Sun’s out, fun’s out!
The story of Morpheus' screen casting is a long one.
“I think I have personally seen 1,500 Morpheus auditions,” Gaiman tells EW.
Tom Sturridge as Morpheus in ‘The Sandman’.Laurence Cendrowicz/Netflix
“I hesitate to imagine how many [casting director] Lucinda Syson and her team have seen.”
“We know it’s Tom.”
For his part, Sturridge doesn’t have many complaints about the lengthy process.
Sturridge adds, “I thinkThe Sandmanpervades culture.
Even the name Morpheus, King of Dreams, kind of haunted me in my youth.”
The first time viewers will see Sturridge in the role, he’ll mostly be naked.
Instead, they capture her brother Dream and keep him imprisoned in their basement for more than a century.
I would genuinely sit in it for hours at a time, which was very COVID safe!"
Sturridge says with a laugh.
It also presented a challenge that Sturridge could actually wrap his head around.
“I cared very much about the physicality and image of Morpheus,” he says.
“We’ve all seen those pictures, we know about his skeletal, muscular, otherworldly physique.
In addition to his ethereal physicality, Morpheus is also verbally distinctive.
Both Gaiman and Sturridge worked in their own ways to translate that quality to the screen.
“Morpheus' dialogue is incredibly specific,” Gaiman says.
“It was probably the thing I was most obsessive about.
He’s never improvising.
That was very helpful.”
“I growled at him once and said, ‘stop being Batman,'” Gaiman says.
“He was trying to get a bit whispery.”
“It was literally my first day!”
Sturridge says in his defense.
“But it was incredibly helpful.”
Watch EW’s interview with Gaiman and Sturridge above.
