Jenna Coleman, David Thewlis and many more join cast of Netflix’s The Sandman

Howell-Baptiste is set to play the key role of Death – sister to Tom Sturridge’s lead character Dream – while Coleman will play Johanna Constantine, whose character has been expanded from Gaiman’s original graphic novel.

“[Death was] significantly harder to cast than you might imagine (well, than I imagined, anyway),” Gaiman wrote in an accompanying blog post.

“Hundreds of talented women from all around the planet auditioned, and they were brilliant, and none of them were right. Someone who could speak the truth to Dream, on the one hand, but also be the person you'd want to meet when your life was done on the other.

“And then we saw Kirby Howell-Baptiste's (she/her) audition and we knew we had our Death.”

Alongside Howell-Baptiste, Gaiman revealed the casting of Dream’s other siblings Desire and Despair (played by Mason Alexander Park and Donna Preston), as well as characters like John Dee (Harry Potter’s David Thewlis), Ethel Cripps (Niamh Walsh and Joely Richardson in different eras), Rose Walker (Kyo Ra), Lyta Hall (Razane Jammal), Unity Kinkaid (Sandra James Young), Gilbert (Stephen Fry) and trusted talking Raven Matthew (voiced by Patton Oswalt).

But perhaps one of the most striking castings for Doctor Who fans will be former series companion Jenna Coleman, who previously collaborated with Gaiman on 2013 episode Nightmare in Silver. In this series, her character is described as a “haunted exorcist and Occult Adventuress for Hire,” and her extended role is one of the biggest departures from the source material.

“This Sandman character became so popular that she even had her own spin-off series,” Gaiman wrote.

“I created her to fill the role that John Constantine does in the past. When we broke down the first season, given that we knew that we would be encountering Johanna in the past, we wondered what would happen if we met a version of her in the present as well.

“We tried it and the script was sparkier, feistier, and in some ways even more fun. So having written her, we just had to cast her. Jenna Coleman (she/her) gave us the Johanna of our dreams – tough, brilliant, tricky, haunted and probably doomed.”

Altogether, this is looking like a pretty stacked cast set to keep IMDB (or RadioTimes.com “meet the cast” articles) in business once The Sandman finally debuts. And who knows? We wouldn’t put it past Gaiman to sneak in a few more massive cast announcements between now and then…

The Sandman is currently filming. Want something else to watch in the meantime? Check out our dedicated Fantasy page or our full TV Guide.