Daniel Craig forgot his Knives Out accent upon returning for the second film

The 54-year-old actor reprises his role as Detective Benoit Blanc in the sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, following the international success of the first movie, which starred the likes of Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Ana De Armas.

But, the sleuth’s Kentucky drawl didn’t come back to him naturally, and he spent months working with a dialect coach to perfect it once more.

‘I went away to work with an accent coach for three or four months before we started shooting,’ he said.

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.’

The former James Bond actor added to Empire magazine: ‘How the f**k 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?’

The actor returns as the detective once again following the first film’s success.

Knives Out’s first film was a major hit when it was released in 2019 and director Rian Johnson has suggested that he prefers Craig’s character to have an element of mystery surrounding him.

Speaking about the new movie and whether it’ll explore the detective’s background and personal life, he said: ‘There’s definitely more Blanc, but it’s not very interesting to me, the notion of building out Benoit’s life.

‘Like with Poirot and Miss Marple, what’s fun is how the elements of Benoit’s character reveal themselves through his act of solving each one of these mysteries.’

The second whodunnit features some more big stars.

Having starred as 007 in five films before bowing out in No Time To Die, Craig admits that he has no fear about turning Knives Out into a successful series of films.

The star explained that he’s ‘spent the past 15 years of my life trying to do that in a franchise’.

He reckons ‘if you’ve got the right people in the room and the right talent, then you can do it.’

The James Bond star has no fears about Knives Out becoming a film series.

‘Rian’s a genius writer and doesn’t want to repeat himself. Neither do we want to let people down, we want audiences to enjoy the world that we created in the first one and believe in this one.’

Glass Onion will see Craig swap a secret-filled Massachusetts mansion for a stunning compound in Greece, with another selection of murderous guests.

The star-studded cast includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe and Kate Hudson around the dinner table.

Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr, Madelyn Cline, Jessica Henwick and Dave Bautista will also star, but which of them will be the killer?

Glass Onion: A Knives Out will be in cinemas before premiering on Netflix on December 23.