Indya Moore will appear in The Sandman season two as the iconic — and controversial — transgender character Wanda, Netflix confirmed this week.
The streaming service confirmed Moore’s casting on Wednesday in a slew of announcements for the show’s second season, which will adapt the second and third storylines of the Sandman comic book series, originally written by Neil Gaiman. Netflix celebrated the Pose star’s casting in particular on Instagram, writing “Welcome to the Dreaming, Indya.”
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Far be it for us to say “we told you so,” but permit us a small victory lap, as we called Moore’s role almost exactly one year ago after photos emerged showing Moore on set with series regulars Tom Sturridge and Kirby Howell-Baptiste. In those photos, Moore can be seen sitting on the grass next to Howell-Baptiste holding a copy of The Marvelous Land of Oz — a major signifier for Wanda, whose story in the original comics was laden with references to Oz and Judy Garland.
“Wanda began for me in 1988, because I had trans friends and was not seeing them reflected in the comics I was reading, so I resolved to create a trans woman in a mainstream comic, the first time that had happened,” Gaiman, who is an executive producer for the Netflix adaptation, said in the announcement Wednesday. “For over three decades, people have been telling me that she was an inspiration to them. I’m thrilled that, 35 years later, she’s on the screen in all her glory.”
Self-assured yet vulnerable, Wanda was a rare example of a trans character in the 1990s who wasn’t immediately reduced to a punchline. Still, her arc has been controversial for some LGBTQ+ readers in the years since. Though she carried an important role in the series’ third story arc, A Game of You, Wanda played narrative second fiddle to her best friend Barbie, the arc’s primary hero, and was abruptly killed off-panel. In 2021, trans comic book writer Magdalene Visaggio revealed her pitch for a story that would have recontextualized Wanda’s story and “redeemed” the character, but which publisher DC Comics declined to greenlight at the time.
Based on Moore’s proximity to Howell-Baptiste, who plays Death, in the leaked photos, it appears that Wanda’s ultimate fate will be unchanged — but there’s still the possibility that showrunner Allan Heinberg could steer the execution (pun not intended) in a different direction.
On the same day as the Netflix announcement, however, two women publicly accused Gaiman of sexual assault in a new investigative podcast, Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman. One of Gaiman’s accusers formerly worked for him as a nanny, while the other said she met him as an 18-year-old fan of his work; both said Gaiman sexually assaulted them multiple times, in incidents spanning two decades. Gaiman has denied all allegations and asserted that the younger accuser relied on false memories.
Moore herself has not publicly commented on her role. Though she has been active on social media, Moore’s attention has been largely devoted to political activism in recent months, boosting the reach of queer Black activists like Qween Jean and calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, for which she was arrested last year. Moore has also taken part in the Voices for Gaza project, reading aloud letters from Palestinians in Gaza.
“Pride is an intersectional feeling that moves across marginalized identities,” Moore told Them in 2020. “The fight exists every day. All the things that Pride Month is about have occurred every day throughout the year for a lot of us in history.”
This article has been updated to include the allegations of sexual assault against Neil Gaiman.
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