Daniel Craig’s character in the upcoming film “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is meant to be queer, the director confirmed.
Rian Johnson made the clarification during a press conference at the London Film Festival, as Entertainment Weekly reported. Craig plays Detective Benoit Blanc in the movie, and fans had already assumed he was part of the LGBTQ community based on clues from the previous installment of the franchise.
When Johnson was asked if a scene that seemed to depict Blanc with a male live-in lover indicated the character is “queer,” the director clarified, “Yes, he obviously is.”
Before, Blanc’s sexuality was a bit more vague, though he was described as a mix of Truman Capote and Foghorn Leghorn, who the publication describes as two “gay icons.” This led most movie fans to assume the character was gay as well.
“There’s nobody in the world I can imagine in bringing me more joy for Benoit Blanc to be with,” Johnson said of Blanc’s male lover debuting in the new “Knives Out” installment.
Craig is also on board for it. He said, “No spoilers [but] who wouldn’t want to live with that person?”
The original “Knives Out” film was a critically acclaimed success that debuted in 2019. Johnson had conceived the project sooner but waited to make it due to his commitment to “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” It grossed more than $300 million and earned three Golden Globe nominations that year. The Netflix description for the movie describes the plot as, “A detective unravels the tangled web of secrets and lies surrounding the death of a successful crime novelist and his unsettling, eccentric family.”
Netflix paid $469 million for the rights to two sequels written and directed by Johnson in March 2021. The “Glass Onion” cast includes Craig plus other stars, including Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom Jr, and Janelle Monáe. The movie trailer shows the new storyline involving Blanc taking a trip to Greece to solve his latest case with a slew of eccentric new characters.
Hahn said filming during the pandemic made the co-stars especially close. “It did feel like we were this traveling circus together which added, I think, to the texture of the movie,” she said during the press conference, per Insider. “That kind of closeness that we were able to create under those circumstances really added [to the movie].”
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” premieres in theaters on November 23 and will become available on Netflix on December 23.