With Good Omens now available to stream in full on Amazon Prime Video, showrunner Neil Gaiman has been talking about how the series came together. Here’s some interesting info about how he cast the central roles, and why he didn’t pursue massive Hollywood stars…

The series, based on the book that Gaiman co-wrote with the late Terry Pratchett, stars Michael Sheen as an angel and David Tennant as a demon. Speaking to Collider, Gaiman has said this about choosing his lead actors:

“It was always them. Having said that, before I started writing, I imagined Michael as Crowley [the demon]. I started writing the scripts and rapidly went, “No, I want Michael as Aziraphale [the angel]. The loveliness of Michael will be brilliant.” And then, I decided that I wanted David Tennant while writing the script for Episode 3, during the bit where he’s coming down the aisle of the church and he’s on consecrated ground, and he’s hopping from foot to foot because it’s like being at the beach with bare feet. I was like, “Who could do that?” And I suddenly thought, “Oh, David Tennant. He could do that in silhouette, and it would work.” Suddenly, I had my Crowley and my Aziraphale. And then, I needed to convince people, not for Michael, but for David. There was definitely a period of time where they were like, “Well maybe we can get . . .” These were people who were at Amazon then, who are no longer at Amazon, but they were like, “Maybe we could get Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt.” And I was like, “But I don’t want them. They’re wrong for this. They’re wonderful, but I don’t want them.” So, there was a definite trying to talk people down from the stars’ ledge, to give me the actors that I wanted.”

Pitt and Depp in the central roles, ey? We wouldn’t mind popping over to a parallel universe to see what that looks like, but living in the universe where Sheen and Tennant are allowed this chance to shine is no bad thing.

Good Omens is available on Amazon Prime now.