The Sandman: Death confronts mortality in new deleted scene!
By Ashley Hurst
The Sandman fans rejoice! You know that elusive deleted scene played exclusively to audiences at CCXP that fans have been begging to see? Well now, weeks later, Netflix has finally posted the scene online as an early Christmas present. Hooray!
The deleted scene is from Episode 6, “The Sound of Her Wings,” as Dream accompanies his sister Death as she carries out her duties as one of the Endless: appearing to recently dead people to guide them to the afterlife. On their journey, Death explains to Dream why it’s not only important for her to be there at the end of these people’s lives, but to understand humans. She recalls a time, long ago, when she became mortal for a day so she could better understand mortality. Check it out:
One of the most interesting things about this scene — besides the uncanny sight of Dream smiling — is that it references a Death spinoff comic. Titled The High Cost of Living, the comic follows Death as she lives as a mortal for one day. Does this scene hint at a potential Death spinoff at some point down the line? We can hope!
Funnily enough, when Kirby Howell-Baptiste was asked about the scene, she could hardly remember filming it. “So, the scene that was shown here that was deleted – which by the way, I had kind of forgotten about because it was such a long time ago, so it was really nice for me to see it and it felt brand new again,” she told Collider.
How about more deleted scenes, Netflix? What about bloopers? Give me everything.
Boyd Holbrook talks about playing The Corinthian in The Sandman
The Sandman isn’t short on villains. There’s Roderick Burgess, John Dee, Desire… and the Corinthian, who is perhaps the worst of all. A terrifying nightmare creature created by Dream who has teeth in place of eyes, the Corinthian goes rogue when Dream is imprisoned. He walks about the waking world causing chaos and eventually becomes the guest of honor at a “Cereal Convention” for serial killers.
The biggest challenge for Holbrook was having to act without using his eyes. “When we were first talking about doing this, I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to come across,'” he told Entertainment Weekly. “You can watch a silent film or a foreign film and not know anything about what the actors are saying, but you can detect what’s going on in the character’s eyes and their face. That was tricky to me. But [author Neil Gaiman and showrunner Allan Heinberg] reassured me, like, ‘Trust us. It’s going to be a benefit, not a hindrance.’ Once I embraced that, we took off.”
The Corinthian may be a terrifying nightmare creature, but he’s also a man of style. “I just started investigating what kind of character this guy is,” Holbrook continued. “Early on, we figured out that after living a millennia, you become quite sophisticated. You become a connoisseur of things.”
"There’s an elegance in that. I think that’s what was a change from the comic: How you would get lured into inviting this guy into your home and that being the great mistake that you make, rather than him being a home intruder and just bullishly busting your door down."
At the end of season 1, Dream destroys the Corinthian. Dream refuses to make another, more obedient version, but who’s to say he won’t return in the future?
The Sandman season 1 is currently streaming on Netflix. More episodes are officially on the way!
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