Spoilers follow for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.Â
Multi-hyphenates in Hollywood are as common as nepo babies. But rare is a multi-hyphenate who experiments as erratically as Jeremy Renner: actor (The Hurt Locker, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mayor of Kingstown, all-around-great supporting guy), singer, failed app designer, house flipper, and fire-truck refurbisher. And now, thanks to an unexpected gag in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a hot-sauce mogul. Would anyone like a dash of Renning Hot, the condiment with such a fiery kick that Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc evoked unfazed Hot Ones champion Halle Berry after his first taste? It sure seems spicy, as the name suggests!
One of the nice things about Hot Ones, aside from its many meme GIFs, is that its seasonally rotating lineup of sauces tells us a lot about the nuances of various ingredients and flavor profiles. I am a hot-sauce addict with about 20 different bottles in my kitchen. And so, as Benoit splashes Helen (Janelle Monáe) with blood-red helpings of Renning Hot, then dabs his own eyes with it to make himself weep, I wondered, What would Renning Hot taste like? What might help me understand what Renner would put into a sauce with his name and face on it?
I must admit: This was a short investigation, and not because Renner is a foodie who has already gone on record about his favorite flavors. Celebrity profiles sometimes take place at restaurants and allow journalists to share what their subjects ate; no such luck with Renner, who drank only coffee during this interview with Gentlemen’s Journal. This Vanity Fair video interview, in which Renner breaks down his filmography, doesn’t offer clues either, just a story about how Renner got food poisoning from eating lettuce in Beirut. And this Men’s Health piece about what Renner “eats to maintain his Hawkeye muscle†includes typically wholesome stuff — egg whites, avocado, tuna, broccoli — but lacks specifics about what he wishes he was eating. He mentions “things that I love†and “the caveman sort of meal,†but what food items are we talking about here, Jeremy? And would you be covering them with hot sauce or not?
If we can’t get literal with this answer, our only option is to guess. Renner has flipped nearly 30 houses and refurbished 200 or so fire trucks, so maybe he’s into char and smoke. He is clearly dismissive of tequila since he mocked George Clooney’s and Ryan Reynolds’s alcohol companies, so we can assume his sauce won’t have any boozy notes. But a sauce aged in oak barrels to nod at his woodworking and carpentry skills? With deep umami and a touch of barbecue to nod at his love of fire trucks? It could be good on chicken, one of the few foods Renner does admit to eating!
This is all speculation, of course, a thought experiment that remains as puzzling as the fact that Netflix actually manufactured the other fake celebrity product in the film, Jared Leto’s Red Planet hard kombucha, sending a nonalcoholic version to various critics’ groups. (Full disclosure: That unopened can is currently sitting in my fridge.) Why not do the same for Renning Hot? That’s the real Knives Out mystery.
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