The ex-James Bond actor Daniel Craig was not exactly the Benoit Blanc Knives Out creator Rian Johnson had in mind. Recently speaking with Netflix’s online magazine Queue, the Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery creator insisted he had no exact actor pinned to take the role. Take a look at his full comment below:
“Oh God, no. I wrote the character in a vacuum,” Johnson says, “Basically, when I started writing the Benoit Blanc character, I screwed myself up because I started thinking that I wanted to create a Poirot or a Sherlock Holmes, so I started loading him up with all these quirks, and he just became ridiculous.”
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Johnson continues on to say how surprised he was at the performance Daniel Craig brought to Knives Out. See, initially, all Johnson had written to describe Benoit Blanc was that he had a “light Southern drawl” with the rest of Blanc’s characteristics to be set up as the filming came. However, with Craig coming on board, the director couldn’t believe the actor immediately nailed the character on the head.
“I said, I’m not going to try and create a character on the page beyond what his actions are in the mystery. So, the only thing I gave him was, I think I called it a “light Southern drawl”. Then I just wrote to his function in the story, and thought, “When I find whoever’s going to play this, then we’ll work together and we’ll create the character.”
The filmmaker continues on, giving praise to Craig, “When Craig was cast, no rewrites or gimmicks were necessary to create the on-screen Blanc. It wasn’t like we changed the dialogue or changed the script or anything — just Daniel inhabiting that role and bringing his vibe to it instantly brought it to life. No eye patch required, thank God.”
Knives Out and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery are available to stream on Netflix.
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