Tilda Swinton may be many readers' choice for the manipulative, androgynous Desire, but that doesn't mean she should be ruled out of the running for the lead role. The gender of the Endless is a slightly complex thing in that they are anthropomorphic personifications of basic human needs and characteristics, there is nothing inherently male about the concept of destiny or female about death. Nevertheless, for all that their appearances can change greatly, aside from Desire they always remain the same gender. This is not, then, a suggestion that the Sandman movie feature a female Dream, but that it features a female actor playing a male Dream. This wouldn't be the first time that Swinton has played a male character. After a few instances in stage performance, she appeared as Orlando in the film of the Virginia Woolf novel. More recently, Swinton surprised many as an actress much better known for independent features by taking a role in the comic book adaptation Constantine in which she played Gabriel, an angel of indeterminate gender (or none at all). Despite only appearing in a couple of scenes, Swinton stole the whole movie and followed it up with another mainstream villain role as Narnia's White Witch. Like Cumberbatch's Islington, Gabriel is an angel of poise, elegance and an individual morality separate from humanity. Swinton would bring all of this to the role. That she dominates every scene she is in would be ideal for Dream. However, having a woman assuming the maleness of the part, as Swinton has in the past, would also give an extra layer of distance between Dream and the regular human cast. It would add to the illusion that this humanoid persona is being worn by someone who is performing it, rather than a representation of Dream's real self. As a Vertigo comic character Constantine, of course, exists in Dream's world, featuring as a lead character in Preludes and Nocturnes. However, a Sandman movie would not involve the world of the Constantine movie and probably not even the character so as to avoid confusion. Besides, Batman is also a character in Sandman and that shouldn't stop Murphy getting the part.
