Janelle Monae on featuring in Rian Johnson’s ‘Knives Out’ sequel: It is a dream role

New Delhi, Dec 21 (PTI) “Hell yes…” was Janelle Monae’s response to the offer to feature in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” as the Hollywood star says she was looking for an opportunity to collaborate with filmmaker Rian Johnson and also explore her range as an actor.

“Glass Onion” is the sequel to Johnson’s critically-acclaimed whodunnit “Knives Out”, a runaway success of 2019 which introduced Daniel Craig as the super sleuth Benoit Blanc.

The follow-up sees Craig’s Blanc travel to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colourful suspects, played by Edward Norton, Monae, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr, Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline.

Monae, who stars as the mysterious Andi, said she was introduced to Johnson’s work back in 2012 through his time-travel thriller “Looper”.

“I’ve always wanted to be in Rian’s films since I saw ‘Looper’. And then I went to go watch everything he had done. I saw the first installment of ‘Knives Out’ and I was just blown away. This is cool. If he ever calls me, it’s a yes,” the 37-year-old actor told PTI in a virtual interview.

As fate would have it, Monae was soon approached to work on the sequel, being backed by streamer Netflix.

“When I read the script and found out the role, I was like, this is a dream role. I’m really going to have an opportunity to show range, to do comedy, to do the heavy, dramatic emotional stuff, and everything in between. And that was a hell yes,” she said.

Monae, known for her outings in critical hits such as “Moonlight”, “Hidden Figures” and “Antebellum” as well as the second season of Prime Video show “Homecoming”, said Johnson has once again hidden the clues to the mystery in plain sight, similar to what he did in part one.

“What Ryan is doing is innovative. He modernises the characters, but also looks to the past as like some inspiration and tradition.

“He puts his own spin on it in the way that he just puts those clues in plain sight. On the first watch, you’re not going to see it coming. But then you watch it a second time and you’re like, ‘Wow. All the clues were right in front of me the entire time’,” she added.

The first “Knives Out”, which featured Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette and Christopher Plummer, follows Blanc investigating the death of the patriarch of a wealthy, dysfunctional family.

Before her acting debut with Barry Jenkins’ 2016 movie “Moonlight”, Monae was already a renowned musician with chartbusters like “Mushrooms & Roses”, “Make Me Feel”, “Locked Inside”, “Many Moons” and “Come Alive” to her credit.

It’s all about storytelling, the Kansas City-born artiste said about her work as a musician and as an actor.

“Sometimes I have a story to tell and I want to sing it. If I have a concept album, then there’s an arc, a character that I’m portraying via a song. The same goes for a film, you’re portraying a character and honouring the movie.

“When I go on tour, I’m a character. When I show up on set, I’m a character. But it’s a little different. I have a little bit more creative control when it’s my album. When it’s my movie that I’m making versus when someone else is making their movie, you don’t get the final cut. You just have to trust your director.”

The actor said she is forever indebted to Jenkins for giving her first role.

“‘Moonlight’ is a film that just still means the world to me, and people still come up to me and just tell me how much my character touched their hearts and just that story in general.

“I don’t even think I would have been prepared to do a role like this if I hadn’t done ‘Moonlight’, ‘Hidden Figures’, ‘Antebellum’ and ‘Homecoming’. Like all of those roles, when I think about it helped me immensely when it was time to portray this role.”

Produced by Ram Bergman and Johnson, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” will start streaming on Netflix from Friday.