The Sandman comics were originally released from 1989 to 1996. Due to their popularity, there were naturally many attempts made to adapt the series into film. Speaking to BuzzFeed at the London premiere, Neil shared that he’d “spent so many years fighting terrible film adaptations,” but this series was “the opposite.”

Allan also commented that he began reading The Sandman when he was 19, and wished for an adaptation to be made for years. Despite this, “the writer in me would always cheer when each of them would die because I wanted to be the one to do it.”

“My partner at the time bought me an original art page that Jill Thompson had drawn for the Brief Lives arc and gave it to me for Christmas. I later went back to the gallery when Neil was doing a signing, and I asked him to sign my page, and he did! That was the first time we met. Neil doesn’t remember it, but I do.”

Allan continued by saying, “It’s been a dream come true to work with Neil Gaiman. … He’s a true friend and a brilliant collaborator. I’ve wanted this job since I was 19 years old, and if my 19-year-old self was told this was going to happen, he wouldn’t have believed it.”

According to Neil, “For 30 years, I was viewed as an inconvenience. I was the guy who wrote the original comics, and I was to be kept as far away as possible.”

Neil went on to describe his working relationship with Allan and co-creator David S. Goyer as akin to “the three musketeers.” He commented that David knew no one understood The Sandman better than him, and that his work showrunning for Good Omens meant people felt he better understood how to make television.

“That helped everyone relax,” explained Neil. “What I like about this version compared to the others is that it’s The Sandman at the speed of The Sandman for a streamer with today’s technology. Also, I’m also on board overseeing it!”

Tom Sturridge has been vocal about his love of The Sandman. Tom told us that taking on this character was “fundamentally frightening” to him because it’s something he cares about so much.

To better understand the character, Tom read all of the comics seven times over a period of eight months. “I just read the first one, and then I couldn’t stop; I’m such a massive fan now. It’s so rare on these projects that you have a bible to return to. Sometimes, I felt like Indiana Jones — I’d be like, ‘Okay, I have a problem I need to solve,’ and I’d pe into the comics again.”

“It took eight months to cast my part,” Tom shared with us. “It was an incredibly long casting process, quite aptly. As fan of The Sandman, if they hadn’t made a long and careful decision, I would’ve been upset.”

Neil has also shared that he felt Tom was the ideal Dream early on in the process, and that he saw 1,500-2,000 people for the role, but Tom was his number one right until the end!

The show’s creators have clearly gone to lengths to make sure The Sandman isn’t made up of your run-of-the-mill white, heteronormative cast. Indeed, they were faithful to the comic book idea of Desire being gender-neutral when they cast nonbinary actor Mason Alexander Park for the role. On the other hand, unlike in the comics, Dream’s librarian Lucien is now Lucienne, a race-and-gender-flipped version of the comic book character!

In fact, one of Neil’s favourite memories from filming was when the whole cast went out for dinner one time. “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Mason Alexander Park gently teasing Tom Sturridge in exactly the way that Desire would tease Dream. Then, there was Kirby being sort of the sensible one but also being funny and loving, and Gwendoline Christie towering above us all!”

From Shakespeare to Lucifer to John — or Johanna — Constantine, there are many characters in this series that have either real-life or other fictional counterparts.

Speaking on their choice not to incorporate Tom Ellis’s Lucifer in the series specifically, Allan said that it wouldn’t have had the same impact on the audience or on Morpheus. “We would’ve been more familiar with Lucifer than we are with Dream, and it would’ve worked against us, I think.”

“I love Tom Ellis’s Lucifer, I think he’s wonderful,” added Neil, “but he’s a lovable rogue with a heart of gold, a cheeky chappy! You wouldn’t have felt watching episode four that Morpheus was in big trouble, and he is.”

“We talked about Lucifer, and that was thrilling to me,” said Gwendoline speaking to BuzzFeed at the London premiere. “In the comic books, the character is extraordinary; Neil described them as a kind of young David Bowie, a junkie angel, God’s favourite who’s been thrown out of heaven. As a female performer, that sort of choked bitterness Lucifer has after myriad disappointments felt like something I could connect to.

“So we’d go on Zoom — myself, Neil, Allan, Jamie Childs, Sarah Arthur, and Graham who did my hair and makeup, and my wonderful partner Giles Deacon — and we’d talk together. After a time where we were pided physically thanks to the pandemic, coming together like that to create a thing felt amazing.”

“We only had ‘The Doll’s House’ to work with, but we had 10 episodes to play with,” the Corinthian actor Boyd Holbrook shared with us. “Allan and Neil developed a more sophisticated character who is at once very manipulative and very alluring. That was fun to play around with.”

From Hankley Common to Guildford Cathedral, The Sandman locations are super varied! Commenting on the feeling of shooting on location, Rose Walker actor Vanesu Samunyai shared that the first scene she shot was in Episode 7 at the old people’s home. “That was really nice! The building was this historic old place; it was huge and so beautiful and grand. It was so awesome to be around.”

If you like the comics, don’t worry, there’s plenty to look out for in this series! As Neil himself explained, everyone was committed to adding small details and easter eggs for longtime fans to spot.

“I remember being taken by the set decorators in Burgess’s manor in Episode 1,” recalled Neil. “They showed me these shelves where they’d put together all of the physical objects that appear on Dave McKean’s cover of Sandman #1. You’d have to watch the episode on freeze frame to catch it, but it meant so much to them to bring a little more of The Sandman into the series!”

“I guess I like to take people to things that they’re familiar with from a direction that they’re not familiar with,” Neil shared with us. “I can tell a story about two people meeting in a pub every one hundred years and talk about time, history, the evolution of humanity, and what friendship is. The stories contain real emotional truth, except they are rooted in fantasy.”

One of the most complicated characters in the series is probably Death. While we may think of Death as more of a grim reaper type figure, Kirby Howell-Baptiste explained how such a dark, mythological figure became a more benevolent force for good in the show.

“I was really struck by the character of Death because I’d never seen it portrayed as so gentle and nurturing, almost shamanic. It was a huge honour to play that part because when you think about those you’ve loved and lost, the utopian ideal is that at the end they feel no pain and no fear, like in this show.”

I’ll admit that while I love Neil Gaiman, I’d never read an issue of The Sandman in my life before I heard this series was being made. Despite this, I really enjoyed the show, and I haven’t stopped telling people about it!

Allan commented on this by saying, “We were very careful to make the show for people who know and love The Sandman, but we also wanted to make a version that didn’t require you ever had read a comic book or know who Neil Gaiman is.”

As expected, many of the most iconic images from the comic do appear in the series, and these even influenced creative decisions by the cast and crew. “I solely used images from the comics to inhabit Morpheus in that first episode,” said Tom. “I couldn’t speak, so I had to communicate with my body, and that was a thrilling thing to do.”

If you’re a fan of the kind of television that has an overarching plot, but each episode is distinctively flavoured and has its own neat story, then you’ll love The Sandman.

Every episode is loosely based on a different edition, and has a completely different vibe to the others in the series. You should probably watch them in sequence to understand the show fully, but I feel like you could also watch them inpidually out of order and still get something special out of the experience.

According to Vivienne, “So much of what you see is real; that library was full of books and all of these amazing little details.” It seems as though the creators wanted to actually build worlds for the actors to act in, as opposed to making them imagine it while they filmed only to add in backgrounds and effects later.

“I think that helped the actors give their performances in a way that might not have been possible if we’d just used a green screen,” Allan shared with us. “Desire’s threshold, for instance, was a real set that took months to build, and I think it made all the difference. The same goes for Hell and Lucifer’s throne room.”

From Lucifer to Desire to The Sandman himself, the costuming, hair, and makeup in this series are seriously beyond amazing. Think Moira Rose meets Voldemort meets an Alexander McQueen runway. I think awards are definitely on the cards!

On her costume, Vivienne told us, “When I stepped into those suits and those jackets, it just transformed my body. You can’t slouch in those; you have to stand upright! I’m a sloucher, so that helped a lot.”

Speaking on watching the series back, Neil said, “Most of the time, it’s not what I imagined, but that’s marvelous because it’s even better! And then sometimes, it’s exactly what I imagined. Basically, it is the comic.”