Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ follows the story of the King of Dreams who is captured by a group of magicians. For more than a century, he stays in captivity, away from his dream realm. When he finally returns, he finds it in ruins. Dream is forced to return to the land of the living to retrieve his tools and is assisted in it by a raven named Matthew. While initially, Dream is hesitant to take Matthew on his journey, they, soon, forge a bond where the raven becomes Dream’s most trusted being. If you’re wondering who lends their voice to this endearing character, we’ve got you covered.
Who is the Voice of Matthew the Raven?
Dream’s trusted raven Matthew in ‘The Sandman’ is voiced by actor-comedian Patton Oswalt. While Matthew appears to be just a conduit of information, a mere raven who serves a very powerful master, the casting for his role was the first to be finalized for the show. Neil Gaiman, the creator of the eponymous comic book series on which the show is based, said that “Patton was the first person we asked, and the first person we cast, the day before we pitched The Sandman to Netflix.”
It was exciting for Gaiman because he’d initially believed that the animals in the show would be CGI. He was “both taken aback and thrilled when the dailies started coming in, and there was Dream talking to… well, a raven.” While it was interesting to have a real raven in the show, it also posed the question of who would be the best choice to voice Matthew, considering that he becomes one of the more important characters in the story.
“The question was, could we find an actor who could make you care about a dead person who was now a bird in the Dreaming – one who isn’t certain what’s going on, or whether any of this is a good idea? And could we find a voice performer who was also the kind of Sandman fan who used to stand in line to get his Sandman comics signed? The answer was, we could if we asked Patton Oswalt,” Gaiman said.
Oswalt, who’d been a fan of the comics for a long time, didn’t think twice before jumping at the opportunity. For him, when ‘The Sandman’ comics first came out, it was a revelation. He first read it in college and said, “I could not believe how amazing it was because it contained universes. I had never seen that done in a comic so perfectly.” With the show coming out almost three decades since the first comic book in the series came out, Oswald believes the story has become more relevant.
“We’re living in a time where it feels like we’re in beta testing for how completely our reality can be manipulated. Everyone has a camera in their pocket, everything is being documented. There are certain leaders who are saying that the thing that you just saw and heard is not what you saw and heard, and they’re seeing how far they can push that. There is a really dangerous, dark experiment going on right in front of us, and it’s fascinating to watch, but it’s terrible to live through,” he told The Washington Post.
With ‘The Sandman’, Oswalt’s Matthew breaks into the dreaming world, but this is not the comedian’s first foray into voicing strange characters. He is most famously known for voicing Remy the rat in ‘Ratatouille’ and was also cast alongside Harry Styles in ‘Eternals’ to voice Pip the Troll. On television, he was heard in ‘Star Trek: Picard’ as Spot 73, while he also lent his voice to The Deep’s gills in the second season of ‘The Boys’.
Read More: Where is Netflix’s The Sandman Filmed?
