Rian Johnson couldn't have written 'Glass Onion' 10 years ago. He needed to become Hollywood's life of the party first.

• Insider had an in-depth chat with Rian Johnson about his acclaimed career.
• The filmmaker explained how being among the Hollywood elite in recent years inspired "Glass Onion."

Rian Johnson may be an acclaimed writer-director, but he still has to power through something that every scribe deals with: the crippling fear of putting words on a blank screen.

"There's nothing fun about writing. Writing sucks," Johnson said with a laugh between bites of his breakfast while talking with Insider over Zoom earlier this month. "It's lonely. You're insecure because you don't know if it's going to work. And you're usually way behind on your deadline."

But Johnson, 48, admits there's one element to the process that gives him some joy: putting a bit of himself into his stories.

Even though he's best known for creating fantastical genre-infused dramas, thrillers, and a polarizing "Star Wars" movie, his scripts feature real elements from his own life. That even includes his latest creation about a renowned detective who has a knack for single-handedly solving murders.

In "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" (available on Netflix beginning December 23), detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is invited to a lush private island to take part in a murder-mystery party held by an eccentric billionaire (Edward Norton) for a group of his longtime friends (Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., and Dave Bautista).

As they all get to the island, they fondly reminisce amongst themselves as the dapper Blanc is practically invisible to the group. An island unto himself on a literal island. Blanc sheepishly asks "What do we do with our bags?" as the rest wander off the white-sand beach, paying no mind to the pile of their belongings they leave unattended.

It's an odd-man-out scenario that Johnson says he's encountered a few times while navigating Hollywood.

"I could not have written this movie 10 years ago," Johnson said. "I could not have written this movie without having had some of the experiences I've had and been in some of the places I've been."

Yes, "Glass Onion" is the sequel to Johnson's successful 2019 whodunit "Knives Out," in which an all-star cast looks to be having the time of their lives playing outlandish characters inside Johnson's crafted world of devilishly fun mystery. But for Johnson, in many ways, he's using the movie to take stock of what he's accomplished in his career to this point.

Despite making his directing debut in 2005 with the cult-classic mystery-thriller "Brick," Johnson didn't become a household name until 2017, when "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" hit theaters. While climbing the ladder to heights he never dreamed possible, Johnson found himself in certain social settings with the movie-making elite.

How could Johnson not use that as fuel for his next Benoit Blanc tale?

"I very much felt like Blanc on the island several times in the recent past and that's a very new experience for me — being new to some of those faces and those worlds and feeling I don't know how this works. What are the rules here?" said Johnson. "That feeling, I think, very much channeled straight into the story. And it's not even that it makes it more fun. I think that's essential in anything I write, it has to come from somewhere."

Johnson says it 'wouldn't be the end of the world' if he never made a 'Star Wars' movie again, but he would be 'sad'

Long before Johnson rubbed elbows with James Bond and George Lucas, the "somewhere" his stories came from was from what he observed growing up.

Born in Maryland and raised in Denver, Colorado then later San Clemente, California during his teens, Johnson spent most of his youth rounding up his friends and family to make movies. It was in high school when he realized he could actually make a living as a filmmaker.

"I remember in high school reading a book about George Lucas and it mentioned USC, so I thought, 'Oh, this is a path I can take,'" he recalled thinking about the University of Southern California's renowned film school.

He got into USC, but not its film program. It took a few years of applying while he was there, but he finally got in towards the end of his junior year and found that film school wasn't so much a direct entry to Hollywood as it was a place to beef up on your movie knowledge and build relationships with peers. (It's where he first crossed paths with cinematographer Steve Yedlin, who has shot all his movies.)

Those peers became his support system through his 20s as he embarked on becoming a filmmaker.

"The other film students that I met and got tight with and who to this day are still friends and collaborators, we all came up together being broke and struggling and frustrated and supported each other and got each other jobs whenever we could get them," Johnson said.

While landing gigs he could scrounge up, including A.V. work at a preschool for the deaf and producing promos at the Disney Channel, Johnson spent the rest of his waking hours trying to get "Brick," a neo-noir set in a modern-day high school, made.

Stressed out all the time while trying to scrounge up enough money to make it, he finally found the momentum he needed when he was introduced to an up-and-coming producer named Ram Bergman who found the financing for the movie. They have worked together ever since.

"Brick," starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (another constant collaborator of Johnson's) in the lead role, launched Johnson's career as it showcased his talents as a storyteller. It led to him making "The Brothers Bloom" with Adrian Brody, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel Weisz in 2008 and the acclaimed time-travel thriller "Looper," starring Levitt and Bruce Willis, in 2012.

Looking back, Johnson is grateful he didn't get his start in his 20s.

"In my 20s, I wasn't happy," he said. "Twenty-year-old me is flipping off 48-year-old me saying, 'Let me make my movie, old man!' But I'm very grateful that I didn't make 'Brick' when I was, say, 22. I'm sure it would have been a very different movie, and I don't think it would have been good."

But 30 is still pretty young to make your first movie. Over the next decade, Johnson worked with big stars and evolved his craft, preparing him to take on his most high-profile project to date: "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."

Whether you love the movie or hate it — many viewers landed in either category — for Johnson, it's an experience he says he still cherishes to this day.

Soon after the movie's release, it was announced that Johnson would next embark on creating a new trilogy for the franchise. But much has happened since then. The Han Solo origin movie, "Solo," flopped, fans got burnt out by the Skywalker saga when "The Rise of Skywalker" was released, Disney bought Fox, "Star Wars" TV shows began showing up on Disney+, and Johnson went off and began his "Knives Out" franchise.

With all that, Johnson has said numerous times he's still game to dive back into "Star Wars," but I had to ask, would it be the end of the world if he didn't?

"It wouldn't be the end of the world for anyone, I think," Johnson said. "But I would be sad. I love the world. I love the people. I love 'Star Wars' fans. I love the passion of how they engage in it, there's nothing like telling a story in this world and then experiencing people truly connecting to it and letting you know that. It's extraordinary. So I'm hoping I get to do it again, but nothing is the end of the world until the end of the world actually happens, which, what day of the week is it?"

Friendships and good vibes are the pillars of how Rian Johnson works

Johnson believes if the financing for his movies dried up tomorrow, he would still be making movies.

He made a point to say that this isn't because of some cocky confidence he has, but that his passion is so deep he would just go back to making personal stories with his friends and post them online.

It's his lack of ego that gets people in the industry to want to work with him again and again.

"He knows every detail in the movie, he knows what he wants, but a big part of it is being able to communicate that and articulate it to the rest of the team, that's what makes a huge difference between Rian and other writer-directors," Bergman said to Insider. "But at the same time, he's also the nicest human being. That combo is rare as hell."

Unlike many writer-directors who taste success and suddenly project a holier-than-thou aura around them, Johnson is very down-to-earth, self-deprecating, and often can't hold back his boyish giggle. And perhaps his greatest quality is including everyone in on the fun.

"Rian grew up in a very close, very big, very fun-loving family and they liked, and still do, to get together and have big meals and parties because it's a constant joy," said Noah Segan, who has been acting in Johnson's movies since "Brick" (in "Knives Out" he played Trooper Wagner and in "Glass Onion," he's stoner Derol) and who has also forged a close friendship with the director. "He fosters that on his sets. When we're on location it's very easy for Rian to just throw a party with everyone."

That was evident on the set of "Glass Onion," which was shot primarily in Greece as the COVID-19 Delta variant spread wild around the world.

"I don't think they knew how freaked out I was, but I think they knew I didn't want them to go out," Bergman said of his fear that the cast would go out on the town in the middle of the pandemic. "So Rian basically every weekend did a murder-mystery night. We would rent out a bar and then they can have fun together."

The idea worked as there were no production stops due to COVID, but it also made the environment on set lighthearted.

That contagious fun was evident when Norton completely surprised Johnson by appearing on set for a flashback scene dressed exactly how Tom Cruise looked playing macho motivational speaker Frank T.J. Mackey in Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 movie "Magnolia," complete with shoulder-length hair and a black leather vest over a velvet shirt with the top buttons undone. Norton's idea was that his billionaire character, Miles Bron, is so unoriginal that he would copy the look from a movie he just watched.

"He and Jenny Eagan, our costume designer, came up with the look and I had no idea," Johnson said. "I started cracking up. But then I thought, 'Is this too much?' I also thought, 'What is Paul going to think of this?' Hopefully he takes it in the right spirit."

Norton's look made it in the movie.

But all that fun on set can come with a price. Bergman jokingly pointed out the wasted cost for on-set trailers for the stars that were never used in both "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion."

"Every star had to have their own trailer and I thought the actors were never going to go to their trailers, I guaranteed it, they'll want to hang with each other and that's what happened on both movies," he said. "I lost millions of dollars for all the trailers because they never went in them, but it starts from the top with Rian, everyone gets along so well."

Johnson plans to set the third 'Knives Out' movie in America

When Johnson has downtime and needs to recharge, his go-to movie is Federico Fellini's classic "8 1/2." Not because he believes he's anything like the legendary Italian auteur, it's actually the complete opposite.

"It's not doing the thing that I do in my movies, it feels like a magic trick to me," he said. "Everything about it, I feel I can endlessly draw inspiration from seeing that and watching it."

And he needs some inspiration at the moment as he's currently writing a third "Knives Out" movie.

After the success of "Knives Out," Netflix swooped in and bought the rights to the franchise from Lionsgate for reportedly over $400 million to make two sequels. Even before hitting the service "Glass Onion" has proved it was money well spent by the streamer as a one-week theatrical release over Thanksgiving did so well the industry wished the movie stayed in theaters longer (Johnson hopes there will be a wider and longer release for the third movie).

But before seeing the third movie, there's Johnson's first major foray into television as he teamed with Natasha Lyonne to craft the Peacock show "Poker Face," which will focus on different mysteries and feature different cast members every episode.

"Whereas the genre for 'Knives Out' was whodunit, the genre for 'Poker Face' is memories of watching 'Magnum, P.I.' as a kid or 'Columbo' or 'Quantum Leap," Johnson explained.

"It's weird, just the gravity of how serialized storytelling has taken over to a large extent of the streaming space to the point where people have had their brains washed, thinking that the only thing that can get people tuning in week-to-week is a cliffhanger of what happens next episode," he continued. "Remembering all the stuff that I was watching every single day in reruns were separate case-of-the-week stuff and you're tuning in because you want to hang out with Peter Falk."

The project is one of several Johnson and Berman are doing through their production shingle T-Street, which also includes the two as producers on the indie film "Fair Play," which will have its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

The reality is that Johnson is getting to the point where he's no longer the outsider at the swanky Hollywood party, he's the life of it. Heck, he even recently had lunch with Steven Spielberg!

As he's on the verge of heading back into that dreaded writing phase where the blank screen will be staring back at him, it's not clear yet how his own life will be used in the creative juices, but Johnson can say he's figured out where the third "Knives Out" will be set.

"I want it to be in America," he revealed. "There's a lot of tempting things of going to — Paris or the Alps — but I feel it's really important that these are American movies. Even with 'Glass Onion,' it's set overseas but it's a group of Americans who are trapped on an island together, so bringing it back to somewhere a little closer to home I think could be a good thing for the next one."