It’s no wonder that Daniel Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc suspected foul play in Knives Out – the cast of characters who were possibly behind the murder of Harlan Thrombey were a nefarious bunch, from a right-wing-radicalised teenager, to an array of selfish money-grabbers wanting a slice of their father’s novel-writing empire, played by a star-studded ensemble of some of Hollywood’s greatest actors. Now, writer-director Rian Johnson has cooked up a fresh batch of suspects for Benoit Blanc’s second case in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, with an equally impeccable cast – playing a group of old acquaintances summoned to Greece by a rich friend for a murder-mystery game that gets a little too real.
Above, you’ll see Hamilton’s Leslie Odom Jr. as Lionel Toussaint, joined by Kathryn Hahn’s Claire Debella (a Connecticut governor running for Senate) and Kate Hudson’s fashionista Birdie Jay. “I imagine that as complicated as these relationships are, these people have history, so what keeps them coming back together?” says Odom Jr. “I thought a lot about the original spark of what brought them together when they were younger. There must be something in it that is joyful. As fraught as we arrive on that island in Greece at the start of this film, that’s now where we began. Love is complicated, friendships can be complicated.”
Odom Jr.’s Toussaint is a scientist who works for Edward Norton’s tech disruptor Miles Bron – seen here facing off with Dave Bautista’s YouTube star Duke Cody, who’s attending the party with his younger girlfriend and channel assistant Whiskey, played by Madelyn Cline. “The species that [Miles] is derived from will be instantly recognisable to a lot of people in our era of tech billionaires,” teases Johnson.
Also among the fray is The Matrix Resurrections star Jessica Henwick as Birdie’s assistant Peg, and Janelle Monáe as tech entrepreneur Cassandra ‘Andi’ Brand – here seen getting confrontational with Hahn’s Claire. The governor, says Johnson, “pisses everyone off, and is trying to thread the needle in many different ways, in terms of her public persona and what she’s willing to compromise in order to stay in office.”
That friction will be felt as the characters rub up against each other through the course of Glass Onion – which, like Knives Out before it, has an undercurrent of social commentary among the whodunnit twists and turns. “The movie itself is not entirely about the income divide, but that definitely has a huge place in it,” says Johnson of the ideas under Glass Onion’s layers. “We’re in a moment in history where the divide feels increasingly obscene. Like a circus that we can’t keep our eyes off even as the negative effects of it become more and more real in all our lives.” If there’s anyone who can pick the perpetrator among them, it’s Benoit Blanc – though his Gravity’s Rainbow method may be tested even more this time around.
Read Empire’s full world-exclusive Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery cover feature in the October 2022 issue, packed with never-before-seen images and speaking to Johnson, Daniel Craig, and the ensemble cast – including Edward Norton, Kathryn Hahn, Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr. and Janelle Monáe – to get the inside scoop on Benoit Blanc’s latest case. Find it on newsstands from Thursday 1 September, or pre-order a copy online here. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery streams on Netflix from 23 December.