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It’s interesting that in a series that included, demons, serial killers, trickster gods, and the Judeo-Christian devil, the most malevolent creature of all, is Desire.  It’s true that desire is not an inherently bad thing, but it can make people do dangerous, reckless things.  And Desire of the Endless seems to represent this aspect of the concept, more than any other.  Desire is neither man nor woman, rather it is both, and therefore is always referred to as it.  This makes sense, since desire is not a gender specific concept.  Then again, neither is any of the other concepts the Endless represent, and the others all stick to one gender identity.

Desire the concept is not solely about lust.  You can desire just about anything.  Lust is however desire, and the entity Desire seems to concern itself most with lust.  And it seems to derive pleasure from making people desire things that are not good for them.  It is safe to say that, while it is not specifically a woman, Desire is a petty bitch.  Get on its bad side, and it will make it its mission to take you down.  It holds grudges, and goes to great lengths to get revenge.  Usually manipulating things at a great distance, to keep its hands appearing clean.

Desire’s appearance is one of androgyny.  Most often looking like either a handsome woman, or a beautiful man.  Its clothing was often either menswear, when looked the most feminine, or fetish-wear, when it was more masculine.  The artists tended to make it resemble those nineties icons of gender blurring, Annie Lennox, and KD Lang, and occasionally David Bowie.

There is really only one actor in my mind that could pull it off, Tilda Swinton.

Not only does she favor a somewhat androgynous look in her personal style, she has already played a gender bending supernatural role, as the title character of Orlando.  She also demonstrated bone chilling maliciousness, as the White Witch in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Desire has a twin sister, Despair.  They aren’t twins in that they look alike.  Far from it.  They simply came into existence at the same time, and are often intertwined.  Desiring something too much can make you miserable.

While Desire the character, is almost entirely unsympathetic, Despair is not.  She does not wish to make people unhappy, it is simply her function.  Just as Death does not cause people to die, she just takes them when they do.  Despair embraces the miserable to her bosom, and drowns them in it, but it’s not out of viciousness.  In her own way, she is helping them.  She seems to have genuine affection for her twin, and a few of the other Endless.  And she seems to be a little lonely, since most non depressed people, do not wish to be anywhere near her.  And she tries to stay away, since as I said, she does not want to cause misery, it just leaks off her like radiation.  Just like being around Delirium, can make a person crazy.

Despair looks like a female sumo wrestler, if the sumo was the height and scale of a twelve year-old child.  Even if there is a person out there that fits that description, it would be a miracle if they also possess the acting chops to convey the nuance of the part.  So I am proposing hiring a very good actress, and then putting them in extensive makeup, and maybe augmenting it with visual effects.  My candidate is Judi Dench.

That is in no way a comment on her looks.  I think Judi Dench is gorgeous.  If I look half that good at half her age, I will be very happy.  She is such a good actress, that I think she can make the character sympathetic through the makeup, while still being very creepy.  In fact, the idea of lovely, warm Judi Dench, speaking in Despair’s skin crawling voice, and ripping at her flesh with a hook, sends wonderful shivers up my spine.

In the next post I will finish off the Endless, and we will see from there.

Read parts 1, 2, 3, and 4, by following the links.

Tags: Casting, Neil Gaiman, Sandman

This entry was posted by Susie on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 at 2:23 pm and is filed under DC, movies, Vertigo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.