For the list of suspects in his murder mystery Knives Out, Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson assembled an all-star cast of actors so famous that any of tem would have a hard time getting away with a crime and disappearing into a crowd. As exciting as this is for movie fans, it’s just as appealing to the cast themselves. For actress Jamie Lee Curtis, there is one actor she never thought she’d be able to work with before Knives Out. See what she told CinemaBlend’s Jeff McCobb in an exclusive interview at the Knives Out junket in the video below.
Just as movie fans have dream pairings of actors they would like to see work together, so too do the actors themselves. And as Jamie Lee Curtis told Jeff, prior to Knives Out, she never thought she would be able to work with two-time Oscar nominee Michael Shannon. She presents it as a collaboration that she never even really considered because it would be such a pipe dream.
Jamie Lee Curtis is clearly a huge admirer of Michael Shannon’s work; she was effusive with praise and excitement just talking about him. She even dropped an F-bomb when describing how amazing of an actor he is. Perhaps selling herself short a bit, Jamie Lee Curtis just didn’t think that, based on her career and Michael Shannon’s career and talent, they would ever cross paths onscreen.
While Jamie Lee Curtis is best known for films like True Lies and the Halloween franchise (which she will be returning to for Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends), Michael Shannon is best known for what I suppose you could call smaller, more prestigious fare like The Shape of Water and 99 Homes. This difference in the kinds of movies they generally make seems to be why she didn’t think they would ever work together.
So the opportunity to work with Michael Shannon in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out was incredibly rewarding for Jamie Lee Curtis because she never expected it to happen. And as she says, she went from thinking she’d never be able to work with Michael Shannon to playing his older sister in Knives Out.
In Rian Johnson’s whodunnit, Jamie Lee Curtis plays Linda Drysdale, the daughter of Christopher Plummer’s successful author and patriarch Harlan Thrombey, whose death becomes the catalyst for intrigue and mystery. Michael Shannon plays her younger brother, Walt Thrombey, the steward of the family’s publishing empire. Jamie Lee Curtis gets to work with Michael Shannon and the rest of the cast when her father dies, and as the title implies, the family’s knives come out.
Investigating the potential crime is Daniel Craig's Southern accent sporting Benoit Blanc. The James Bond actor also seems to have found the cast of Knives Out to be a hugely thrilling part of the experience, finding that he appreciates it more now than he did when he was younger. The No Time To Die star seems to have really loved making the movie, so with his Bond days almost over, maybe he will wind up doing that Knives Out sequel Rian Johnson has mused about.
Knives Out is now playing. Per Daniel Craig’s orders, don’t spoil it, and be sure to check out our 2020 Release Schedule to see what’s coming out next year.
