In The Sandman, the titular cosmic being, sometimes known as Morpheus, is forced to cross realms to reclaim his dream-weaving tools after escaping a century-long imprisonment by a cruel magic user. His journeys see him travel to hell, to modern day London and beyond, and in the process, he meets a host of characters; from Gwendoline Christie’s Lucifer to Jenna Coleman’s genderbent take on DC’s most iconic exorcist, Johanna Constantine.
Not only that, but he’s also tasked with gathering his rogue nightmares – in particular, The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), a human-like entity with murderous tendencies – and also restoring the balance, since he was unable to monitor the nap of people for the last 100 years.
Due to the expansive nature of the Netflix adaptation, which is based on Neil Gaiman’s beloved comic book series, several of the actors never met until promoting it at San Diego Comic-Con in July. More recently, three of them – Christie, Coleman and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, who plays Morpheus’ sister Death – sat down with Total Film to talk about shooting their scenes separately, the “extraordinary” settings of the fantasy, the challenges of learning Latin while learning French, and more. Here are our questions and answers, edited for length and clarity.
TF: You three are only in a couple of episodes each; Kirby, you’re in one. I was wondering, when you got the scripts, did you just get your scenes? Did you get everything? And have you seen the whole show now, and what was it like watching it when you hadn’t had access to much?
Kirby Howell-Baptiste: When I signed up they sent me two scripts and that’s all I got and all I knew. Fortunately, I had previously read The Sandman and the script stayed so close to what was in the comic that I had an idea of what was coming before I did, but I didn’t know what all of that would look like in this new adaptation. I haven’t seen it all yet, but I’ve seen six episodes, and it’s been really exciting to see it all because I never got to work with…well, no one really, it was just Tom. It was so great to see the short films that everyone else had created.
Gwendoline Christie: It is a truly extraordinary series, almost indefinable. I got some scripts. I read the comics, I was very focused on my own part, but I was also very aware that when I was going to film, I was single shooting with Tom and some others. I watched the first four episodes right before I went to Comic-Con, then I met the whole cast. It’s been a huge burst of energy, realizing that we’re among a really amazing and diverse group of people who have very different voices who, I think, have done something that I think is brilliant.
So Gwendoline, Lucifer is really showing some appearances in this show, but I wanted to talk about the wings in particular. I heard they were mostly practical?
Christy: Allan said he wanted to change me from a sword to wings. I’ve never really had wings, and I felt they should be an essential part of my life. They were practical. I mean, they were beautifully crafted, because they had a weird realism about them. The membrane of them felt realistic somehow, like I imagine bat wings must feel. And they definitely contributed to the internal tension that Lucifer has. All it was prefabricated around the wings. My wonderful partner, Giles Deacon, designed my wardrobe to be his own challenge as well. I do not to think until now I had designed around wings.
In one of your episodes, Jenna, Constantine has a pretty horrible nightmare, and I was wondering what it would be like to film that. I assume there was platforming involved because you were flying all over the place?
Jenna Coleman: I felt like Tom Cruise when I was just doing two little stunts. Those sequences were really cool. I love that we get to see so many versions of Johanna Constantine too, you get the ’90s grunge, and then we meet her later, but yeah, those dream sequences? So many wind machines. We were in a nightclub in Clapham in the middle of lockdown. I don’t remember which one, but it’s very famous, but it was so surreal walking into a nightclub at the moment you know everyone was closed. I was hung by cables, hung upside down, dragged by my foot, face down on the nightclub floor.
And you had to learn Latin for that, right?
Coleman: I did. I had to learn Latin for this at the same time I learned French for The Serpent, and they’re very different in the way you move your mouth. It’s basically the opposite of what you do for French. So that, in particular, was a challenge. I found myself, when we were doing a lot of voiceover work and actually walking around London, just repeating and repeating the lines. Performing exorcisms, while I went about my day.
baptist: If someone seemed a little weird on the subway, would you just recite a paragraph and hope for the best? (laughs)
Coleman: Yes Yes Yes.
Kirby, I love the show’s take on Death and I enjoyed that, in a show where a lot of people die, the Death episode is one of the most hopeful and charming. Can you talk about how you approached that character and how you built on what was already in the comics?
baptist: I was very lucky because the character that Neil has created, as long-time fans of the series will know, is very different from any other iteration of Death that we’ve seen. Usually it’s this Grim Reaper, this looming dark force that takes people against his will. What we have here, and something that gets me really excited for people who’ve never read the comics, is that you’ll get one idea of Death and walk away with another. Ours is a breeder, this guide, a shaman you’d like to have a beer with and that’s the person who pushes you from this life to the next. I felt really honored to play that role.
Gwendoline, what was it like filming in hell? How much of that was really there? How much did the visual effects cost? And how did all this influence your performance?
Christy: Pretty much everything was there. They really built that palace. It was on stilts. It was a huge set, with fire pits. It had human bodies coming out of the walls. It was something extraordinary. Obviously we used a lot of VFX elements, especially during the challenge; they are always difficult, but working with Tom Sturridge was really a pleasure. It was about the embrace that we had together as actors, the connection that we had and the trust that we had in each other.
I think we really loved playing those scenes. So, it was about listening to Tom and reacting to him. We had a brilliant director, Jamie Childs, who wanted to take things as far as possible. We had different ideas for our performances in terms of emotionality or how far we wanted to go, and he was really willing to go there with us. It was an amazing and joyful collaborative experience…in hell.
All 10 episodes of The Sandman are available to stream now. If dark fantasy isn’t your thing and you’re overwhelmed by the amount of content on the platform, check out our guide to the best Netflix shows for inspiration.
