Dead Boy Detectives: Ruth Connell Talks Reprising Night Nurse Role From Doom Patrol

Dead Boy Detectives is now streaming on Netflix, and the new supernatural series is a spinoff of The Sandman. The new show is based on the comics by writer Neil Gaiman and artists Matt Wagner and Malcolm Jones III, but it’s not the first time the comics’ main characters have appeared on TV. Back in 2021, the third episode of Doom Patrol‘s third season, “Dead Patrol,” featured many characters from the Dead Boy Detectives comics. While most of the characters were recast for the Netflix show, Ruth Connell is back as the Night Nurse. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Connell, and we asked her how her return to the role came to be. 

“So [DBD showrunner Steve Yockey] first mentioned this role to me five years ago. He really took care of my character a lot on Supernatural, took care of Rowena, and then mentioned this role, a small red-haired Scottish woman, and Dead Boy Detectives. And he said something about DC and I was like, ‘That’s a universe. I think that’s cool.’ And then when it was whispered, ‘Come and do this backdoor pilot on Doom Patrol,’ I went along in good faith.”

“I went along to Atlanta and shot Doom Patrol, and Jeremy Carver was our showrunner from Supernatural as well. I did it with a view of being the character so that if it did go on to have its own series, I could be [her again]. I did it really as a good-faith gesture, and I was so happy to do it. And it was obviously a very different iteration of the Night Nurse to what she is now. But I’ve been thinking about night nurses and digesting all of that for a long time.”

“And in reading, I mean, I’ve been a Neil Gaiman fan – I actually have seen a few of these plays – and I think they translate really well to stage, but just coming to read Dead Boy Detectives, I just love the wit in the sensibilities in the original material. And I think we’ve stayed true to that in many ways in the final edit.” 

Do You Need To Watch The Sandman Before Dead Boy Detectives?

ComicBook.com recently attended a meet and greet with Dead Boy Detective showrunners, Steve Yockey and Beth Schwartz, and we asked if they recommend watching The Sandman or reading the Dead Boy Detectives comics before starting the spinoff series. 

“Well, I think that you don’t need to do any homework for the show, and I feel like it’s more fun,” Schwartz explained. “I don’t know, everyone’s different, but I think it’s more fun not to do anything before you see it. So you can be surprised and then you can go back and watch Sandman and read the comics after.” 

“And we are true to the boys’ origins and how they started the detective agency and Crystal’s backstory,” Yockey added. “But the rest of it is us kind of taking things from the comic books and sort of re-appropriating them, re-imagining them so that people who are familiar with the comic books will get to have those kind of like, ‘Oh, I recognize this, moment.’ … But regular people can just watch the show.”

Dead Boy Detectives is now streaming on Netflix.