Exclusive: The Sandman's Ferdinand Kingsley on Playing Hob Through the Centuries, Working with Sturridge, Doctor Who, & More

***Note that the following interview contains slight spoilers for episode six.***

Ferdinand KingsleyRecently, Netflix premiered the highly-anticipated series The Sandman, based on the comics written by Neil Gaiman of the same name. The series follows the Sandman, aka Dream, who rules the Dreaming realm. When Dream is captured for a century, it not only affects his world, but the waking world as well. Dream must go on a quest to return what was stolen from him and repair the two worlds.

While visiting with his sister, Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), in 1389, they overhear a man in the tavern, Hob Gadling (Ferdinand Kingsley), declare that he will never die, because he chooses not to. Intrigued, Death grants him immortality. Dream tells Hob to meet him in one hundred years. Every century the two men meet in a pub to discuss what Hob continues to live for.

Kingsley recently talked to SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview about his time working on the series.

The actor was already familiar with the comic series when he took on the role. “I've got an older brother who is a huge fan, was a huge Sandman fan when he was a teenager, when we were growing up. He's six years older than me, so from when I was about nine or ten onwards, it was sort of always around,” Kingsley told the site.

Ferdinand KingsleyHe knew right away he wanted the part. “I remember the first email I sent back to my agents when they sent through the material was, ‘Oh, my God, they're finally making Sandman. I hope this is good,’ and then it clearly was,” said the actor. “The nature of it was, of course, very secretive, but I saw Hob's name and knew who he was, so that was the immediate pull, and the fact, of course, that Neil had not only given it his blessing, but was actively involved. It gives you a lot of reassurance, because there's always the fear that something's being made, because someone's bought the intellectual property and has shut everyone out of it…It clearly wasn't going to be that.”

Which version of the character did he like playing the best? “I think it was really interesting to play the 1689 version of Hob who's thought he had it all and then has lost it all,” said Kingsley. “I have a lot of compassion for that century of Hob's existence, because he has had to sort of learn the consequences of his hubris. He hasn't yet made the awful decision to get involved in the slave trade, which is a huge discussion in itself and required a lot of us wrestling with it and going, ‘We can't shy away from the fact that he's actively chosen to participate in this, and we don't need to make a character for whom all is forgiven.’ It's not as simple as that with Hob. He has to spend the rest of his life in some way grappling with the consequences of his actions, and in a way that is his Hell. He can never escape that, because he's chosen to stick around and face the consequences of what he's done.”

“I think in terms of the journey within a scene,” added the actor, “Hob at rock bottom is fascinating. There was the page I always went back to when I needed to sort of root myself, ground myself in the character, because when he says, ‘Death is a mug's game; I've got so much to live for,’ it’s kind of his calling card…He's literally the eternal optimist. He's the life force in physical form. So, knowing potential eternal pain is also seen in that potential recovery and adventure and redemption.”

The actor also talked a bit about his time with star Sturridge, for whom he had nothing but praise, calling him “refreshing” to work with. “[W]e were one of the last episodes to shoot, or the end of what had been a really, really long and grueling shoot in the midst of the pandemic," explained Kingsley. "Tom was not in any way jaded and wasn't going, ‘I can't wait for us to wrap so I can have a rest.’ He said to me on the first day, ‘If we need to get up at four in the morning to come in and rehearse something before we shoot it, then I'll do that. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to be here.’ I think that attitude from the number one on the call sheet filters down through the show…just as you could poison a show by having someone at number one who didn't want to be there or who had a bad attitude. Tom was the opposite, and he's got a wonderful attitude. He's a really, really classy actor who also sort of took away any sense of hierarchy.”

Working on the series Kingsley was also able to reconnect with costar Jenna Coleman as Lady Johanna Constantine for a scene, whom he worked with prior on Victoria. “To end every take of the stunt with Jenna having a dagger at my throat was brilliant, because Jenna and I are reasonably old friends now, so it was always fun to come out of a sweaty few seconds to be eye to eye with her trying not to make each other, well, trying to make each other laugh.”

Before the interview was over, SciFi Vision was able to also ask the actor about his time spent on Doctor Who. “It was fabulous,” said Kingsley. “It was such a blast…Also, just that whole universe is so rich and bonkers and Doctor Who was something I'd hoped to be able to be in for a long time, and to do one that was written by Mark Gatiss as well was a blast.”

For more from Kingsley, from working the stunt scenes, to what part of his character’s story he hopes to see if there is a season two, to working with Peter Capaldi on Doctor Who, and more, be sure to read the complete transcript below, and stream The Sandman, now available on Netflix.


SCIFI VISION:   I very much enjoyed the show. I watched all of them.

FERDINAND KINGSLEY:  
You’ve seen more than I have then already. [laughs]

[laughs] Were you familiar at all with the source material when you first started working on the series?


FERDINAND KINGSLEY:  Yeah, I was very familiar. I've got an older brother who is a huge fan, was a huge Sandman fan when he was a teenager, when we were growing up. He's six years older than me, so from when I was about nine or ten onwards, it was sort of always around. He had posters. [He was a] very emotional teenager. [He had] poetry books that he'd scrawled all over the front of and written dedications to various members of the Endless. So, it was always there. I didn't really encounter it as a sort of written work, if you know what I mean, until I was a little bit older. I just liked the pictures. I thought it was cool. Obviously, he didn't let me see all the pictures when I was little, but it felt like something kind of exotic and exciting and mythical and maybe a bit taboo, something that I shouldn't have been able to [see that] my older brother was letting me read. So, yeah, I was very, very familiar. So, when I said to him that I was playing Hob, he immediately reeled off his toast from “Season of Mists” to me, which he had written on the back of his guitar.

Why did you decide to do it? Was that a big part of it?

I mean, I decided to do it, because first and foremost, they let me. It's as simple as that. I remember the first email I sent back to my agents when they sent through the material was, “Oh, my God, they're finally making Sandman. I hope this is good,” and then it clearly was. The nature of it was, of course, very secretive, but I saw Hob's name and knew who he was, so that was the immediate pull, and the fact, of course, that Neil had not only given it his blessing, but was actively involved. It gives you a lot of reassurance, because there's always the fear that something's being made, because someone's bought the intellectual property and has shut everyone out of it and said, “Right, I'm making some God-awful adaptation.” It clearly wasn't going to be that, and I could tell from the limited sides that I saw at the beginning, the pages of the script that I was sent initially. I was like, “Okay, this is pretty much word for word the dialogue from the comics. I think we're going to be okay here.”

You made me wonder, if you’ve seen part of it but not all of it, is there a certain part that you're looking forward to seeing come to life in particular?

I mean, I'm dreading the “24 Hour Diner,” of course. Everyone on set who had not long finished filming it was it was a little traumatized.

Yeah, it was dark.

Yeah, I bet it was. When we got to “The Sound of Her Wings” and “Men of Good Fortune,” there was this sort of sense of bit of a sense of the calm after the storm. If you know what I mean, they're very emotional episodes in their own way. There's a sort of soothing texture to them, because they're a different sort of side of the philosophy of The Sandman. So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing those.

Which - they're not exactly versions, but which age of your character did you like playing the most?

I should have thought about this before. I don't know, because I think it was really interesting to play the 1689 version of Hob who's thought he had it all and then has lost it all. I have a lot of compassion for that century of Hob's existence, because he has had to sort of learn the consequences of his hubris. He hasn't yet made the awful decision to get involved in the slave trade, which is a huge discussion in itself and required a lot of us wrestling with it and going, “We can't shy away from the fact that he's actively chosen to participate in this, and we don't need to make a character for whom all is forgiven.” It's not as simple as that with Hob. He has to spend the rest of his life in some way grappling with the consequences of his actions, and in a way that is his Hell. He can never escape that, because he's chosen to stick around and face the consequences of what he's done. But I think in terms of the journey within a scene, Hob at rock bottom is fascinating. There was the page I always went back to when I needed to sort of root myself, ground myself in the character, because when he says, “Death is a mug's game; I've got so much to live for,” it’s kind of his calling card. I'm probably going to end up saying this a lot by accident, but I've just made it up right this second, so I'm going to use it. He's literally the eternal optimist. He's the life force in physical form. So, knowing potential eternal pain is also seen in that potential recovery and adventure and redemption. So, I think that version was the one that was easiest to sort of go into the depths of.

I was just going to ask what the easiest and most difficult parts were to connect to. So, if that was the easiest one, what was the most difficult part?

For me, it's the 1789 Hob who's found money again, but through the most hideous means. I found that very difficult to justify, and my job as an actor isn't to justify or to explain, it's to just present the person who he is, warts and all, or, you know, heavily make up covered warts and all. That and then the century following it were emotionally quite difficult, because in 1889, he's obviously left that behind, but he's still living with the direct consequences of his actions now. Of course, him living with it pales in significance compared with the people who have actually been enslaved, but his conscience is weighing on him and his ability or inability to say, “I have done the most reprehensible things to put money in my pocket.” Yeah, so those two, I think.

Now, I haven't read the comics yet, although after watching the series, I want to go read it. I’m assuming that probably all of the character wasn't in the show, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. It was there a part that wasn't in there that you would have liked to have seen of Hob?

Ferdinand Kingsley
Of Hob, no. He's all in there from that volume. Almost every word is there. In fact, we had to add an extra scene, because, of course, it's not 1989 now, and in the comics, 1989 is when they reunite. So, Dream and Hob really met in the 80s, and we had to have Dream missing their meeting on accounting being imprisoned. So, actually, if anything, there's more, but there's plenty more of him to come if we get the good fortune to carry on telling these stories. There's a lot more of Hob, because he's essentially the only friend that Dream ever has, and that's a great honor.

What is it then that you hope they put in? Is there a certain thing you really to see in the future, if there are, hopefully, more seasons?

Yeah, I mean, I am really excited by the prospect of doing “Hob's Leviathan,” which is an entire issue set at sea on, well, it's not Hob's ship, but it's a ship that Hob's sailing on, and it's a really beautiful, hopefully episode, if we're lucky.

You have a little stunt scene when you were fighting Lady Johanna’s men. How was that for you? Did you enjoy that?

Yeah, I loved it. The stunt guys were amazing. The stunt guys were fantastic. There's great skill in extraordinarily strong people making weak people like me look extraordinarily strong. [laughs] The skill was all theirs in me throwing a quite feeble attack and them flying fifteen feet across the room, but it was fantastic. We had crockery that could shatter when I smashed it over their heads, and they're brilliant. Every take he's going, “Go on and hit me with it over the head harder,” and every time I was thinking, “Please don't let this be a real glass. Please don't say they've made a mistake and put a real tankard in, and I'm going to knock him out.” But it was great. Then, to end every take of the stunt with Jenna having a dagger at my throat was brilliant, because Jenna and I are reasonably old friends now, so it was always fun to come out of a sweaty few seconds to be eye to eye with her trying not to make each other, well, trying to make each other laugh.

Yeah, I was going to say, it reunited with you with Jenna. What was it like working with Tom?

It was fab. Tom, he loves the work. He's there to do hard work. I wasn't expecting anything otherwise, but it's just really refreshing, because we were one of the last episodes to shoot, or the end of what had been a really, really long and grueling shoot in the midst of the pandemic. Tom was not in any way jaded and wasn't going, “I can't wait for us to wrap so I can have a rest.” He said to me on the first day, “If we need to get up at four in the morning to come in and rehearse something before we shoot it, then I'll do that. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to be here.” I think that attitude from the number one on the call sheet filters down through the show, and it's really refreshing, just as you could poison a show by having someone at number one who didn't want to be there or who had a bad attitude. Tom was the opposite, and he's got a wonderful attitude. He's a really, really classy actor who also sort of took away any sense of hierarchy. Between takes we'd just sit and chat and work out who we knew, who we were friends with, who we hated. Yeah, he's just a real goodie, and if you're going to have to do your entire part with basically one actor, I could have done a lot worse there.

I think we're about out of time, but I'm just going to ask you really quick and sneak one in that isn't Sandman. What was it like working on Doctor Who? Because that's kind of my thing.

Oh, it was fabulous. It was such a blast. It was such a great episode. It was one of Peters very last ones, that he announced he was leaving while we were shooting it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so I think it was about day two of my shoot when it came out that Peter was leaving, and he's not dissimilar to Tom in as far as he's been doing it for so long and probably was utterly exhausted but was first in last out, so generous with everyone, took the job seriously, but not himself. Also, just that whole universe is so rich and bonkers and Doctor Who was something I'd hoped to be able to be in for a long time, and to do one that was written by Mark Gatiss as well was a blast.

Latest Articles