As Warner Bros., David S. Goyer and Joseph Gordon-Levitt continue to chip away at development on the long-awaited Sandman movie, creator Neil Gaiman has shared his thoughts on who he’d like to play the lead character of Dream, a.k.a. Morpheus.

“It’s a funny thing with Morpheus. Again, it’s that thing where you look around and think, ‘Yes this person would be a fantastic person’, and then time passes,” Gaiman tells The Radio Times. “There was a time Johnny Depp would’ve been a great Morpheus, but now he’s too old and it’s fine. I think the first time I saw Benedict Cumberbatch was as Sherlock Holmes, I thought, ‘wow, that’s incredibly Morpheus’. And fans probably thought the same because they immediately started doing fan-art, meshing the two of them up. Then again, Tom Hiddleston is still out there! And the truth is, as far as I’m concerned, anybody who sounds English with great cheekbones can probably pull it off.”

Gaiman also discussed his involvement with the adaptation, stating that: “I really am [glad to have more input]. My position on it has always been, for over 25 years now, I would rather see no Sandman movie than a bad Sandman movie. A couple of times, people say, ‘It’s a crime there’s never been a Sandman movie’, and a couple of times, to be honest, I have thrown my body in front of a bus on a couple of bad ones over the years. I’m just happy that no bad Sandman movie has ever been made. But I’m really hoping that a good one will be. They’re a good team. And with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in charge, his instincts are good and he loves the material. He wants it to be true to the material. very now and then, I’ll come in and last time I was in was earlier this year spending a day in a hotel room with Joe, and going over everything and answering questions with him and so on and so forth. So they’ve written a script. I got a phone call about two, three weeks ago from Joe and David saying, ‘Jack did a script, we read it, we want some things done to it. We want you to see it, but not this version. The next version will be in three weeks and then you’ll be the first person to see it.’ So I am now a week before seeing the script. It’s going to come in just before Christmas. I’m nervous, I’m on tenterhooks. But do I have good feelings? Yeah I do.”

Update: According to Gaiman himself on Twitter, the comments about Tom Hiddleston were a joke.

Who would you like to see in the lead role for Sandman? Let us know your thoughts…