Danica McKellar Sent Rian Johnson the Perfect Knives Out Gift

Last week, Rian Johnson received his first Academy Award nomination for writing Knives Out, and he’s already getting some pretty amazing gifts. The director recently took to Twitter to share a present given to him by Danica McKellar, the actor best known for playing Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years. McKellar has made a couple of Hallmark murder mystery movies, which ended up being referenced in Knives Out. During one scene in the film, Fran (Edi Patterson), tells Marta (Ana de Armas), “I don’t think he killed himself… There’s this Hallmark movie, called Deadly by Surprise, with Danica McKellar, and she plays this wife who’s getting poisoned by her husband.” While Deadly by Surprise is not actually a real movie, the reference was caught by McKellar herself, and she took to Twitter to celebrate her shout-out soon after the film was released. Earlier today, Johnson took to Twitter to share McKellar’s gift: a knife inscribed with “Deadly by Surprise.”

“If you’re wondering how cool @danicamckellar is the answer is ‘she sent me THIS’ cool,” Johnson tweeted.

You can check out the knife in the image below:

Many people commented on the post:

“The knives are out…by surprise!!! 🔪,” @KnivesOut wrote.

“So funny. Awesome that she took the time to do that,” @TheKatzAwakens added.

“Ok so now she has to be in the sequel, it’s law,” @2Adi2United replied.

You can check out the original tweet exhange between Johnson and McKellar below:

For Best Original Screenplay, Johnson is going up against Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story), Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917), Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood), and Bong Joon Ho & Han Jin Won (Parasite).

While Knives Out rests in a whole different category from Johnson’s previous film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi – with one of their few similarities being a cameo from Frank Oz – the two do have a very unique connection. Johnson’s first foray into writing and directing in the Star Wars universe, and the vitriolic backlash to it on social media, apparently influenced Knives Out in a unique way.

“Anyone who’s on Twitter these days, God bless you because it’s rough waters out there, but there’s also wonderful stuff about it. That’s why we’re all still on it I guess,” Johnson told Deadline in November. “That’s one of the things [Knives Out] engages with, the current state of online culture. Whether you made a Star Wars movie or you have a cooking show, whatever you’re doing on there, someone’s going to be screaming at you about it probably. Let’s put it on a screen in a way we can all maybe have a laugh about it.”

Knives Out is still playing in select theaters.