Netflix is making a Sandman show—Let’s dream cast the Endless

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – FEBRUARY 24: Olivia Colman, winner for Best Actress in a Leading Role, attends the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 24, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

Despair — Olivia Colman

Desire’s twin sister, Despair is an astute, melancholy member of the Endless who takes her work seriously but rarely seems very happy about it. There’s something of the tragic about her. Olivia Coleman, meanwhile, is a splendid actor fresh off an Oscar win as the melancholy, excitable monarch Queen Anne in The Favorite. She also has a long and impressive history in television and film and would be more than up to the task of drawing out Despair’s intelligence and undertow of sadness, while maybe brightening up the edges a bit.

Visually, Desire is a very distinctive character: heavy-bodied, fanged, waxy of skin and always nude. Unless Netflix wants to use extensive special effects to make Coleman look grotesque, it could probably just sand off the more extreme edges of Despair’s look.