Glass Onion: All the celebrity cameos in Netflix’s Knives Out sequel – including one you probably missed
Mystery sequel didn’t skimp on the star factor...
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Glass Onion, the sequel to Rian Johnson’s hit 2019 murder mystery film Knives Out, has finally arrived on Netflix.
Glass Onion has been warmly received by critics, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey describing it as “populist entertainment with its head screwed on right”.
It’s fair to say not everyone agrees, however.
The film sees Daniel Craig return as the ace sleuth Benoit Blanc, surrounded by a host of new characters played by Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr, Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline.
In addition to the core cast, however, Glass Onion also featured a number of high-profile celebrity cameos.
While most of these were hard to miss, there was one secret cameo that only came to light after the filmmakers gave it away.
Here’s a rundown of all the celebrity cameos in the film...
Yo-Yo Ma
Revered classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma makes an appearance during a scene at Birdie’s (Hudson) party near the start of the film.
Ma provides the key to cracking the musical riddle contained in Miles Bron’s puzzle box.
It’s not the first time he’s agreed to a screen cameo, of course – Ma has previously featured in The Simpsons, Arthur, Frasier and The West Wing.
The Among Us group
We are re-introduced to Benoit Blanc as he wallows in the bath playing a round of the deduction-based video game Among Us.
Adding to the joke is who the star-studded quartet he’s competing against: Stephen Sondheim, Angela Lansbury, Kareem-Abdul Jabbar and Natasha Lyonne. What’s more, they all have some connection to the murder mystery genre.
Lansbury, who died in October, was best known as the star of murder mystery series Murder, She Wrote. Sondheim, the musical theatre giant who died last year, once co-wrote a mystery film (The Last of Sheila).
Basketball icon Jabbar has penned multiple mystery novels, and Lyonne is set to star as a detective in Poker Face, a forthcoming TV show created by Glass Onion director Rian Johnson.
Ethan Hawke
Perhaps the most unmissable of the film’s many cameos, Ethan Hawke plays a taciturn man working for Miles Bron.
He appears as the group prepares to board the boat bound for Bron’s private island, and gives them a dose of what appears to be some kind of instant-effect Covid vaccine.
Hugh Grant
Notting Hill star Grant appears as Benoit Blanc’s partner, in a brief flashback scene around the middle of the film.
While his relationship with Blanc is not made explicit in the film, writer-director Johnson confirmed shortly after the film’s festival debut that he was in fact romantically linked with the detective.
Serena Williams
In one of the film’s most memorable gags, tennis legend Serena Williams can be seen offering virtual fitness lessons to Blanc and Helen (Monae).
Appearing on a giant screen in Miles Bron’s gym, Blanc (and the viewers) initially assumes the display is an advert – before Williams starts talking, revealing that the video is in fact a live feed, and she is being paid to sit there waiting.
And the one cameo that everyone probably missed...
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
The Dark Knight Rises star Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes a vocal cameo in the film, voicing the strange “dong” sounds that ring out across the island on an hourly basis.
Gordon-Levitt is a friend of Johnson’s, having starred in two of his early films (Brick and Looper). He also recorded cameos for all of Johnson’s other movies: The Brothers Bloom, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Knives Out.
Glass Onion is available to stream on Netflix now.
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