Based on Neil Gaiman’s DC Comics Series, Netflix’s the sandman explores a place called the Dreaming, where The Sandman (aka Dream) brings his subject’s deepest fears and fantasies into visualization. After his impromptu disappearance, Dream must correct some mistakes and revisit his friends and foes. Developed and produced by Gaiman, showrunner Allan Heinberg and David S. Goyer, the fantasy series unfolds in ten chapters and features an all-star cast including Tom Sturridge, Boyd Holbrook, Patton Oswalt, Vivienne Acheampong, Gwendoline Christie, Charles Dance, Jenna Coleman, David Thewlis, Stephen Fry, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and more.
Game Rant had the opportunity to chat with Ferdinand Kingsley, best known for playing Irving Thalberg in limpNeville Catchlove in a 2017 episode of doctor whoand mr. Francatelli in British Historical Drama Victoria. In the Netflix series, Kingsley steps into the role of Hob Gadling – a problematic, but pivotal character – who landed up after initially auditioning to play Dream. In our interview we talked about his relationship with the sandman comics, his audition process and Hob’s journey through the series.
But first, a quick character analysis: Dream and Hob meet in a pub in the 14th century. Visiting Death, Dream overhears Hob talking wistfully about eternal life—something Dream cannot fathom. As an experiment, Dream decides to grant Hob immortality, under the guise of retiring after 100 years. The two meet in the same pub every 100 years to catch up, and at the end of each conversation Hob insists he’s not ready to die. Over the next hundreds of years, he goes through many hardships and temporarily enters the slave trade to amass wealth, a decision he regrets.
Game Rant: How did you get involved with? the sandman?
Ferdinand Kingsley: I was about to weave a huge lie about how the whole project was my idea, but the simple truth is I got to audition. I was actually in one of the first waves of people auditioning to play Dream. It’s clear they’ve seen Tom [Sturridge] and immediately thought he is perfect. So at that point I was just excited that they were making it and thought, “Well, you know, I had a bash, and I’ll watch it in a few years.” I sit on the couch and say, “Oh, did you know I auditioned for that?” I’d be a little bitter about it, but that’s what I do most of my days.
But then they sent Hob, and I didn’t know much about him, even though I was a… sandman fan, thanks to my older brother. I looked at the sides, and then I went back to the comics, and I said, “Yeah, I think this is going to be okay.” I auditioned for the part and thought, “Well, now I can sit on the couch and say ‘did you know I auditioned twice?'” But then I got the part relatively quickly.
GR: That’s so great. You said you were a fan of the sandman When you were younger. How did you discover the comics?
Kingsley: I have all the comics, but now they are my own copies, before they belonged to my brother. My older brother Ed was a big fan when he was 15 or 16 so I would have been nine or 10 just aware of this really cool underground obsession, but I didn’t really understand them because I didn’t understand that comic books could be anything other than superheroes. As a nine-year-old, that’s what your basic understanding of comics is: It’s generally white guys in capes that save the day. That’s what you expect. So I was introduced to this much stranger, darker world. He kept me away from the darkest bits, but the philosophical element of it and the idea of someone in charge of your sleeping life fascinated me, because I slept terribly as a child.
GR: Was that because of nightmares or were you just unable to sleep?
Kingsley: I just didn’t sleep. I lay for hours at a time. So at first I thought this comic was about a guy who poured sand in your eyes to make you sleep, and then I discovered it was something much deeper than that.
GR: How did it feel when you got on the set and saw the scenes from the comics in real life?
Kingsley: It was crazy. The scale of the show was unimaginable. I only got to see a fraction of it, but what I did get to see was this incredible, rich world being made by this incredibly talented and passionate team. Jon Steele, who was the production designer, created these beautiful pub sets, which always had the same soul in the first pub. In that episode, you don’t feel like you’re in a different room every time, you have to feel like it’s the same building. And it really did.
The team would build one set – one pub – that we shot in, and then next door they had the same pub, but it was for the next century. We’ll shoot it a few days later. Then they take the old apart and build it for the next century. It was amazing. There was a day when I walked into this medieval pub with goats and dogs, and fires and food, and more people than I’d seen in about a year and a half, because it was in the midst of the international collapse, and I thought, “God, this is the dream.”
GR: How would you describe your character Hobb and his journey?
Kingsley: He definitely has a journey. He is someone who lives because there is still life to live. In particular, he makes one unforgivable decision: get into the slave trade. That was something we all struggled with in terms of writing and whether we can really portray something that gloomy by a character and still be willing to spend time with him. In the end, we all agreed that we wouldn’t shy away from that because he can’t get out of it. In a way, if you rewrite the comics, he gets out.
So we have to let him make the horrible, unforgivable decision to go into the slave trade and then live with it forever. And of course he doesn’t have to live with it to the 1,000,000th of a percent that the people who were enslaved had to live with it, but he does have to live with his conscience. That was one of the sides of the character that I had a hard time having a relationship with and sympathizing with, but I had to. It’s not my job to pass judgment on the character I play, I have to play him the way you see him, and our job as an audience is to see him go: “Do I deserve another shot at life ? Can he at least change the world for the better from now on?” Those are the questions he asks himself every 100 years. I found that really fascinating to deal with, as an actor.
GR: While dealing with that moral dilemma, what was your process of getting in and out of your character? How do you avoid taking that heaviness home with you?
Kingsley: I had to remind myself that Hob knows everything until that day, and nothing after. Although he is immortal, he is not prophetic. So he decides to stay alive. That’s why every century he is so excited to see Dream, because he thinks “This has happened, that has happened, this has happened” when he has no idea if Dream has the advantage of moving forward, ahead or behind. to watch. Hob sucks up everything, and his thirst for the world was something I could take in every day. If he’s bottomed out, that’s enough to keep him from quitting. He thinks, “There’s so much to live for, even though I’ve got nothing but the clothes I’m wearing, and I’m starving to the bone. There is always a chance that tomorrow will be different. There is always the security that tomorrow will be different.” I love that.
GR: That seems like a good description of the show’s overall takeaway.
Kingsley: Absolute. Everyone has the opportunity to change in every episode of the show and in every edition of graphic novels. Everyone learns and changes, and so does Dream. Everyone has something to learn. The ability to change is central to this show.
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