Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery director Rian Johnson has revealed why Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc doesn’t share any scenes with his partner.
Following the Southern detective as he takes on a new case in Greece, the mystery film introduces a variety of new stars to the franchise including Hugh Grant as Blanc’s domestic partner Phillip.
Although Johnson teased the inclusion of a love interest for Blanc back in October, saying there’s “nobody in the world I can imagine in bringing me more joy” for the character to be with, the two never actually appear together on-screen.
Speaking with Screen Rant, Johnson said this “wasn’t driven by COVID in particular” before expanding on the creative decision to keep the couple physically apart.
“It was just kind of the way the scene was written. It’s the delight of connecting up that moment, when you come back to it halfway through, with the moment from the beginning was kind of the idea of it,” said Johnson.
“I felt like having Blanc be gay and have a partner just felt like a very natural thing coming out of the first movie.”
Johnson continued to say that he should “only be so lucky to have” Grant in future Knives Out films, although he’s torn “because the detective is always at the center of a good murder mystery” and is never the “protagonist”.
“And I feel like in general, if you think about Poirot, for example, I feel like getting glimpses of the detective’s life outside of the scope of the case is interesting,” he continued.
“But I don’t know that I can ever see the movies being more about that. The whole thing is kind of about the mystery itself/. But at the same time, it’s a big part of who he is, and going forward, it’s going to be fun to learn more about that.
“It’s true, it is just a glimpse of it. And that was one thing that I thought about; we’re obviously going to want to see more of this.”
In an interview with Deadline, Craig opened up about the lack of publicity surrounding Blanc’s sexuality.
“It’s all good. The less of a song and dance we make about that, the better, really, for me, because it just made sense,” he told the publication.
“And also, as I said at the LFF, who wouldn’t want to live with the human being that he happens to live with? It’s nice, it’s fun. And why shouldn’t it be? I don’t want people to get politically hung up on anything.”
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery also stars Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Noah Segan, Jackie Hoffman and Dallas Roberts.
The film is now streaming worldwide on Netflix.
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