Archive December 1, 2025

In the hit whodunnit franchise Knives Out, Daniel Craig reprises his role as charismatic if eccentric detective Benoit Blanc in this film.

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Bond star Daniel Craig has said his latest film Wake Up Dead Man – the third instalment in the Knives Out films, is sadly very relevant to the ‘scary times’ we live in. “These movies are not whodunnits,” says the 57-year-old actor. “Those are the worst kind of movies.”

Craig’s quirky gentleman-detective Benoit Blanc, complete with his southern drawl, penchant for drama and sharp suits, made his first outing in the smash hit 2019 Netflix film Knives out, which channelled whodunnit queen Agatha Christie’s golden age of crime into a contemporary American setting.

The upcoming film, whose star-studded cast also includes Josh O’Connor, Andrew Scott and Glenn Close, is the follow-up to the second film in the franchise, 2022’s Glass Onions. As Craig admits in an interview with Radio Times, that film – which didn’t receive quite the rapturous reception as its predecessor, saw him criticised for being ‘over the top’.

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“But I make an effort to remind people that’s what he was supposed to be,” he continued. Benoit Blanc was trying to disarm these terrible people, which was the whole point of the movie.

Revealing his inspiration for the eccentric Blanc, Craig calls himself ‘a magpie, like every other actor’ and cites various iconic detectives – from Peter Ustinov’s Poirot to Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express.

In Wake Up Dead Man, whose dark American Gothic setting was actually recreated in Epping Forest, Essex – the actor heaps praise for the performance of co-lead Josh O’Connor, 35, known to UK audiences for The Durrells and The Crown – as Prince Charles.

O’Connor portrays a young Catholic priest named Father Jud Duplenticy, who, like many of the characters in the movie, conceals dark secrets and worked as a boxer before accidentally killing a man in the ring.

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Glen Close, who is open about his own success, compares the actor to Jimmy Stewart, who claims he has a “wonderful quality, a goodness that will be a comfort to people,” while Craig simply declares, “Josh is brilliant – you just want him to shine.”

O’Connor credits Craig for landing his role in Wake Up Dead Man , and says the Bond icon is not only an ‘extraordinary’ actor, but surprisingly, gives a fascinating insight when he says, “He’s incredibly full of self-doubt and self-loathing… and constantly saying to me, ‘What do you think about that?’”

“I think part of it is because he’s so confident with Bond. But that’s not at all him. He resembles a boy. He’s a bit of a sweet, insecure, charming, and draws you in. He is fantastic. I admired his efforts.

Wake Up Dead Man sees Blanc take on possibly his trickiest case to date, as he is tasked with solving the seemingly impossible murder of the charismatic yet intimidating Monsignor (Josh Brolin) at a small Catholic Parish in upstate New York.

The cast of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, which premiered on Netflix on December 12th, spoke to Radio Times.

After the former Top Gear star made environmental changes like wider hedgerows and new ponds, Jeremy Clarkson has transformed Diddly Squat Farm into a haven for birds, with 45 species now recorded compared to the average farm’s 27.

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Jeremy Clarkson has shared a poignant moment from his time on Diddly Squat Farm that left him feeling “sad”. The former Top Gear host, who purchased a thousand acres of land including Curdle Hill Farm in 2008, was disheartened by the lack of birds at his Chipping Norton site.

A tenant had previously taken over the farm, but Jeremy took over as owner when they left in 2019. Clarkson’s Farm, a well-known Amazon Prime Video series, chronicles his foray into farming.

Since starting to farm six years ago, Jeremy has expressed his regret over the alarming decline in bird numbers. He stated in a column for the Sunday Times magazine that “the sad state of things was obvious when I first purchased Diddly Squat because their numbers have fallen by more than 60% since 1970.” The skies were completely empty when I went for a walk.

The TV personality, who had a desire to change things, decided to start farming seven years ago. He continued, “It made me sad, so when I started farming the land seven years ago, I made the decision to take action.” I widened the margins around the fields’ edges and stopped trimming the hedges away from the roads.

According to Jeremy, farmers are required to leave between four and six metres around the edges of fields. However, he chose to leave 10 in some areas to foster a healthier environment for the birds, even though it meant producing less food, reports Gloucestershire Live.

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Along with that, Jeremy also constructs ponds across Diddly Squat. He humorously admits that because he “loves using diggers,” but also believes that it will provide a source of water that could aid in the return of farmland birds.

Later, Jeremy reached out to bird expert Hannah Bourne-Taylor for advice and planted “wildflower strips” around the farm to encourage insects as “tasty snacks.”

Hannah, who once caused controversy by expanding a trip to Ghana by 84 days because a bird nested in her hair, encouraged him to make more changes at Diddly Squat, including planting “all kinds of things with Latin names.”

However, the dry weather prevented the flowers from actually growing. She also advised me to rent a digger and build more ponds because birds don’t enjoy traveling, according to Jeremy.

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For instance, “a corn bunting rarely straddles more than a mile or so from the hedge where it was born.”

The former Grand Tour winner claims that Hannah eventually discovered 45 different bird species at Diddly Squat, compared to the typical farm’s 27, he claims.

Whitethroats, goldfinches, buntings, and skylarks were just a few of the species that Jeremy’s farm found. He claims that he was pleased to see his efforts paid off despite the fact that the majority of the birds were “small and boring.”