The Sandman’s Boyd Holbrook Wants To Play DC’s Best Villain
Boyd Holbrook is the breakout character of Netflix's Sandman series, and he has his eyes on one of the great DC villains of all time.
Boyd Holbrook is currently receiving excellent reviews for his performance as the Corinthian in Netflix’s Sandman series, and it seems he may have some designs on an even more famous DC comic book villain. According to a recent interview with Men’s Health, the actor revealed he was interested in potentially playing the Joker, saying that the character was “endlessly reincarnated” and was intriguing for that. Boyd Holbrook also expressed his affinity for playing supporting characters and that he considers secondary characters as having “more keys to play.”
It is not really a surprise that Boyd Holbrook would be potentially interested in playing the Clown Prince of Crime. Since his debut performance in the 2008 Sean Penn biopic film Milk, the actor has increasingly leaned to playing sinister roles, with a particular breakthrough coming in 2017’s Logan. Boyd Holbrook acquitted himself well in one of the most acclaimed comic book adaptations of all time, particularly considering he was playing the recently introduced character of Donald Pierce, Kentucky-accented cyborg villain, against Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart.
In The Sandman, Boyd Holbrook plays the Corinthian, a nightmare created by Dream (Tom Sturridge) to serve as the dark mirror of humanity, reflecting back all the traits that people cannot bear to think themselves capable of. In both Neil Gaiman’s comic book series and the Netflix adaptation, the Corinthian goes rogue and invades the waking world, becoming the modern embodiment and inspiration for serial killers throughout the world. In the Netflix series, Boyd Holbrook is actually more involved with the catalytic imprisonment of the King of Dreams, and actively works to keep him imprisoned. While the comic book adaptation was portrayed as effortlessly cool and distant Boyd Holbrook’s interpretation of the character also makes him surprisingly warm and charming, and despite being a dream monster who devours eyeballs through the toothy maws in places of his own eyes, very nearly sympathetic.
There do not appear to be any active plans for Boyd Holbrook to play the Joker, but with the current state of the DC Extended Universe, you never know. The recent hurricane of project cancelations spearheaded by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has made virtually every DCEU project a little uncertain. The only film that seems to be pushing on through the controversy is the upcoming Joker: Folie à Deux starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. The film is currently scheduled to be released in the fall of 2024, and when the first movie is the only R-rated film to make over a billion dollars at the box office, probably not a lot will stop it from happening.
In addition to Joaquin Phoenix’s version of the Joker, it seems that Barry Keoghan will likely be laying another clown variant in the hypothetical next Batman film from Matt Reeves. That is already a pretty crowded arena (plus, Jared Leto is probably still making calls) for Boyd Holbrook to enter, but with the Joker, you never know.
