[Rian Johnson] Hi, I'm Rian Johnson, and these are the Easter eggs you might have missed from Wake Up Dead Man.

[mysterious music playing]

[door opens]

[Rian] Wake Up Dead Man, most people will know it from the U2 song on the "Pop" album. I think that's a really underrated album. I really love that album. It's a really good song. The reason it's in my head more than that is it's a line in this old folk song, "Go Down, Old Hannah," and Hannah is the son. At some point in one of the verses, he said, "I said, 'Wake up, old dead man.'" And that stuck in my head. The version of it I first heard sung was of Pete Seeger doing it, but I think he learned it from Lead Belly.

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] [grunts] Halle Berry, that… that has a kick. 

[CLIP] [Edward Norton as Miles Bron] Oh, that's, uh, Jeremy Renner's small batch hot sauce.

[Rian Johnson] So, in the pizza restaurant, Il Diavolo, which Noah Segan's character runs, please know that there is a bottle of Jeremy Renner's hot sauce on the shelf in the pizza place. Not sure if you can actually see it, but do you need to see it? You know it's there. You can feel it.

[mysterious music continues]

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] Do you see that? 

[Rian Johnson] I was good friends with the magician and magic historian, Ricky Jay. And that's another thing I try and slip a reference into each of the films. In the first Knives Out, in the little security hut with Emmet Walsh, Ricky's picture is on the fridge as if he was the original bearded guy. And in this film, we got a Ricky Jay poster from his "52 Assistants" show and snuck it in on the wall.

[CLIP] [commentator speaking indistinctly on TV] 

[Rian Johnson] One thing that I try and do is get Joseph Gordon-Levitt, my friend since my first movie, into every single one of my films. And even if I can't get him on screen, I'll get him as a voice.

[CLIP] [man over laptop] You'll never prove it. We have the nanny cam footage. Alice, turn that off now, please.

[Rian Johnson] And I did it with this one as well. We snuck him in as the radio announcer for the baseball game that plays a part in the movie. 

[CLIP] [Josh O’Connor as Father Duplenticy] You didn't listen to the game during Friday's service. On your radio. 

[CLIP] [Thomas Haden Church as Samson Holt] I would not. Martha doesn't approve. 

[Rian Johnson] I'm a big baseball fan. Part of the delight for me was also getting to write commentary for baseball. 

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] That moment of checkmate, when I take the stage and unravel my opponent's web. Oh, you'll see. It's fun. 

[CLIP] [Mila Kunis as Chief Geraldine Scott] Great. How do we get there? 

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] The source, John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man.

[Rian Johnson] So the John Dickson Carr book, The Hollow Man, that is pretty prominently referenced in the movie. I love the cover of the book. It's actually from, I think, the original British edition. And we cheated a little, because there was never a paperback version of this made. But I had the prop department do one up just 'cause I think that creepy face on the front is so haunting. That is actually a great book to start with if you've watched this movie and you find yourself intrigued by the notion of the impossible crime. 

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] My God, this is practically a syllabus for how to commit this crime. 

[Rian Johnson] And hopefully that will open up the rabbit hole for you to go down of getting into more of John Dickson Carr's work.

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] Well… [chuckles]

[CLIP] [Josh O’Connor as Father Duplenticy]  Isn't this something? Right? It's… hard to be in here and not feel His presence. 

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] Who's? Oh. God… Oh. Yeah. [laughs]

[Rian Johnson] In the main church, which was Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, the exterior we shot on location. The interior was a set. Our amazing production designer, Rick Heinrichs, built this gorgeous set of the interior. So in this church set, the ambo, which is kind of the big pulpit that Wicks goes up, I gave Rick the reference of wanting to have kind of a Moby Dick-style vibe to it, which is why it looks like the hull of a ship, and it's actually breaking waves down at the bottom, just because of the great scene in Moby-Dick where the thunderous preacher does his sermon about Jonah and the whale. And there was something about Monsignor Wicks that seemed very Melville, so it made sense. 

[CLIP] [Josh Brolin as Monsignor Jefferson Wicks]] I am enough. Me. 

[CLIP] [Josh O’Connor as Father Duplenticy] Don't follow me, Blanc. I'm done. 

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] And, uh, why exactly? 

[CLIP] [Josh O’Connor as Father Duplenticy] I've had a "road to Damascus" thing. Paul had a holy revelation on the road to Damascus. 

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] Yes, I know. He was struck blind and all that hogwash. 

[Rian Johnson] The road to Damascus thing, which growing up Christian is something I was really familiar with. And then, as I started showing the script to friends who didn't grow up Christian, I realized, "Oh, this is a concept we have to kind of explain." Paul had originally been actually a persecutor of Christians and now the road to Damascus, he had a revelation and was blinded. And then when he accepted the Lord, it was like scales fell from his eyes and he could see again. And so it's basically, it's become shorthand for having kind of a holy revelation. And there's a very pivotal moment in the middle of the movie where Jud's character kind of realizes he's been swept up in Blanc's game of the investigation and so forth and has kind of lost the plot of what he's actually there to do. As a priest, you should be living a Christ-like life as much as he can.

[CLIP] [Josh O’Connor as Father Duplenticy] Blanc, are you… Are you okay? 

[CLIP] [Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc] Damascus. 

[Rian Johnson] The whole movie is rife with biblical references because my head is full of them, even down to character names. I mean, Martha, who is Glenn Close's character, who's kind of the devoted servant of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, that obviously comes from the story in the Gospels with Martha and Mary and Jesus. And Martha is kind of the one who's constantly working and serving and serving and is frustrated that she's not getting recognized for it. Throw a stone in this movie, you're gonna hit a biblical reference.

[CLIP] [grunts]

[CLIP] [glass breaks] 

[Rian Johnson] Except don't throw a stone unless you're without sin. 

[CLIP] [Glenn Close as Martha Delacroix] Kids.