Even though it’s been three years since Rian Johnson’s Knives Out hit theaters, it’s unlikely you forgot the thick, Kentucky-pegged Southern drawl Daniel Craig brought to the character of Detective Benoit Blanc. While we remember exactly what it sounds like without reintroduction, apparently Craig himself needed a bit of a refresher before filming the sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
“I went away to work with an accent coach for three or four months before we started shooting,” Craig tells Empire Magazine in a new interview. “I’d forgotten the accent, and I didn’t want to do a pastiche. I wanted to make it as grounded and as anchored in reality as possible.”
Craig continues, “How the fuck do we take something that caught people’s imagination and made them talk about murder mysteries, and do it again without it becoming a pastiche of itself?”
In addition to Craig, Glass Onion will star Kathryn Hahn, Edward Norton, Leslie Odom Jr., Dave Bautista, Ethan Hawke, Jada Pinkett Smith, Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, Jessica Henwick, and Madelyn Cline.
This time Benoit Blanc’s travails will take him to a private Greek island owned by a tech millionaire and friend of the detective, Miles Bron (Norton). However, when a guest ends up dead, a new mystery is afoot. With Blanc’s accent described in the original film by Chris Evan’s Ransom Drysdale as a “Kentucky-fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl,” the detective will most likely feel even more like a fish out of water amongst the tech elites.
The film is set to premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, which commences on September 8. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is set to arrive on Netflix on December 23, with a limited theatrical run later this year.