In his first film since his final outing as James Bond, Daniel Craig returns as stylish detective Benoit Blanc in murder mystery Glass Onion – a sequel to his 2019 hit Knives Out.
This time, it’s celebrities and influencers who are under suspicion as the movie takes a satirical look at the decadence of the very modern rich and famous.
But while the film jokes about online tropes and memes, its star says the virtual world is not somewhere he ever plans to have a profile. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me to a social media account,” Craig told Sky News.
One of the messages of the film is thinking before we speak – which the actor says is a lesson for all of us, whether we’re online or not.
“I could learn it, we all could learn it; I mean, I’m not above any of it,” he said. “Probably one of the reasons I stay off social media is I would say things that I would regret and I don’t want to do that.
“I kind of want to try and have some thought before I speak – you’ll see in this interview that I don’t!”
Such was the success of the 2019 hit Knives Out that Netflix has picked up the franchise, reportedly paying £375m for this film and one more sequel.
The streaming platform has also broken form to show Glass Onion in all three of the America’s big cinema chains – something both Craig and writer-director Rian Johnson advocated for.
“I’m saying the obvious and we keep saying the obvious, but movies are a wonderful collective experience,” said Craig.
“It’s been something that’s important to us from the get-go and with the first movie, just seeing audiences experience it together and experience it together at home also – so there’s no wrong way to do it,” Johnson added.
While Craig is returning, the rest of the very starry ensemble cast is new, and with filming taking place in a bubble during the pandemic the actors found themselves spending a lot of time together.
But despite so many A-listers being involved, there was seemingly no diva-like behaviour on – or off – set.
Kate Hudson, who plays Birdie Jay, a former supermodel turned fashion designer, thinks the casting was key.
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“You want to bring that energy and that sort of sparkle with the characters and how we interact with each other to life,” she said.
“And that’s how you do it, you do that by bonding and creating environments that keep us close, which is what they did. And also casting people that are going to really like each other – that aren’t going to be disruptive.”
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Janelle Monae, who plays tech entrepreneur Andi Brand, credits Johnson with creating the right atmosphere.
“I was very shocked by just his calmness on set,” she said. “This is a big cast, a lot of personalities, things happen in production, technical difficulties, some things may not go as planned, and I never saw him lose his cool – and that helped us as the actors.
“And also, he would plan these murder mystery parties on the weekend so we’re filming a murder mystery whodunit, and then we’re playing like mafia, a murder mystery game just for fun, but all that stuff that we did outside of filming helped for us to just trust each other onscreen even more – and we really, really like each other.”
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is out on Netflix on 23 December