A demagogic small-town priest falls dead in a sealed chamber moments after delivering a fiery Good Friday homily — it’s “a classic impossible crime” and the task facing Daniel Craig’s detective extraordinaire Benoit Blanc in Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out mystery, Wake Up Dead Man.
While the first two installments owed a huge debt to Agatha ChristieJohnson admits that for this “murder dressed as a miracle,” the origin had less to do with a whodunit and more to do with the why. “The reality is that this film did not start with a mystery book at all,” Johnson tells Gold Derby in a new interview (watch above). “It was the idea of ‘Can I can I make a fun Benoit Blanc murder mystery that examines the issue of faith in America right now?’”
As a lapsed evangelical Christian, Johnson felt the timing was right to address the topic, given the fraught cultural landscape where religion can be twisted and weaponized. He plotted a pitch-perfect Blanc-worth locked-door mystery, found the perfect foils in Josh O’Connor and Josh Brolinand surrounded them with a starry ensemble featuring Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Mila Kunis, Thomas Haden Church, Jeffrey Wright, Cailee Spaneeand Daryl McCormack.
Ahead of the film’s theatrical release on Thanksgiving weekend, Johnson joined Gold Derby for a no-holds-barred conversation about the origins of Benoit Blanc, how his own crisis of faith informed Wake Up Dead Manand whether he’s ready to retire his intrepid detective.
Gold Derby: You initially planned Knives Out to be a one-off, right? You didn’t go in with the notion that Benoit Blanc would be a recurring character, your own Hercule Poirot or Nancy Drew?
Rian Johnson: When we made the first one, it’s not like we were thinking of planning a series, but I’d be lying if I said that, in the back of my mind, I didn’t have that idea. These were inspired by Agatha Christie and I hoped that if it did well, we could keep making them in the same way Agatha Christie tried something different with each one of her novels. We could continue it making a different style of murder mystery each time. I probably didn’t say it out loud, but I had in the back of my head.
What was your starting point for Wake Up Dead Man? Was a locked-door mystery — what Benoit Blanc calls “a classic impossible crime” — on your to-do list?
The reality is that this film did not start with a mystery book at all. It was the idea of “Can I can I make a fun Benoit Blanc murder mystery that examines the issue of faith in America right now?”
I grew up very, very Christian, and I’m not anymore. The actual starting point, more than a specific Agatha Christie book, was, “Can I genuinely examine this complicated, touchy issue in a way that feels more than just finger-wagging, but at the same time doesn’t tiptoe around the subject?”
But in terms of mystery elements, this this movie owes more to John Dickson Carr than it does to Agatha Christie. He’s an author who was a contemporary of Christie’s and someone who I got very into. He specialized in the locked-door mystery, and his books all had more of an Edgar Allen Poe-style gothic tone to them. There’s a reason we namecheck them in the movie. I owe quite a bit to [Carr] with this one.
I love the push-pull between Father Jud and Monsignor Wicks, and Father Jud and Benoit Blanc. Are their conversations similar to conversations you have with yourself?
The whole movie is a push and pull, with Father Jud and inside Father Jud. Between the true selflessness that Christ calls Christians to have in life and to loving your enemy being job No. 1, which in the year of our Lord 2025, at least for myself, feels like an impossible task sometimes.
But that’s what we’re called to do. So that is one pole. And then on the other side, you have “us against them” and you have “they’re out to destroy us,” and “they’re taking away what’s ours.” The idea that we have to build ourselves this fortress and build a wall, engage in spiritual warfare. When I was a Christian for many years, I always felt the tension between those two things and can never quite reconcile them.
This movie very much was a way of creating those two poles and then letting them clash on film.
You don’t back away from a critique of extremism and MAGA politics. Do you have any worries that a certain faction will come after this film?
I hope the movie doesn’t feel like it’s giving a lesson or making some big social point. On one hand, it isn’t afraid to call out stuff that I deeply disagree with. We’re not afraid of that.
On the other hand, these movies are set in the present moment. Something I wanted to do with these is take this genre that we usually see done as quaint little period pieces and unapologetically set it in exactly the present moment. And right now, that’s the waters that we’re all swimming in.
For me, it was like, “OK, if I’m going to make a movie set right now, that’s about my experience with faith, I have to be true to that. I’ve got to talk about the stuff that we’re all talking about when we talk about Christianity in America right now.
I did a lot of work in the writing to get it right in terms of not just being a scolding diatribe. I hope it’s a genuine conversation about all this stuff, even if it’s a conversation with a point of view. I hope it’s a conversation that ultimately has a real generous spirit to it.
One thing I love about all the Knives Out films is that you assemble such stellar casts that you’re not tipped off right away by the biggest name being the biggest suspect. A Scooby-Doo mystery where the one adult in the room is always guility—
Wonder who it’s going to be.[[laughs]Yes.
—or the TV procedural of the week where the famous guest star is the perp.
Yes, another hidden benefit of this is when you have an ensemble of suspects and they’re all played by movie stars, any one of them could be tossed in the paddy wagon at the end of the movie.
Josh O’Connor, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close… are you turning down A-listers and Oscar nominees at this point?
Casting these movies is always a real dance. And Mary Vernieu and Brett Howewho are our casting directors we’ve worked with for many years. They always have their work cut out for them. But it’s an interesting task because with these movies, we’re building an ensemble of suspects out of movie stars who in any other movie would be No. 1 on the call sheet. That’s been a challenge, but I think that’s also why it’s worked for three movies in a row, both onscreen and also off. Our experience offscreen with these ensembles has been these golden, beautiful little families that have formed of these groups of actors. And I think that’s because the reason they say yes to this is because they genuinely crave that experience of the ensemble.
Both the Joshes, O’Connor and Brolin, are great in this. Josh O’Connor is really something special. He’s somebody that I discovered by watching Challengers for the first time and just being blown away. And he’s also a ridiculously lovely human being. Suspiciously so. It’s perfect for a murder mystery.
I mean, it’s a treat for me. I just I love actors. That’s one of several reasons I hope we get to keep making these things, because I get to work with a new group like this. I mean, Glenn Close, talk about like a bucket list thing for me!
We’re going after the busiest people on the planet, and so it’s still very much a process. But it still feels like a little miracle every time we finally close a deal and lock somebody in for a part. As the ensemble builds, my eyes just get bigger and bigger seeing this group that we’ve assembled. It’s magic every time.
So glad to hear you’re not permanently retiring Benoit Blanc, but you are putting him on the backburner for now. You’ve done three of these in a row. The Star Wars stuff is sidelined. Do you have a dream project that you’re eyeing next?
Yes. I’m writing right now. I’m writing an original thing that’s not a Benoit Blanc mystery. It’s just kind of its own thing. I’m not like, ”Someday, I’ll get to do this dream project or something.” I feel really lucky; my dream project is whatever movie I’m most excited about making next. I’m just excited to be able to keep doing one after the other. So in this case, it happens to be this story that I’ve been kicking around in different forums for 10, 15 years. We’ll see if I can finally crack it.
Good luck with that. Speaking of mysteries, what about Poker Face? It’s looking for a new home and you want to reboot it with Peter Dinklage taking over for Natasha Lyonne. I’m trying to wrap my head around how it will work. Was that always the plan? Can you share any more details?
I don’t want to give too much away about the plan for it. I have a plan for how to do this and I think it’s going to be really fun. I feel like it will be a delightful thing, what I have in my head in terms of continuing it, but that is all contingent on us being able to set up this new version of it someplace. We’re trying to do that right now.
It’s less Benoit Blanc, more Columbo. Bring on the guest star!
Yes! The case of the week, the “howcatchem.” Man, I love making that show so much. We’ll see what happens.
