Rian Johnson Breaks Down Glass Onion’s “Arrival” Scene

THE OPENING GAMBIT OF RIAN JOHNSON’S GLASS ONION: A KNIFE OUT MYSTERY, the second in his series of Agatha Christie-style whodunits, is one of mischief. Miles (Edward Norton), a tech billionaire, has sent each of his lifelong pals a wooden puzzle box that, when unlocked, summons them all to his Greek island to “investigate the riddle of my murder.” Of sure, it’s a game, but not everyone wants to play it.

Obviously, this is where the surprises begin. When the friends arrive in Greece, they discover that detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) has also been invited to their yearly friend reunion. Miles’ former business partner Andi (Janelle Monáe), politician Claire (Kathryn Hahn), fashion designer Birdie (Kate Hudson), Birdie’s assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick), men’s-rights influencer Duke (Dave Bautista), Duke’s girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline), and scientist Lionel (Leslie Odom Jr.) all begin to question one another’s motives. And that’s before one of them is discovered dead.

No spoilers here, but one thing Blanc discovers during her inquiry is that Miles is every bit the tech billionaire archetype: he buys flashy toys and residences, walks with an arrogant swagger, and is unable to admit when his great ideas are bad—or hazardous.

Johnson developed the screenplay during the height of Covid-19 lockdowns, long before Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, but admits that his film, which is currently available on Netflix, is unexpectedly current. “One of my friends said to me, ‘Man, that feels like it was written this afternoon,'” Johnson says.

DETAILED INTERVIEW WITH WIRED.COM

One of the first things you notice about Glass Onion is that it takes place during the Covid-19 lockdown. What were you thinking when you did it that way?

Rian Johnson: Growing up, I was a major whodunit fan, and many of my favourites were period plays set in England. It’s a form of genre that excels at engaging with culture and society. It just felt like, “Well, OK, obviously, we want to take this with a very light touch, because these aren’t really serious movies and Covid is a pretty serious thing,” but if there’s a way to put lockdown in there, it felt right.

The time span is those few days in 2020. A few contemporary films have attempted to interact with Covid-19 or include the pandemic into their narrative. How does that work in a mystery?

With the suspects and the power structure inside the suspects, you’re creating a small microcosm of society. It’s this process we all went through, and now we have all these encoded indicators for learning more about these characters, such as their mask choice.

You’ve previously stated that the Knives Out films are not meant to be seen in order, and that one is not a sequel to another. Does putting it in 2020 make a difference?

So much of what I’m trying to accomplish now that I’m starting to write the next one is simply clearing my mind and thinking about what’s on my mind. Hopefully, that transfers to what’s on everyone’s mind right now in terms of culture.

What will be in the next one? Can you express your thoughts?

No. Do you have any suggestions for me?

Is Twitter on its way out?

Twitter’s demise. Isn’t that what I just said? [Laughs]

I was actually going to question you about it. Here we have a film centred on a tech millionaire, and while it is being released, everyone is watching Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter.

It’s bizarre. It’s pretty strange. I’m hoping Netflix’s covert marketing department isn’t supporting this Twitter takeover.

Right? As though this was all part of the goal to entice everyone to watch.

There’s a lot of general information about that type of tech millionaire that went directly into it. But, certainly, it has a peculiar importance in the present situation. “Man, that feels like it was written this afternoon,” a friend of mine said. And that was just a terrible, terrible accident, you know?

Also, did you not meet your wife on Film Twitter? It’s got to be crazy to think about that time vs now.

Where does it all end? I mean, we met in person, and our connection developed from there. But we were kind of aware of one other on Twitter, and I’m hoping it might happen again.

We have to.

Perhaps much more so when surrounded by a dumpster fire. Who do you cling to? Our actual mettle is being put to the test.

On this one, once I had a tech millionaire at the top of the suspect pyramid, the type of pals they would have and the tone of everything fell into place. Because the goal was to correctly depict what it was like to have our heads in the cultural realm for the past six years. Right now, it’s a rather terrifying carnival, Fellini-esque inflated reality.

In that regard, it differs greatly from Knives Out.

It has a significantly higher pitch. But every now and then, I’d wonder to myself, “Oh God, should I put a stop to this?” I’d check Twitter or turn on the news and realise it’s an honest reflection of what it’s like to be alive and paying attention to these folks right now. It has to be ludicrous because they are ridiculous.

You’ve mentioned how Agatha Christie stories are mystery stories with other genres imprisoned inside. What relevance does that have to this film?

The film is certainly doing something quite particular structurally. So it’s a thriller in that sense. Though, to be honest, I believe this ended up being more of a comic satire than anything else.

Strangely, it reminded me of The Big Chill in terms of longtime friends who go in different paths.

It’s amusing that you say that. I’m not sure whether you’re a Sondheim lover, but I was listening to Merrily We Roll Along when writing this, and there are several Merrily references and lyrics concealed in the screenplay. So, like Merrily, what you’re expressing with The Big Chill, this image of a close buddy withering over the years, that’s totally baked in.

What other references are included? Are there any that have yet to be caught?

That’s the thing: it was only in theatres for a week…

Yes, no one has thoroughly examined it yet.

I’m meeting individuals who have seen the movie two or three times, which is a lot of fun. Even so, I believe [that] will happen once it is available on Netflix and people can revisit it. We built it to be watched and dissected again and again. It was actually rather frightening, because there’s a lot of material on the screen that gives away the entire thing if you pay attention to it.

I’ve always considered that as a director, you live for the moment when the internet begins to speculate about your work, when there’s a Reddit post. You don’t want that in your head…

That’s fantastic. Because it simply means that it landed. I mean, sure, I think that would be a terrible thing to try to write to. Never, ever write for Reddit—this should be a sticky note on all of our laptop displays. [Laughs]

There is an artificial intelligence for it.

What I’m actually trying to do is elicit a reaction from the audience while they watch it. I’m doing my best to capitalise on every opportunity. I mean, it’s been extremely fun with Knives Out, and even more so with Star Wars, to see these online communities seize on specific moments or threads throughout the film and analyse and take them apart.

OK, so here’s one thing I noticed: the number 47, the atomic number for silver, is one of the first hints on the puzzle box. Was that a wink directed towards the 47 Society? I know Star Trek writers used to slip that number in, and I believe J. J. Abrams did the same with Alias.

This is the kind of thing I now dearly want to take credit for, but I think it’s just a result of the number constantly popping up.

One fascinating little detail I had a line of dialogue for but had to delete for pacing is that Claire’s chess move is the fastest mate conceivable, known as a Fool’s Mate. Perhaps I should have left it in.

Do you offer director’s cuts on Netflix?

I’ve been extremely fortunate in that I’ve never had a movie released that wasn’t my cut of it. I believe that once a film is finished, it is finished. There have been some outstanding directors who have done incredibly interesting things by revisiting their films. But I never have that instinct. Maybe I’m just a slacker.

Returning to AI, have you followed any of the people that use ChatGPT to write movie scripts?

It’s amusing. Craig Mazin and John August, two of my pals, have a screenwriting podcast called Scriptnotes, which I just recorded with them, and when John brought it up, we started feeding it prompts. Based on the questions, the writing was really amazing, as was the grammar, which was flawless and seemed like actual phrases.

They were fairly bad scenes, and you could tell it was a cut-and-paste job. No, it’s more sophisticated than that, but I’m not sure whether it’s because of what the thing is or because of where it’s at in its development, and whether it’ll get exponentially better at it. What I’ve largely seen is great mimicry, but it’ll be interesting to watch where it goes.

To use another metaphor, it’s a good shell, but there’s not much inside.

That’s the problem. Subtext, human feeling, everything of it. However, I could be delusory. Perhaps that thing is easily simulated once you get into a deep enough neural net. Perhaps that’s simply human ego thinking that something can’t be faked.

Maybe we just need to feed more Rian Johnson scripts to ChatGPT.

Oh gosh.

You’ve already created your masterpieces.

Yes, absolutely. The difficult part is writing. I mean, robot, OK. Please hand me a script. I’ll take over as director.

But we’ve already seen actors like Bruce Willis get deepfaked into commercials. It’s incredible to believe that an AI could perform a human performance.

It’s already disturbing.

Yes.

Even the best deepfakes are still pasted on top of a human performing a performance, right? It feels like we’re still a long way off, yet I’m sure this is already happening somewhere in a lab.

Do you believe that, even if it’s a perfect forgery, something made by a machine would have the same appeal to an audience as knowing that a human being is behind it? I honestly have no idea.

I’m not sure either. I just interviewed Diego Luna about Andor, and he replied, “If a filmmaker feels anything, then someone else out there will, too.” I’m not sure if machines can accomplish it.

That, I suppose, is the major question. He appears to be correct in our traditional notion of what you can and cannot programme.

I’m not sure if this is my magical thinking projecting onto what this material actually is, but there’s this odd—sort of like in the ’50s with sci-fi—feeling that everything is conceivable going forward. In which case, even if we haven’t seen proof of concept, it feels like the possibility is out there, hovering in the air. That’s what’s genuinely terrifying/exciting, you know?

Yes. It also depends on whether you’re utilising AI to reproduce an actual person or just a CGI robot, in my opinion.

Yeah. I’m not sure, man. Skynet is on its way. [Laugh]

I have a friend who is deeply immersed in that sector and the arguments surrounding AI and the genuine hazards it poses to society. Not Terminator-related, but where the genuine threats could come from. For all that it is exhilarating, and for our minor anxieties like “Are they going to write my script for me?” the genuine dangers on the horizon are extinction-level problems.

Are you someone who considers this? As in “Alexa is listening to me…”

We all know from our Instagram advertising that everything is always listening. But I also have the impression that there is a limit. I mean, just getting through a normal day takes up all of my bandwidth.

Growing up during the height of the Cold War, with the abstract idea that nuclear weapons may fall on our heads at any time, you were continuously in a state of denial. With all of this modern technology, there’s still a human survival instinct that you have to let go of and go about your business.

When you initially begin working on a film, you sketch it out in a Moleskine notebook. Does that remind you of anything?

I started utilising them [waves notepad] before technology allowed me to perform that kind of thing on a tablet. It’s more a matter of habit than anything else.

Memory of the muscles.

I’ve been Airbnb-ing a cottage near Lake Arrowhead for, oh, years and years. It’s nothing extraordinary, but I’ve done a lot of writing there at this point.

Sondheim is already in your Spotify playlist.

Actually, I had the LCD Soundsystem album Sound of Silver on repeat while writing Glass Onion, to the point where I texted James Murphy afterward and said, “I’m giving you a special thanks.” And he says, “OK.” [Laughs]

Glass Onion should be mentioned on the next LCD Soundsystem album.

I’m hoping so. I believe I am entitled to one. Make it happen, Angela.

I have a question about Star Wars: Is there an update on the trilogy you planned to make?
There is no hierarchy. I’m currently only interested in mystery films. That’s pretty much taken over my entire creative universe right now.

Are they still being worked on?

I’m still talking to people at Lucasfilm and Kathy [Kennedy] about it, and I’m hoping we can do it.

When we asked you about diversity in your casting for Star Wars: Episode VIII—The Last Jedi a few years back, you answered, “If someone is responding to diversity badly, fuck ’em.” Fans began sending racist texts to Obi-Wan Kenobi star Moses Ingram earlier this year. I’m curious whether you heard any similarities between those two situations.

Everything is the same. There was a time when it was common sense not to feed the trolls. Don’t worry about it. That is not correct. Like a body fighting an infection, you must shut it down. The massive outpouring of very vociferous, This is not who this fan base is, was very reassuring. And pushing it out.

It’s simply depressing. But if there’s any ray of optimism, it’s the idea that these fan bases are maturing and understanding, No, we’ve got to punch these individuals out.

It definitely feels like a shift. Ewan McGregor quickly issued a statement saying that this does not represent the fans. And, as you stated at WIRED25, 99 percent of the fandom isn’t made up of trolls.

Also, that 1% tries to play the shell game by claiming, “Anyone who doesn’t like the movie is a racist.” That is an example of ill faith. It’s so obvious. We’re not talking about whether you like or dislike anything; we’re talking about if you’re toxic and nasty online, as well as whether you’re an ugly sexist racist.

You’re also working on Poker Face for Peacock right now. It’s part of the new weekly release streaming trend. Does the format of the murder-of-the-week lend itself to that?

Yes, there were many behind-the-scenes debates about it. They’ll drop a large number of them at first, then do the rest of them week by week. To be honest, I believe that doing it weekly keeps it in the dialogue for a longer period of time.

Yes.

It’ll be exciting since folks will be able to discuss the new one every week. But I want people to be able to skip around if they hear an episode is good and want to get to it right away. It’s the kind of show where you can do that.

So each episode stands alone?

It was a deliberate decision, and I had no idea how radical it would appear to the individuals we were proposing it to. [Laughs] The streaming serialised tale has just become the gravity of a thousand suns, erasing everyone’s collective memory. That was not the mode of storytelling that kept people watching television throughout its long history. So it wasn’t just a decision; it was something we had to fight for. It was difficult to find a champion ready to accept a bet on it in Peacock.

Relatedly, how important was it to you that Glass Onion be released in theaters, even if only for a week?

It’s very, very important to me. And with the Benoit Blanc movies, what’s fun about making them is really trying to do the Hitchcock thing of playing the audience like a piano. So just standing in the back of theaters and watching Glass Onion play with crowds, it’s been such an exhilarating experience. It’s like a drug.

It’s such a weird time right now because I’m just starting to work on writing the next mystery movie, and it’ll be a few years before it comes out and god only knows what the landscape’s gonna look like at that point. I feel like trying to guess where we’re gonna be next is maybe a fool’s errand.

I was going to ask if you have predictions for the future of movies.

My hope is theatrical. My hope is that however it happens, that theatrical will find a way to come back and kind of solidify and find its form in the culture. I feel like it’s something that people still want.

It’s wild, with the new Avatar movie coming out, to think about what it was like when the first one came out with the huge box office.

But we did see that with Top Gun: Maverick, with the new Black Panther. These big spectacles people will definitely come out for, but the bigger question is the smaller films and the movies that are more geared toward adult audiences, and finding the place of those in terms of the theatrical landscape.

Going back to Glass Onion for a second, can you tell me about those murder-mystery dinners you had with the cast?

What happened was we were in Belgrade, we were shooting, and the Delta surge was happening. The numbers were horrible and we wanted to keep everybody safe. And if we got a positive test with one of our main actors and had to shut down for a few weeks, we would’ve been absolutely screwed. So we were being very locked down and very safe. Which meant we were all trapped in this very nice hotel together in Belgrade. So yeah, it was really just to blow off steam. We would rent out the rooftop restaurant bar, and just take it over with the cast and get really drunk and play Mafia. [Laughs]

Who were the pros?

I don’t think it’ll surprise anyone that Edward Norton is very good at Mafia, but Kate and Leslie actually took it very, very seriously. Daniel couldn’t give a fuck. He was just enjoying getting drunk and hanging out with everyone.

Does he just start tending bar?

Yeah, he just becomes a DJ at some point in the night. Janelle would show up in full costume, like a full Sherlock Holmes cape. It did definitely forge a kind of drama camp environment with the whole cast.

What does Daniel Craig play when he DJs?

It’s a good mix of like, dad rock and the type of stuff you would expect a cool guy from England would play. One thing we all learned, though, is that he does not like jazz. Leslie tried to put on some jazz and Daniel was like “Hm, not my thing.”

Very un-Bond of him.

But also Janelle would take over at some point, and then it would be a party.

Speaking of Janelle, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but she really has to carry the movie in some ways.

It’s a role that requires quite a lot of her and it’s a role that also required a lot of calibration and a lot of deep planning and thought, and she came in and just worked her ass off, man. It’s just kind of amazing to the point where I’m still watching the movie and discovering little nuances she put into it that kind of accentuate the different aspects of the part.

Was it written with Janelle in mind?

I try not to write with actors in mind generally, because that ends up breaking your heart if they’re not available. It all comes down to just a gut feeling and then you make the movie and you can’t imagine anyone else in that role. I feel like she just stepped in and owned it. As a fan of her music, she has that Bowie thing where she is making music, but she’s also making narratives and creating characters. She’s very much a storyteller. And this role kind of required that as well. So yeah, I feel pretty lucky that we got to ride this bus with Janelle Monáe.