The director of Knives Out seems to be a big fan of the shrewd, fictional detective J.B. Fletcher, and in more ways than one, at that.
Rian Johnson, an American filmmaker known for directing mystery/crime/thriller films, recently sat down with Vulture in what seems to be a rather fun interview, wherein he was asked to play the infamous game of f*ck, marry, and kill, but with “famous fictional detectives.” And The Brothers Bloom director certainly had some interesting answers.
With the neo-noir mystery, Brick, marking his directorial debut in 2004 and having made the popular mystery and crime film Knives Out along with its sequel, Rian Johnson clearly has a penchant for such genres. But can you guess who his favorite detectives and investigators from the world of fiction could be? Here’s a clue for one of his answers, it has something to do with one of the most famous detectives who is bound to be known by everyone and who was the fictional creation of a certain British author. If you know, you know.
Rian Johnson talks about his favorite fictional detectives
Let’s just go over how the game “f*ck, marry, kill” works, shall we? It’s quite simple and extremely entertaining wherein the individual playing has to assign three different names to the given titles, indicating who he would sleep with, who he would kill, and which one of them he would marry. And Rian Johnson‘s answers are definitely amusing.
“Oh god, this is tough,” Johnson laughed upon being asked to play the game. “This is not gonna go well, this is bad,” he joked before revealing that the person he would marry would be the amateur consulting detective named Mrs. Maple, a character from Agatha Christie’s crime novels who resides in a quaint village of St. Mary Mead.
“I guess I would marry Mrs. Marple,” the award-winning filmmaker replied. “Because it seems…it seems like it would be a nice kind of country life, just living with Mrs. Maple, I think.” But he seemed a bit confused between her and the protagonist of Murder, She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher before quickly arriving at the conclusion of sleeping with Fletcher instead.
“Maybe I should f*ck Jessica Fletcher. I have a feeling she’s kind of secretly freaky and I think that could be really, you know…,” Johnson trailed off before claiming he might even sleep with Arthur Conan Doyle’s character, Sherlock Holmes.
When asked to clarify which Sherlock Holmes was he really talking about, the Looper director said he was “thinking of the books.” Well, now we know Johnson has a thing for both Fletcher and Holmes.
Knives Out director urges people to read more works of John Dickson Carr
The last answer that remained was which famous detective Johnson would kill, but the poor thing was really struggling with that one before he finally came up with a response.
“So, I don’t know if you guys are familiar with John Dickson Carr,” the Star Wars: The Last Jedi director stated. And when he found out that the audience was indeed unaware of the American author, he took that as the perfect opportunity to introduce him to people, admitting that he wasn’t even sure whether he “actually wanted to kill this person” or not. “But it’s a great opportunity to pitch reading more John Dickson Carr,” he observed.
See also: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery TIFF Review: A Bigger, Less Consistent Murder Mystery Sequel
Johnson claimed that he would kill Gideon Fell, one of Dickson Carr’s characters who actually happens to be Johnson’s current favorite.
“He’s like this big, huge, massive man who walks on two canes, and is kind of a total a**hole, and I just hilarious, very funny,” Johnson explained. “So, um, sure I’ll kill him, whatever.”
Killing a character that is his favorite really seems like something an enigmatic but helpless detective would do. Forever bound by his demons and whatnot.
Source: Vulture on Twitter
