'Glass Onion': Rian Johnson on How They Pulled Off the Mona Lisa Stunt

He also teased an unused post-credit scene.

One of the greater surprising plot factors of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery revolves around the maximum well-known portray in the global – the Mona Lisa. Rian Johnson’s film sees billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invite a set of visitors to his high-priced island, packed with valuable art work, and the legendary portray is his satisfaction and joy. The climax of the movie functions a fiery showdown under the titular glass onion, and concludes with the portray burning to ashes.

Speaking to Empire via their Spoiler Special podcast on the film, the director defined how they were able to prepare the reproduction – in conjunction with the unexpected revelation that any replicas of classical work of arts are clearly legally obligated to be destroyed and documented. Along with that, Johnson also mentioned his love for a similar scene from a shocking source – Mr Bean.

We got a very talented, local Belgrade artist to do a recreation of the Mona Lisa and it was kind of extraordinary having it on set. I didn’t realise this, but if you get a recreation like this, you have to destroy them when you’re done filming, if it’s a famous work of art. You actually have to document yourself burning the canvas because of the counterfeit market. Daniel was a bit worried that we were ‘killing the puppy’ by upsetting people as we destroyed the Mona Lisa, but the scene in Bean where he destroys ‘Whistler’s Mother’ is one of the funniest scenes in cinematic history, so I figured we’d get away with this. That scene is so good.

Additionally, Johnson added that a post-credits sting was filmed, just in case audiences were unhappy at seeing a legendary piece of history destroyed before their very eyes. But the way it happens, with Helen (Janelle Monáe) setting the building on fire via Miles’ “perfectly safe” hydrogen-based alternative fuel, makes the finale most impactful, according to the director.

We also shot a little coda which we decided not to use, with Blanc on the phone speaking French and getting a little affirmation of ‘ah, oui, oui, merci’ and cutting to an office in the Louvre where the real Mona Lisa is, with the security guards saying ‘well, back to work’. But that pulls a punch, I like that the real painting gets destroyed in the movie.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is currently streaming on Netflix. You can see our interview with Johnson and Daniel Craig down below.