The Sandman actor Ferdinand Kingsley lost sleep as a child after reading Neil Gaiman's iconic comic book series.
Kingsley, who portrays Hob Gadling in the Netflix series, revealed during an interview with Game Rant that he was a fan of The Sandman comics as a child. "I have all the comics. My older brother Ed was huge fan when he was 15 or 16, so I would have been nine or 10. I was just aware of this really cool underground obsession, but I didn't really understand that comic books could be a non-superhero thing," Kingsley explained. "As a nine-year-old, your basic understanding of comics is that they're generally about white dudes in capes saving the day. That's what you expect. So, I was introduced to this much weirder, darker world. He kept me away from the bleakest bits, but the philosophical element of it and the idea of someone that would be in charge of your sleeping life was fascinating to me, because I sort of slept awfully as a kid."
The actor went on to clarify that his lack of sleep had nothing to do with nightmares. "I just didn't sleep. I laid out for hours," he said. "I first thought this comic was just about a guy that came and poured sand into your eyes to make you go to sleep, and then I learned it was something much deeper than that."
Making The Sandman a Reality
As Kingsley described, Gaiman's comic book series explores many complicated themes and ideas, such as confinement and escape. This, along with the story's "sheer scope," made adapting The Sandman for Netflix a difficult task, according to showrunner Allan Heinberg. "[I]t's very difficult, if not impossible, to try to fit that which is Sandman into a [movie's] two-hour, three-act structure," Heinberg said in a recent interview. "I had 10 hours or more at my disposal, and it was still a challenge to try to do justice to it in the time that we had."
Based on the DC Comics series of the same name created by Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg, The Sandman follows Morpheus, the King of Dreams, as he attempts to restore his kingdom after being imprisoned for over a century. The 10-episode first season of The Sandman has received positive reviews from critics, who have highlighted the difficulty in successfully adapting the source material. Although the series has yet to be renewed for a second season by Netflix, executive producer David S. Goyer has confirmed that scripts for a potential Season 2 of The Sandman are already being written.
The first season of The Sandman is available to stream now on Netflix.
Source: Game Rant