Yesterday, Comicbook.com shared an exclusive audio clip from The Sandman’s new act. Titled “Death reprimands Morpheus for taking his bad mood out on Delirium”, it features Kat Dennings and James McAvoy voicing their respective characters. You can listen to this audio and others from Audible’s previous instalments in our Audio Vault. Alternatively, simply click the play button below.
Category: The Sandman
Audible’s The Sandman Act III is out now!
At last, the third part of Audible’s ongoing adaptation of The Sandman has arrived! Since 2020, Kat has been lending her voice to Neil Gaiman’s Death of the Endless in the audio series, dramatised and directed by Dirk Maggs. Out of all released acts, the latest might be the one counting more participations from our own Miss Dennings. Watch the trailer below and get to listening here.
You can find the voice of Kat as Death of the Endless in the following episodes:
- Episode 1: The Song of Orpheus
- Episode 6: Brief Lives Part 3
- Episode 9: Brief Lives Part 6
- Episode 11: Brief Lives Part 8
- Episode 17: World’s End – The Golden Boy
- Episode 18: World’s End – Cerements
The Sandman: Act II at the 2022 Audie Awards finalists
The Audio Publishers Association has announced the 2022 Audie Awards finalists, recognizing excellence in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment. Audible’s The Sandman: Act II has made it to the list of finalists for the Fantasy section:
- The Sandman: Act II, Neil Gaiman & Dirk Maggs, narrated by Neil Gaiman, James McAvoy, Emma Corrin, Brian Cox, Kat Dennings, John Lithgow, Bill Nighy, Regé-Jean Page, and a full cast (Audible Originals)
- The Witch’s Heart, Genevieve Gornichec, narrated by Jayne Entwistle (Penguin Random House Audio)
- Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower, Tamsyn Muir, narrated by Moira Quirk (Recorded Books)
- Rhythm of War, Brandon Sanderson, narrated by Michael Kramer & Kate Reading (Macmillan Audio)
- The Jasmine Throne, Tasha Suri, narrated by Shiromi Arserio (Hachette Audio)
Our warmest congratulations to Kat and company, Mr. Gaiman, Mr. Maggs and every crewmember who went above and beyond for this second installment of The Sandman.
The winners will be announced at a virtual awards ceremony on March 4, 2022. You can read the complete list for all genres over at Audio Publishers Association.
The Sandman: In the Booth with Kat Dennings
Kat’s episode of In The Booth was finally shared by Audible today, after focusing on other cast members for The Sandman Act II, as well as creator and narrator Neil Gaiman and producer Dirk Maggs. The video presents a Q&A regarding Kat’s involvement in the audio drama and her role as Death of the Endless. Kat filmed her portion of the video on August 14.
How WandaVision’s Kat Dennings Became Death in Audible’s Adaptation
Kat Dennings, who plays Darcy in the MCU, became the voice of Death in The Sandman’s Audible adaptation thanks to her friendship with Neil Gaiman.
Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe recognize Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, who made her debut in the Thor films and returned for the WandaVision series on Disney+. However, in the Audible adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, she plays a very different beloved character, and she has a surprising story about how she came to the role.
In a video posted on Audible’s official Twitter, Dennings and Gaiman both shared their memories of striking up a friendship online following Dennings’ 2011 tweet about studying lines while listening to Gaiman read his book Coraline. “Oh man, the story of meeting Neil Gaiman is so magical,” said Dennings. “And I think I just tweeted out to him about listening to him talk and memorizing lines and eating sushi, something like that. And he answered! And it was like, what? What what what?”
Dennings went on to say that the exchange sparked “what is now a very long, amazing friendship,” which Gaiman confirmed, taking up the story from his own perspective. “We appeared to become friends,” he said, “in that, if I was in Los Angeles, I would always have dinner with — there would be three or four people I would always have dinner with, and Kat was always one of my friends at that table.”
As for joining The Sandman Audible project, Dennings mused, “I think we’d always been looking for a way to work together, ever since. And this is it!”
“And for Death I just figured she’d be great,” said Gaiman. “It was one of those things where I sent her an email saying, ‘Do you want to do this?’ …Got back lots of exclamation marks and happy faces and hearts.”
Dennings added, “Did not ask for any more details: The answer is yes, obviously.”
The character of Death of the Endless, older sister of Dream, will soon be appearing in live action in Netflix’s adaptation of The Sandman comics, portrayed by Kirby Howell-Baptiste. Denning’s voice as Death can be heard in The Sandman: Act II, directed by Dirk Maggs, now available on Audible with subscriber access here. She has also expressed her willingness to reprise the role of Darcy for the MCU, either in a WandaVision spinoff or another kind of project.
Written by Mira Jacobs for Comic Book Resources, article published on October 7
How Kat Dennings embodies Death for Audible’s The Sandman audiobook
The actress explains how she brings one of Neil Gaiman’s signature characters to life in audio form.
This past weekend, Netflix finally unveiled the first footage from its upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s comic The Sandman. Although the footage did not include a look at Death, viewers of Netflix’s TUDUM event saw actress Kirby Howell-Baptiste speak about her portrayal of the character.
Death is one of the signature figures of The Sandman (so much so that she got a couple solo graphic novels in her own right after the original series concluded) and must be an integral part of any adaptation of the comic created by Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg. While Howell-Baptiste takes on the signature silver ankh for the TV version, Kat Dennings has been voicing Death on Audible’s audiobook adaptation, which just released Act II last week. Dennings’ journey to playing the embodiment of mortality began with her brother showing her The Sandman as she was growing up, but really got in motion when she befriended Gaiman on Twitter years ago.
“We became Twitter friends through the miracle of the internet,” Dennings tells EW. “He’d always said, ‘I hope we can work together,’ and I would be like, ‘uh, me too!’ So one day he just texted and asked, ‘would you like to be the voice of Death? We’re making Sandman as an Audible original.’ She was always my favorite character, I could not believe it and agreed without any further thought. But I’ve since felt that pressure on my shoulders since we all love her so much. It’s a huge honor.”
From Gaiman’s point of view, Dennings could bring the cheeriness that makes Death so unique from pretty much every other depiction of the Grim Reaper.
“By that point I known Kat for about seven years,” Gaiman says. “I love a lot of things about her, including her voice and the range that she has, but most of all I loved the way that talking to her always cheers me up. One of the things I wanted in Death is a lightness. She has to be able to speak truth to Dream, she has to be instantly recognizable (especially in an audio context), and she has to be somebody that you’d just like to hang out with. And I thought, well, Kat actually has all of those, plus I knew she’s a fan.”
Death first appeared in The Sandman #8, an early chapter titled “The Sound of Her Wings.” Up until that point, protagonist Dream (also known as Morpheus) had been doing some pretty standard fantasy-quest stuff, reclaiming his relics of power from various corners of the universe after escaping a decades-long imprisonment. Having finished his quest, Morpheus feels a little morose. It’s then that his big sister comes in to remind him what life is all about (she would know, being the master of its opposite).
“I really enjoyed recording that scene,” Dennings says. “The cool thing about Death is her ‘job’ really goes against her adorable bubbly personality. Her storylines are obviously very serious and pretty dark, but her personality and attitude keeps it somewhat cheerful. And I think that’s something people really love about her. ‘Sound of Her Wings’ is sort of her most memorable chapter, even though it’s her first. All of the famous Death quotes kind of come from that. She sits down next to Dream and gets mad at him, they have this cute sibling argument. That was really fun, but the weight of that recording was not lost on me in the moment because I knew how much was riding on it for fans of the graphic novel.”
Act II was recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, where the world of back-to-back nightshoots had been replaced by one of remote video recordings. But Gaiman thinks Dennings’ performance has only improved in the second installment.
“I thought she was terrific in Act I, but it felt like she was figuring it all out. She was finding the character,” Gaiman says. “In Act II, she’s found the character. She knows exactly what she’s doing; we’re in the middle of this amazing family dinner and she keeps it all going and you believe her. When I created the character of Death, I loved the idea of somebody who, when they say, ‘you know, you really should have looked both ways before you crossed that street,’ you believe them. You get both regret and joy and all of those emotions.”
For her part, Dennings has also gotten used to embodying a character purely through her voice. Her own process doesn’t change much — especially since, by her own admission, she already dresses in black pretty much every day anyway.
“It’s more similar than you would think, for me anyway,” Dennings says. “While I’m doing these, if I don’t act them out the way I sort of would in a visual medium, it doesn’t come across quite right for me. I like to really get into it. It’s almost easier because I don’t have to think about what I look like and all that stuff, but you find yourself thinking about your voice. You never really do when you’re acting in front of a camera. I have a very weird voice and a very like odd way of talking. And I really become very conscious of that while we do these things. So I do try to control my voice a little bit more, which is an interesting exercise. You know, you can pick your voice up or down…you know, the options are endless.”
As endless, perhaps, as Death and Dream and the rest of their immortal siblings.
The Sandman: Act II is now available to listen on Audible.
Written by Christian Holub for Entertainment Weekly, article published on September 28
Gallery update: The Sandman Act II behind-the-scenes
We have added over 120 screencaps of Kat’s bit in the behind-the-scenes look at The Sandman Act II.
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Other Projects The Sandman (2020-2021) Act II Behind-the-scenes Feature Screencaps
James McAvoy talks Kat Dennings
Interviewed by Daryl Austin of Newsweek for an article published to the website today, James McAvoy talked of The Sandman, Neil Gaiman’s dark magic, Dirk Maggs’s magistral sound design and the unexpected casting choice that was our Miss Dennings.
And while Morpheus doesn’t always get along with the other members of The Endless, McAvoy explained that Dream and Death are particularly close. “They get along very, very well,” he said. Death is played by Dennings, someone McAvoy said was unexpected in the role. “When you think of Death, you don’t think of Kat with her brilliant throwaway delivery,” he explained, “but she nailed it and once you hear her, you know how perfect for the part she is.” He said Dennings portraying Death is just another example of the brilliantly unexpected world Gaiman and Maggs created for the audio adaptation of the series.
You may read the complete interview with James McAvoy here.
Kat on New York Live
Yesterday, Kat Dennings talked with Sara Gore of NBC’s New York Live about Act II of the hit audible original series, The Sandman but also Dollface season 2, which Kat predicts might premiere before the year is done.
The Sandman Act II behind-the-scenes
Co-executive producers Neil Gaiman and Dirk Maggs, Kat Dennings (voice of Death) and composer James Hannigan discuss the making of ‘The Sandman: Act II,’ only on Audible.