Knives Out director reveals why Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc hasn’t yet appeared onscreen with his partner

Ahead of the release of Netflix’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, director Rian Johnson has revealed why beloved gay detective Benoit Blanc never appears onscreen with his partner.

Warning: spoilers ahead for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Speaking to Screen Rant, Johnson explained that “having Blanc (Daniel Craig) be gay and have a partner just felt like a very natural thing coming out of the first movie”, but clarified that it wasn’t due to any filming restrictions during the pandemic.

“It certainly wasn’t meant to skirt anything, but it wasn’t driven by COVID in particular,” he continued.

“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.”

After the film debuted in cinemas back in November, it was revealed that Blanc’s partner in Glass Onion is played by none other than Hugh Grant. Johnson further attributed the lack of onscreen time together to the fine balance that a detective has to strike in murder mysteries.

“It’s a delicate thing, though, because the detective is always at the centre of a good murder mystery; the detective is never the protagonist of a good murder mystery,” he continued.

“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. 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.”

However, Johnson did also acknowledge the importance of representation, and went on to say that Blanc’s sexuality is a “big part of who he is” in the franchise. Intriguingly, he even teased the possibility of getting a deeper insight into Blanc’s personal life in future films.

“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 the first Knives Out film, it’s hinted that Daniel Craig‘s character, Benoit Blanc, has a male lover, but it’s never explicitly confirmed.

Johnson confirmed that Benoit was gay at the London Film Festival earlier this year, answering “Yes, he obviously is”, when asked, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will be released on Netflix on 23 December.

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