Neil Gaiman Defends Casting Kirby Howell-Baptiste & Mason Alexander Park In Key Roles in Netflix's 'Sandman'

Neil Gaiman is opening up after seeing the backlash over the cast of Netflix’s Sandman, which is based of his comic book series of the same name.

The author spoke directly to his fans on social media and called out those who had been complaining about the casting of non-binary and Black actors in the roles.

Click inside to read what he said about the backlash…

The newly released cast features Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death and Mason Alexander Park as Desire, who were the subject of the most of the backlash.

In the comics, Death is depicted as white in the comics, and others also had issues with the casting of Mason, who is a non-binary actor, as Desire, who although is written as non-binary in the source material, some fans didn’t pick up on that.

One fan who protested against the castings said that Neil “doesn’t give a f***” about standing up for his original work, and accused him of “selling out”.

“I give all the f***s about the work,” Neil tweeted back, adding that he’s spent “30 years successfully battling bad movies of ‘Sandman’.”

“I give zero f***s about people who don’t understand/haven’t read ‘Sandman’ whining about non-binary Desire or that Death isn’t white enough.

He also fiercely defended casting Kirby in the role of Death, who many argued is a white woman in the comic series. Neil agreed, but he also pointed out that Death was white, and black, and a bird, and an alien, all at once.

“Hundreds of talented women from all around the planet auditioned, and they were brilliant, and none of them were right,” Neil added in a tweeted. “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.”

You can meet the full cast of Sandman HERE!