Having fun in a comedic role
Daniel Craig hams it up as a super-sleuth in murder mystery Knives Out.
FOUR years ago, Daniel Craig caused a stir when he admitted he was sick of playing James Bond. And even though next year’s (2020) 007 film will be his last, the English star is still itching to flex his other acting muscles.
Fans will see a different side of Craig in Knives Out, a campy whodunit comedy, where he hams it up as a super-sleuth rather than a spy.
And instead of Bond’s clipped British accent, the movie and the actor have fun with the Southern drawl of his character, Benoit Blanc, an eccentric Louisiana detective brought in to help police figure out the mysterious death of a wealthy author.
Suspects are the latter’s relatives and staff, played by an ensemble cast led by Chris Evans (Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011), Ana de Armas (Blade Runner 2049, 2017) and Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween, 2018).
Chatting to reporters in Beverly Hills last month, Craig is asked if comedy scripts cross his desk given that he is known mainly for actionpacked dramas.
The performer, who leaves the Bond franchise after next year’s No Time To Die, his fifth outing as the secret agent since Casino Royale (2016), says the genre matters less than the calibre of the story.
“This is the exception in the sense that I don’t get scripts as good as this. And you don’t read funny scripts - they are rare as hen’s teeth, they don’t exist in this town.
“Whether it was comedy or not, I would have said yes. It was the fact it was so beautifully written that made me want to do it,” says Craig, whose biggest comedic role before this was in Steven Soderbergh’s heist caper Logan Lucky (2017).
“I laughed out loud when I read the script. When I see it now with an audience, I am over the moon that they laugh at the same jokes that I laughed at. It’s just a joy,” says the star.
That script was written and directed by another big Hollywood name playing against type here: Rian Johnson, who helmed the science-fiction blockbusters Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and Looper (2012).
Craig will not say it himself, but Johnson, 45, confirms the actor was dying to sink his teeth into this film.
“I could tell that he was very eager to do something different. I could tell how much fun he was going to have playing this part.
“And you can see it on screen. There’s something joyful about his experience,” he says of the star, who told a Timeout magazine in 2015 that he would “rather slash my wrists” than play James Bond again and, if he did, “it would only be for the money”.
Craig says his character is a nod to classic fictional sleuths such as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and television’s Columbo (1971 to 2003).
But Knives Out also upends the traditional murder mystery, says Johnson, who came up with the story 10 years ago. “The basic idea was: What if you had a whodunnit that turned into a Hitchcock thriller that turned back into a whodunnit at the end?”
It is also a family drama, adds Craig.
“These are real people in a real family. It’s about much more than a murder or whatever is going on. We follow these characters, whether we like them or not, all the way and the whodunnit is secondary.
“It’s what drives the plot, but the characters are what you are interested in, and that’s what makes the movie good.”
While Craig may be counting the days till he is no longer tied to the Bond films, Johnson sees no need to distance himself from the equally massive Star Wars franchise, which is he is currently writing a new trilogy of films for.
“I didn’t feel like I needed to decompress from Star Wars. In making it and then putting it out and interacting with fans - and I feel like people don’t believe when I say it - I’ve had a wonderful experience,” says the filmmaker.
That disbelief stems from the backlash received for his movie, The Last Jedi, which took flak for, among other things, the greater racial diversity of its cast compared to older films, prompting vicious comments online.
“There are obviously trolls online, but that’s a very small aspect of it that gets a lot of attention. Most people are respectful and 95% of my interactions with fans are lovely,” Johnson says.
“And even the small degree of abuse online has been a constructive thing for me. It made me disconnect my sense of self-worth from everybody liking me on the Internet, which is ultimately a really healthy thing.” - The Straits Times/asia News Network
Knives Out is now showing at GSC cinemas nationwide.