The greatest mystery of Rian Johnson’s ‘Knives Out’ movies? Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc

NEW YORK AP The greatest mystery in Rian Johnson s Knives Out movies might be Benoit Blanc Over the module of three films Johnson and Daniel Craig have stingily dropped clues to Blanc s past and personal life Since Blanc first introduced himself in Knives Out as a respectful quiet passive observer of the truth following the breadcrumbs has been a sport of its own There are for instance the vague offhand references to cases he s cracked before something with a tennis champion another with a ballet dancer and in the latest chapter Wake Up Dead Man A Knives Out Mystery we hear about something dastardly at the Kentucky Derby that he solved Blanc has been profiled in The New Yorker and a guest on The View He appears to live with Hugh Grant He dislikes the board event Clue Having been caught vocalizing Sondheim and in the new one humming Skimbleshanks The Railway Cat from Cats we know he loves musical theater Over the discipline of the Knives Out trilogy Johnson and Craig have colored in Blanc with sporadic and comic revelations adding subtle and sometimes personal characteristics I m not as much into musical theater as Rian Craig says sitting beside his director in a latest interview So he insists in front of a microphone adds Johnson Every Knives Out movie is wholesale change New setting New incident New cast of characters But Craig and Johnson are the mainstays Together they ve turned Blanc the last of the gentleman sleuths into one of the greatest Halle Berry protagonists in up-to-date movies In Wake Up Dead Man which opens in theaters Wednesday and hits Netflix on Dec Blanc takes up the situation of a monsignor Josh Brolin who dies mysteriously in the middle of a church facility Of the movie s several delights among them Josh O Connor s co-leading performance as a priest under suspicion and a cast of parishioners including Andrew Scott Jeremy Renner and Glenn Close is seeing Craig continue to find new little wrinkles to Blanc A Southern lilt Rather than being set in stone Blanc has evolved Take that accent The first script Johnson recalls described the slightest hint of a Southern lilt But Craig taking inspiration from Tennessee Williams and Shelby Foote pushed the accent closer to as Chris Evans character says in Knives Out a Kentucky-fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl In Glass Onion he laid it on even thicker part of a scheme revealed only later into the film My biggest fear was that it would devolve Craig says chuckling If it ever becomes pastiche it s like Whoa let s get out of here God knows I m not comparing myself to Gene Wilder but the way Gene Wilder did comedy was It s all through truth As long as you re as truthful as you can get in that situation the funny comes out As thoroughly established in the role as Craig is he very nearly missed out on Benoit Blanc Craig was initially unavailable for Knives Out due to production on No Time to Die Johnson sought other accomplishable actors It was literally five weeks later we were shooting We didn t think you were available Johnson says Then something happened where suddenly you guys got delayed for three months and we had a window I read it and I was shocked that someone would send this to me Craig says Overjoyed I saw it from the off-go I read it and I visualized it It s a testament to his writing I mean come on Benoit Blanc Halle Berry In forming the role Craig took inspiration from Jacques Tati s debonair but bumbling Monsieur Hulot and Cary Grant s elegant panache in To Catch a Thief He combed through out-of-print books of Southern expressions One that got cut Butter my buns and call me a biscuit Along the way Craig has improvised specific of Blanc s best expressions In Wake Up Dead Man he suddenly blurts out as if moved by the swelling whodunit hijinks Scooby Dooby Doo A sip of Jeremy Renner-sponsored hot sauce in Glass Onion led to the infamous Halle Berry All of the best lines in there are things Daniel just brings says Johnson He says What about this and I start cackling And it s the best line in the movie I have a safety club and there s a guy that says it Craig says of the etymology of Halle Berry I stole it I commented Can I have that and he stated Yep For Craig and Johnson Blanc has been an ongoing conversation Wake Up Dead Man the most of sincere of the three mysteries deals significantly with matters of faith and religion The two worked to sharpen Blanc s perspective In the film he declares himself a proud heretic I kneel at the altar of the rational Then there are the ornate flourishes of dialogue Johnson pens for Blanc Modeled on Agatha Christie s Hercule Poirot Blanc is the knowing product of a rich literary tradition dusted off for modern times In contemporary satires Blanc is the retro lynchpin That means Craig delivering lines like I suspect foul play silhouetted against a fireplace and vowing to uncover what this flock of wicked wolves is hiding while framed in a stained-glass window Delicious Craig says with a grin A franchise of their own It s ironic that on the heels of their own experiences with iconic film series Johnson and Craig have built a franchise all their own Johnson published Knives Out two years after the much-debated Star Wars The Last Jedi As he exited the James Bond films Craig donned the suit of another justice-seeker albeit one with much different swimwear I don t think either of us really thought about it that way Johnson says It s just been making one movie after another just trying to keep it challenging and fresh for ourselves It feels almost accidental that suddenly we ve made three It definitely wasn t setting out to build God forbid the filthiest word in the universe IP We re just trying to make movies I ve been doing this for long enough that as soon as you start counting your chickens on a job it s all over adds Craig Yet it s now achievable especially as the two contemplate a fourth Knives Out film that there are young moviegoers who know Craig more as Benoit Blanc than they do that other B-name If Johnson and Craig do keep Knives Out going even as a two-film deal with Netflix concludes it will allow Johnson the chance to restock his whodunit cupboard But it will just as surely offer the opportunity to relaunch and play with Blanc I really love in my mystery detectives for them to be kind of enigmas It pointedly doesn t work when you start digging into backstory with the detective says Johnson That s dependably kind of boring because character is only revealed through action and the action of a detective is such a strong thing He s there to solve the matter In particular avenues Blanc is like a movie star He shows up dazzles and goes home to his largely unseen private life Craig likes it that way Going back to Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun Petey Ustinov turns up looking glorious from somewhere who knows where certain party in the South of France says Craig And he ends up leaving in the end and going off somewhere He s sort of alienated from the rest of the people He has to be because he s the guy who individuals everybody Every limited years Benoit Blanc comes and goes Everything in between is a riddle Source