Warning: mild spoilers ahead.
The sixth episode of The Sandman, titled “The Sound of Her Wings,” has been lauded for its emotional depth and faithfulness to Neil Gaiman’s comic.
But there were some things that had to be adapted for the screen, as well as many funny and surprising anecdotes from the set. Gaiman, showrunner Allan Heinberg, executive producer David Goyer and actors Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Death) and Ferdinand Kingsley (Hob Gadling) recently got together for a Scener watch party to chat with Mark Hamill (Merv Pumpkinhead) about making the emotional episode.
Below are 12 fun facts from “The Sound of Her Wings.”
While Episode 6 is a largely faithful adaptation of Gaiman’s “The Sound of Her Wings” and “Men of Good Fortune” (as well as some additional Death backstory from “Winter’s Edge”), the biggest change was shifting the setting of the Death arc from New York City to London. Part of the reason was the COVID restrictions during production but another was the storytelling itself.
“Walking through New York might’ve been difficult during the pandemic,” Gaiman explained, as the show is set in 2022. “London is where we could go, and it’s the same story everywhere.”
“I was sad at first because it’s so iconic, being in [New York’s] Washington Square Park,” said Heinberg. “But it felt so redemptive for Dream. London treated Dream so poorly in the first episode and this felt so loving.”
Episode 6 was the last one filmed because of weather issues. “In England, you only have daylight starting in April and May,” Heinberg said of the episode, which was largely shot outside during the day. “We were going to start shooting in November, so it gave us time to refine Episode 6.”
Actor Kirby Howell-Baptiste lost her voice the day before filming. She never had laryngitis before but the excitement and stress of the role led to her losing her voice.
“I couldn’t even do rehearsal the day before,” she recalled. “I could barely speak and it was so raspy. I was just pushing [my voice], and it was non-stop tea. But I liked the rasp!”
After their conversation on the park bench, Death and Dream go for a walk, passing by a fruit vendor. Death takes some small bites from an apple, but, during reshoots, those small bites added up. “Oh, my goodness! I ate so many apples that day, I can’t tell you,” Howell-Baptiste recalled, laughing.
According to Heinberg, the friendly joshing between siblings Death and Dream as they’re walking next to the canal is the first time Dream is physically touched by anyone in the series.
The first death, featuring an elderly violinist, was the most emotional for Gaiman, who cried after watching a rough cut, even though he wrote it three decades ago. Howell-Baptiste also said it was the most emotional sequence for her to film.
The second death, where a man named Sam drowns, did not appear in the original comic and was invented for the show. Sam wanting more time to share his passwords with his wife was a modern-day scenario and came from a real-life experience from the episode’s writer, Lauren Bello.
Howell-Baptiste wasn’t sure the infant death scene would make the cut. Heinberg explained they cut the mother’s scream, which is in the comic, from the show because it was “too much to bear.”
“The idea of two people meeting in a pub every 100 years might well have been the oldest story idea I ever had,” Gaiman reveals. “I remember being literally at school and having this idea of two people meeting every century. And not knowing what it was, not knowing what to do with it, not knowing where it went or who the people were… but [thinking] ‘This is a real idea, and I think it’s something.’”
Decades later, “Men of Good Fortune” would find itself on page and then screen.
Gaiman, ever a stickler for detail, wishes one thing was fixed in the scene set in 1389. “I wish [I could] point out to whoever was in charge of props that nobody was going to have clay pipes for another 300 years,” he said.
Kingsley reveals the first time he shaved in two years was for the 1489 scene. He hadn’t shaved during the pandemic.
In the comic, Gaiman wrote the Shakespeare/Marlowe/Dream dialogue set in 1589 in iambic pentameter.
In an early cut of the 1989 sequence, the song that’s playing as Hob pulls up in his sports car is Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” That song was released in 1985, so Heinberg switched it to the Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy,” which topped the UK singles charts in 1989.
The bartender that Hob Gadling talks to in 1989 is played by actor Ian McNeice. McNeice was formerly married to actor Kate Nicholls. Nicholls is Tom Sturridge’s aunt, but he and McNeice sadly didn’t share any scenes together (as Dream was still imprisoned in 1989, forcing him to miss his meeting with Hob).
In the very last scene, Desire (Mason Alexander Park) is seen in their lair summoning their sister, Despair (Donna Preston). The beaked mask seen on the wall represents the mask Dream wears. Fans of the series have a chance to win a replica of that very mask. Find details on how to enter the giveaway here.
The Sandman is currently streaming.
