Tom Sturridge was surprised by The Sandman cameos in Dead Boy Detectives

Netflix premiered The Sandman — based on the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman — in 2022, and now fans are enduring the long and grueling wait for the next season, which is due to come out sometime in 2025. In the meantime, Netflix recently premiered Dead Boy Detectives — a new series set in the same universe — and it features some familiar faces.

Dead Boy Detectives follows deceased duo Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland, who refuse to follow Death into the afterlife and instead remain in the mortal world as ghosts, working on solving paranormal mysteries. Given that the spinoff takes place in the same continuity as The Sandman, the show managed to include a couple of crossovers. Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) appeared in the series premiere, and Despair (Donna Preston) made a surprise cameo in Episode 7. These Endless cameos had fans rejoicing, especially after getting our first look at Despair's realm.

Tom Sturridge, who plays the lead character Dream in The Sandman, doesn't appear in Dead Boy Detectives, and was actually completely unaware of the fact that his co-stars were shooting additional scenes. “I didn’t know you did this," Sturridge told Kirby Howell-Baptiste in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

“Yeah, I snuck off to Canada, I shot on a different show!” Howell-Baptiste said, explaining that the process only took one day. "I flew in, I shot, and I left the next day. It’s been a family secret!”

As for how Sturridge feels about his Endless siblings sneaking off to other projects, Sturridge is a little confused. “It feels…kinda weird,” he said.

Kirby Howell-Baptiste relished the opportunity to make her second appearance in The Sandman Universe. “I had a great time filming. Those guys are fantastic,” she said. “I think what was really nice about that was we talk so much in The Sandman about Death's job. ‘I have to go do my job and this is what it entails.’ We saw some of that in my episode last year, but it is nice to see it not in the context of her walking someone through it, but just going about it.”

Both Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Donna Preston will play much bigger roles in The Sandman season 2. We'll also meet the rest of the Endless family, including Destiny, Delirium and Destruction. Expect a pretty chaotic family gathering.

Whether Dead Boy Detectives gets renewed for another season remains to be seen. Its viewing figures on Netflix haven't been all too convincing, but the show is getting great reviews. Only time will tell.

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