Ferdinand Kingsley plays Hob Gadling in Netflix’s The Sandman

Netflix continues to build out the cast of its adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s landmark comic book series The Sandman, about an eternal being known as Dream (Tom Sturridge) who has dominion over our sleeping minds. Gwendoline Christie is playing Lucifer, the devil. Charles Dance is occultist Roderick Burgess. Patton Oswalt is a talking raven named Matthew. The Sandman has a ton of iconic characters, and we’re only just getting started.

One of them is Hob Gadling, a soldier in the 100 Years War who simply decides one day that he’d rather not die…so he just doesn’t, living century after century and becoming Dream’s oldest friend. (If you’re not familiar with The Sandman I imagine these descriptions are making you feel like you’re in some kind of fever dream, which is pretty much what reading the comic is like, so you’re almost there.)

Now, Gaiman himself as revealed to Empire that Mank actor Ferdinand Kingsley will play the part, and he’s very excited about it. “I will say of Ferdie that […] more than anything else that we’ve done, except possibly Stephen Fry as Gilbert, it’s exactly the thing and the performance that I had in my head 35 years ago,” Gaiman said. “It’s just like, ‘Oh, there you go, there’s Hob Gadling’. So Ferdie rocks.”

Gilbert, incidentally, is a man who used to be a mirth-filled afterlife for sailors. (And there’s that fever dream feeling again…) Stephen Fry is indeed a perfect choice to play him.

The sixth episode of The Sandman is one of the lighter ones

Gaiman also revealed that Gadling first appears in the sixth episode of the series, which he described as “the most feel-good and lovely” of the episodes produced so far. I can believe that; the story that introduces Hob in the comics definitely has a lighter tone to it, which contrasts nicely with some of the heavy philosophy, grim tragedy, and pitch-black humor of other parts of the series. The Sandman paints with a lot of colors.

Honestly, I have no idea if Netflix can successfully adapt a series as ambitious and imaginative as The Sandman, or if it it’ll be a hit if they do, but I sure am hoping it happens. The Sandman premieres sometime this year.

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