By now, it is no secret to anyone paying attention that Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is full of delightful Easter eggs for viewers to enjoy as they try to solve the mystery of who is trying to kill billionaire and self-proclaimed genius Miles Bron (Edward Norton). Unfortunately, not every bit of trivia about a movie can be neatly wrapped into an Easter egg. From artistic references to hidden cameos, there are things about a film that only come to light once the director or someone else involved in the production effort decides to come forward with a new piece of information. Thankfully, Johnson isn’t one to keep his thoughts about his movies a secret for long.
Recently, the director released a commentary track on Netflix’s Watching With… podcast on Spotify spilling the beans on all things Glass Onion. The episode is full of cool details about the production of the film, hidden references to movie thrillers and musical plays, and even some food for thought regarding the real message of Glass Onion. Here are some of the most amazing things we learned from listening to Glass Onion's commentary track.
Due to COVID Restrictions, Most of ‘Glass Onion’s Extras Are Friends and Crew Members
Shot during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Glass Onion is one of the few movies that didn’t make an effort to hide what was going on in the world at the time. As a matter of fact, Johnson made the pandemic an integral part of his movie's universe: face masks and vaccines were used to convey personality traits and privilege, fleshing out Miles Bron’s group of disrupters. However, as one might expect, the pandemic didn’t just impact the way the story was presented, but also how the movie’s shooting was conducted. In order to keep things between a relatively small group of people that were regularly tested for COVID, most of the film’s extras were either friends with Johnson or crew members. Claire’s (Kathryn Hahn) assistant that appears right in the movie’s first scene is actually Johnson’s own assistant, Adele Franck. Production designer Rick Heinrichs plays Andi’s (Janelle Monáe) lawyer during the trial, while line producer Tom Karnowski plays the judge. Basically, in Johnson’s words, “anybody who was a trusted regularly tested member of the crew got roped into a cameo at some point."
There Is a SpaceX Employee in the Movie
And, indeed, there are many cameos in Glass Onion, from crew members to A-listers such as Ethan Hawke and Angela Lansbury. However, considering just how much of a riff on Elon Musk the character of Miles Bron is, the most impressive cameo is that of a SpaceX employee. In his first scene, Lionel (Leslie Odom Jr.) appears in a Zoom chat with a group of scientists from Bron’s company, Alpha Industries. Everyone in the meeting is a friend of Johnson in real life. One of these friends is Mark Newman, who actually works for Musk’s spacecraft company.
What Is Real and What Was Added in Post
Finding out that some things are added in post-production to a movie hardly comes as a shock to anyone nowadays. However, it’s still interesting to find out which parts of a film are practical effects that were actually there during the shooting and which came later. In Glass Onion’s commentary track, Johnson reveals that the puzzle box that Miles Bron sent to his friends was actually built from scratch by props master Chris Peck and a talented group of craftspeople. When the box opens and closes, there were actual puppeteers with rods doing the movements that were erased in post. Likewise, Miles Bron’s Glass Onion house in Greece is an actual villa in the Amanzoe Resort, but the garish decor, such as the butt sculpture and the titular glass onion at the top of the building, were digitally added. But the most impressive element to be added to a scene in post isn’t a prop or a piece of set decoration, but an entire person: the man responsible for solving the fugue puzzle in Birdie Jay’s (Kate Hudson) star-studded party, renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma wasn’t on set in Belgrade for his big scene. He was shot in front of a green screen and later placed beside Peg (Jessica Henwick).
There Are Nods to Various Whodunits Everywhere in the Movie
Many of Johnson’s references for making Glass Onion were added as Easter eggs to the final movie. The star of Murder, She Wrote, Angela Lansbury, pops up playing Among Us with detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). In the very same scene, we can see a copy of Edward Powys Mathers’ murder mystery puzzle Cain’s Jawbone lying on the floor of Blanc’s bathroom. The list goes on. However, some references are a lot easier to pick up than others. In the film’s commentary track, Johnson brings up a series of whodunit movies that were an important part of the creation of Glass Onion, serving as artistic references for his work. According to Johnson, the film’s entire structure as well as the pier scene in which the disrupters meet on screen for the first time were inspired by the 1973 thriller The Last of Sheila, in which a murder mystery party on a yacht turns into a real crime scene. Andi’s character was entirely modeled after Mia Farrow’s Jacqueline de Bellefort in 1978’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. The fact that the movie’s first murder - Duke’s (Dave Bautista) death by pineapple - happens at the one-hour mark was also borrowed from Sheila and Death on the Nile. Last, but not least, the hourly "Dong!" that marks the passage of time at Miles’ villa is a nod to the noonday gun that goes off every day at 12 p.m. in yet another Hercule Poirot film, 1982’s Evil Under the Sun.
Johnson Also Added a Little Something for the Theater Kids
Johnson isn’t just a fan of whodunits. He’s also big on musical theater. In the Glass Onion’s commentary track, the director reveals that he spent a good chunk of his free time during the film’s production listening to a recording of Merrily We Roll Along, a play written by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth about a group of friends that fall apart over the course of 20 years. The story of Merrily We Roll Along has a lot in common with the plot of Glass Onion, and musical theater nerds may have noticed a little nod to the play when Duke spills out the truth to Helen/Andi in Miles’ living room: seemingly innocuous, the line “Now you know” is actually a reference to the title of one of the songs of Merrily We Roll Along. A poster of the musical production can also be seen behind Phillip (Hugh Grant) when he opens the door to Helen (Janelle Monáe).
Daniel Craig Was Inspired by Jacques Tati and Cary Grant
Directors aren’t the only ones to bring their own sets of references to a movie. Actors are also inspired by many different sources in their performances. In order to craft the Benoit Blanc that we all know and love, for instance, Daniel Craig looked to French comedy and classic Hollywood for inspiration. According to Johnson, Craig borrowed a lot of his physical humor from French actor and director Jacques Tati, famous for his work on comedies like Mon Oncle and Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. Cary Grant’s character in the 1955 romantic thriller To Catch a Thief was also a source of inspiration.
Edward Norton Came Up with Miles’ Frank T.J. Mackey Outfit
“Miles has never had an original thought in his life.” These are Johnson’s words, not mine. In order to convey just how much Miles' career is based on making people believe he is someone he’s not, Edward Norton’s character is often shown wearing outfits associated with other fictional characters and media personalities. In a flashback, he appears in Steve Jobs’ classic jeans and black turtleneck as he is trying to convince Andi to put money into his dangerous hydrogen fuel. In another, just as he is being introduced to the disrupters for the first time, he wears an outfit reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s character in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, a pick-up artist by the name of Frank T.J. Mackey. According to Johnson, this reference to Magnolia was all Norton’s idea. The actor simply showed up on set dressed as Mackey, which immediately cracked the director up. Johnson quickly incorporated the look into the scene, hoping that this wouldn’t get him in trouble with Anderson later on.
The Glass Sculptures in Miles’ Living Room Are All References to Beatles' Songs
A glass onion is an object that seems complex and full of layers, but whose core is readily visible to anyone that looks. Apart from being the title of Johnson’s film, the expression is also the name of a Beatles song that pokes fun at fans that are constantly looking for deeper meanings into the band’s songs. Featured at the film’s end credits, the song has lyrics like “Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet” and “The walrus was Paul". This, however, isn’t the only Beatles reference in Glass Onion. When Miles Bron welcomes his friends to his villa, he does so by playing “Blackbird” on a guitar that he claims belonged to Paul McCartney. But Johnson’s Beatlemania doesn’t stop there, either. In the commentary track, the director explains that all the little glass statuettes in Bron’s living room reference a different Beatles song. There are a bunch of strawberries as a nod to “Strawberry Fields Forever”, and, at one point, Helen puts down her glass near the walrus from “I Am the Walrus”. Even the little jester on top of a mountain that serves as a disarming button for the Mona Lisa’s security system is based on the Beatles' tune “The Fool on the Hill."
Helen’s Children Were Cut from the Movie
As directors usually do on commentary tracks, Johnson devotes a lot of time to scenes and details from the film’s first cut that didn’t make it to the final version. The most shocking revelation of all is that the original Helen Brand had kids and that there was a running joke about her juggling the investigation with calls from her children. This was meant to make the character of Helen more likable to audiences. However, after the movie’s first screening, it became clear that viewers already liked Helen well enough without the kids, so the children were left in the editing room to help the film’s pacing.
For Johnson, ‘Glass Onion’s Message Isn’t Eat the Rich
As the commentary track comes to an end, Johnson speaks a little of what he thinks the main point of Glass Onion is, and, shockingly, the director isn’t a big fan of the “Eat the rich” approach to his films. "To me, it's not very interesting the notion that rich people are jerks," he says before explaining that both Glass Onion and Knives Out are movies about power structures and what it takes to break them apart. In his own words, “The notion that there's this unhealthy power structure that's in place, and what people who may even have good intentions will do in order to protect that structure if they're benefiting from it, and what it takes to break that structure - that, to me, is actually so much more interesting than the notion of just something as simple as 'Eat the rich.'”