SPOILER WARNING: The following contains spoilers from both Knives Out and Glass Onion. If you have not watched either of Rian Johnson’s mystery movies, be warned that this invitation is not to be trifled with.
I recently heard Daniel Craig say something about the clever private eye he plays in 2019’s Knives Out and its Netflix original follow-up from 2022, Glass Onion, that I could not agree with more. The actor believes that it is not what we know about Benoit Blanc — such as his Southern roots, his calm and empathetic demeanor, and his excellent judge of character — but what we do NOT know that makes him so compelling and memorable.
However, despite my concurrence with the former James Bond actor’s comments to BBC Radio 1, I will admit that it is hard not to be curious about who Blanc really is and what hints on the matter writer and director Rian Johnson has dropped in his beloved whodunnits so far. The following are all the most notable clues I could uncover when trying to get to bottom of the mystery behind one of the genre’s most fascinating detective's as of late, starting with his most noteworthy cases.
Benoit Blanc Is Known For Cases Involving A “Tennis Champ” And A “Ballet Dancer”
For those who exist outside of the universe in which Knives Out and Glass Onion take place (i.e., us), the most famous cases of Benoit Blanc’s career would be the ones that we see unravel in each film. However, the mysteries that made the private eye one of the most renowned in his field, and in his relative universe, are a different sort that do receive subtle mention in the movies.
Upon recognizing Blanc, Joni Thrombey — Academy Award nominee Toni Collette’s character from the Knives Out cast — says she read a tweet about a New Yorker article that refers to him as “the last of gentlemen sleuths” and mentions a case he cracked involving a “tennis champ.” When the detective meets the rest of the Glass Onion cast, politician Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn) recalls hearing about the murder of a “ballet dancer with the thing and the thing” that he also solved. We could speculate that either of these cases could serve as the plot of Johnson’s upcoming third installment, but I, personally, prefer keeping these as obscure details that allows us to fill in the blanks.
The Detective Followed In His Father’s Footsteps
I will admit, however, that I am interested in the idea of a prequel to Knives Out and Glass Onion, but not one that follows Blanc in his earlier years (which would go against Johnson’s promise to not “Young Indiana Jones” the character, anyway). I think it would be fun to see the filmmaker try his hand at a period piece that is set in the same universe and tells a similar story, but from the point of view of Blanc’s father, whom we know from a conversation between the detective and Marta Cabrera (Craig’s future No Time to Die co-star, Ana de Armas) was a police detective.
When the nurse asks Blanc if he was an admirer of the late Harlan Thrombey (Oscar winner Christopher Plummer), he reveals that his father was not only an admirer of the crime novelist, but a friend of his. This opens up an opportunity, not just for a truly old fashioned Knives Out mystery, but also one featuring Blanc’s dad teaming up with the Thrombey Family patriarch’s younger self on a case, perhaps. If we need some obligatory reference to Craig’s character, I would settle for a hint at his conception, maybe, depending on the time period Johnson goes with.
Blanc Has A Husband
While I still stand by my preference to know as little about Benoit Blanc as possible, I cannot deny that it was fun to learn what we now know about his personal life from Glass Onion. For instance, when Helen Brand (Janelle Monae) first shows up to the detective’s apartment to ask about the death of her millionaire twin sister (also played by Monae), the door is answered by an Englishman wearing an apron and with bits of flour on his face.
Identified as Phillip, this man is Blanc’s husband, which the actor who plays him, Hugh Grant, confirmed in an interview in which he stated that he is, indeed, “married to James Bond.” As of now, there are only three recurring actors in the Knives Out franchise — including Craig, Noah Segan (as Trooper Wagner and Derol), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as the voice of Detective Hardrock and Miles Bron’s hourly Dong) — but seeing Grant potentially come back to explore his character’s relationship with Blanc sounds like a treat.
He Has Many Famous Friends
Grant and Gordon-Levitt are just a couple of the many awesome cameos throughout Glass Onion, including Ethan Hawke as “Efficient Man” and Serena Williams as herself. Also appearing as themselves are legendary composer Stephen Sondheim, Academy Award winner Angela Lansbury, NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and former Orange is the New Black cast member Natasha Lyonne, who are catching up with their good buddy, Benoit Blanc, in a pandemic-era Zoom meeting.
The interesting thing about all of Blanc’s real-world celebrity friends is that each have a connection to the mystery genre. The late Sondheim (who passed away in 2021) co-wrote a 1973 whodunnit called The Last of Sheila (which influenced Glass Onion, as hinted by Johnson’s tweet), Lansbury (who passed away in 2022) starred on a case-of-the-week series called Murder, She Wrote, Abdul-Jabbar also appeared as himself in 1985’s Fletch, and Lyonne, in addition to starring in and producing Russian Doll, teamed with Johnson for their own case-of-the-week series on Peacock called Poker Face.
He Apparently Took Baths To Cope With The Pandemic
One major thing to take note of when Blanc is Zooming with his famous friends is where he is speaking to them from: his bathtub. At one point during the scene, you can hear Phillip asking him from offscreen if he is “in the bath again,” to which his husband sheepishly fibs, “No.”
Phillip’s question and a closer look at Blanc’s surroundings — particularly the bottle of an alcoholic beverage and stacks of books close by — suggest that the detective spent a lot of time in his bathtub while the lockdown, circa 2020, forced him to take a break from his profession. I mean, if baths provide a sense of comfort for him, who can blame him for preferring that as his quarantine spot?
Blanc Is Not One For Playing Mystery Games
Also in Glass Onion’s bathtub scene, we see Blanc discovering his distaste for the hit computer game, Among Us, which he loses when playing against his aforementioned celebrity friends after “Angie” identifies him as the Imposter. Abdul-Jabbar points out his surprise that the “world’s greatest detective” was not a master at such a game.
Well, as he later explains to Helen, the man noted for his exceptional talent for solving mysteries is no match for the ultimate mystery game, Clue, which he repeatedly criticizes as, “terrible.” I wonder how he might have felt about the classic movie adaptation from 1985, if his distaste for the source material did not deter him from catching one of its three alternate endings at the movie theater.
There is still plenty more to know about Benoit Blanc, but — again — I have no issue keeping it that way. Yet, as a man of such charm, empathy, and intelligence, he is certainly the type of person one might love to call a friend. If collecting the information above — and what more there may be to come — is a way of feeling closer to the character, so be it.
