PLAGUE ROLE A ‘DREAM’
McAvoy does Gaiman part during lockdown
James McAvoy is living the dream.
Leading the star-studded audiobook adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman,” the BAFTA winner plays the immortal Dream. After decades of being held captive by an occult leader, Dream — who both oversees the realm of dreams and personifies fantasy — works to rebuild his fallen kingdom.
“Working on something that Neil has done, whether that be his new stuff or his back catalog, is just so exciting to me,” McAvoy, 41, told the Daily News. “He writes such strange and fantastical worlds. And I loved being a part of those worlds.”
Prior to his work on “The Sandman” adaptation, written and directed by Dirk Maggs, McAvoy also starred in Maggs’ 2013 radio drama, “Neverwhere,” an adaptation of Gaiman’s novel of the same name.
“There’s no real drawbacks for this format. It’s just, you know, there’s different opportunities,” McAvoy explained. “If you come in expecting special effects and world creation in the same way that ‘American Gods’ was done or something, you’re not going to get it. … It’s like reading a book versus watching a movie, you know, same thing. You have to listen and pay much more attention and be engaged.”
But, the “Split” star notes, “That’s not a bad thing. That also means that … one person’s world of Dream or the realm of Dream might be incredibly different [from another].”
It doesn’t hurt that the Scotsman is a proponent of audiobooks, which he says have become “indispensable” given his hectic schedule.
“I can go through a whole day of housework just listening to audiobooks,” he said.
McAvoy noted he recorded the voice of Dream at home amid coronavirus lockdown “in my spare bedroom with a makeshift … audio studio.”
“You got neighbors, you got people living in the flat above me. We just moved. … The woman who lives above me, she’s making noise … and the person in the flat below is making noise. You got the kids running around and all that,” he told The News of working remotely. “But we had to get it done.”
Originally, McAvoy had hoped to record after wrapping up his starring role in “Cyrano de Bergerac.”
“My voice was just taking a beating every night. So I said, ‘Let’s do it after the play is finished,’ then of course the play had finished, they announced the lockdown,” McAvoy explained.
“So what was really nice was by the time I came along … I was the last actor to the table. So they basically had every episode cut and edited with all the other actors doing their bit, so I could literally listen to the entire season and then come in and just do my bit.”
Dream/Morpheus/ Oneiros is hardly the actor’s first brush with fantastical characters. Among his best known roles is that of the young telepathic genius Charles Xavier in 2011’s “XMen: First Class”; 2014’s “Days of Future Past”; 2016’s “Apocalypse,” and last year’s “Dark Phoenix.”
If he had to choose whose powers to pick, McAvoy’s pretty certain he’d go with Professor X.
“I still think I’d probably pick Charles’ powers only because, well, I liked his powers more, but I feel like Dream’s powers are so messy. … He doesn’t get any joy [being] immortal. Like, I like being a human,” McAvoy said. “I enjoy the human experience. I don’t think I would enjoy the experience of Dream and what he has to do, the duty he has to perform and that is incumbent upon him. There’s a lot of responsibility there. Don’t get me wrong, the mix with Charles is rough, but I think it would be more fun.”
“The Sandman” is available on Audible on Wednesday.