cain and Abel live as neighbors within the Dreaming, and they largely adhere to stereotypes, with the bullying Cain murdering the genial Abel several times throughout the course of the series.
Neil Gaiman created The Sandman based on his acclaimed comic book series of the same name, and also serves as executive producer and co-writers. The showrunner is the talented Allan Heinberg, whose wide-spanning career includes writing for Gilmore Girls and Grey's Anatomy, co-writing the Wonder Woman script (and the pilot for the unproduced Wonder Woman TV show), and co-creating the Young Avengers comic book line, which may be getting its own MCU introduction soon.
