Daniel Craig had a hard time remembering his lauded Southern drawl for the upcoming Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
Craig plays detective Benoit Blanc, whose accent Ransom Drysdale (played by Chris Evans) describes as “Kentucky-fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl” – a far cry from the James Bond star’s real British accent.
In order to do his character justice, Craig says he enlisted the help of a dialect coach before returning for the sequel.
“I went away to work with an accent coach for three or four months before we started shooting,” Craig told Empire magazine.
“I’d forgotten the accent and I didn’t want to do a pastiche. I wanted to make it as grounded and as anchored in reality as possible.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Craig said James Bond helped him deal with the pressure of returning to a beloved franchise.
“How the f*** do we take something that caught people’s imagination and made them talk about murder mysteries, and do it again without it becoming a pastiche of itself?” Craig asked.
“I’ve spent the past 15 years of my life trying to do that in a franchise, so I’m not afraid of it. If you’ve got the right people in the room and the right talent, then you can do it.”
In Glass Onion, “Detective Benoit Blanc travels to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colorful suspects,” according to Netflix’s official description.
The new cast includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline with Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery streams on Netflix from 23 December.
