Rapper, singer and award-winning actress Janelle Monáe, 36, one of the stars from Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery came to support the Ryan Johnson directed movie which closed the BFI London Film Festival and spoke about the film and her career during a Q and A session.

Monáe plays entrepreneur Cassandra “Andi” Brand in this murder mystery sequel joining the cast which includes Daniel Craig, Ethan Hawke and Edward Norton.  The film follows the 2019 hit, Knives Out, which grossed $311.4 million worldwide, and will have a limited theatrical release on November 23^rd before streaming on Netflix a month later. 

“I am such a fan of  Daniel Craig and the first Knives Out film. So it was being able to work with him, who’s such a legend and a wonderful actor but what really drew me in was the story.  The twist was so exciting,” she said.  “And I’m a fan of that genre, murder mysteries.  It’s one of the most fun films I’ve done, which you can see from looking back on some of my roles. They were kind of heavy, to say the least. I thought it was time to do something fun, and also, this film crosses generations so you can watch it with your family.”

One of those heavy films she’s referring to include the 2016 drama Moonlight which won Best Motion Picture Drama at both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards. “That was my first film! And I’ve come a loooong way since then, I must say.”

Indeed, she certainly has in such a relatively short time. “I’m so glad Moonlight was my first film. It meant so much to Miami, where we filmed it, and it meant so much to the Black community and to the queer experience. I remember reading that script on a flight. I had a red Delta blanket over me and I was in tears. Moonlight meant a lot to a lot of people.” 

The next movie she signed onto was Hidden Figures, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Monáe played Mary Jackson, NASA’s first Black female mathematician and aerospace engineer. Both these films also starred Mahershala Ali. “He didn’t know he was going to be on Hidden Figures when we did Moonlight, so it was like, ‘Oh, OK.  We’re on this ride together!

“When I think about that year and that span of movies and those nominations I was like, ‘What is this? What is my life? What is going on right now?’ I remember Octavia [Spencer] became a big sister to me on the Hidden Figures shoot. I learned a lot from watching her act and I remember being on that set not knowing if I’d get any more jobs, but I was just happy to be there.”

It’s doubtful Monáe will ever have to worry about unemployment, and since Hidden Figures, she has worked consistently in such movies as Welcome to Marwen, Harriet, The Glorias, and Antebellum.  

She takes us back to what initially drew her to the business of film and what ignited her passion to become an actress. “I grew up in Kansas, where The Wizard of Oz was set and I was obsessed with Judy Garland, although where I grew up, in Wyandotte County, it was not like that at all. “I grew up in one of the poorest counties, raised by working-class parents. And for me, the arts always just made things better. When you grow up with parents who work from sunup to sundown, living paycheck to paycheck, whenever you got an opportunity to go to the cinema, you go. It was a time for me to dream.”

Monáe,’s mother worked as a janitor and hotel maid and her father was a truck driver. When her parents separated (when she was a toddler), her mother married a postal worker. 

Monáe began her career establishing herself in the music industry. In 2003, she released her album, The Audition. In 2007, she debuted with an EP Metropolis: Suit I (The Chase), and followed up three years later with her first full-length studio album, The ArchAndroid. Her second album, Electric Lady, released, in 2013, debuted at number 5 on the Billboard 200, and her third effort Dirty Computer, released in 2018, earned two nominations at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards including Album of the Year. 

Monáe has joined that elite group of performers who have achieved success in both the film and music industries. “I like to weave the music, the acting, the creativity. I’m ready to keep moving and I don’t want to get stuck in nostalgia. I don’t want to get stuck in the past, or be a prisoner of the past.”

Having already achieved what many can only hope to in a lifetime, what would Monáe like to do next?

“I want to write a murder mystery! That would be my dream. I’ll write it, I’ll do the music for it and I’ll direct it!”