James Bond (film)/Characters

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Here is a list of the major characters that are embodied by Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, and the films based on them.

Movies with their own pages:

• From Russia With Love
• Goldfinger
• Diamonds Are Forever
• Live and Let Die
• The Man With the Golden Gun
• Moonraker
• Goldeneye
• Die Another Day
• Casino Royale (1953 novel)

James Bond, 007, Licence to Kill

The James Bond actors each had a different version of the character. An overall discussion of the whole character of Bond is a subject that has had entire books dedicated to it.

Sean Connery

• Badass
• Bond One-Liner
• Carpet of Virility
• The Casanova
• The Charmer
• Chick Magnet
• Cool Car: Aston Martin DB 5.
• Combat Pragmatist
• Deadpan Snarker
• Disposable Woman: Sean loves 'em and leaves 'em, sometimes in a coffin.
• Double Entendre
• Estrogen Brigade Bait: "Oooh, James!"
• Foe Yay: With Fiona Volpe, Helga Brandt, and (of course) Pussy Galore.
• Forceful Kiss: His courtship is anything but subdued.
• Handsome Lech: Domino and Tatiana are the only women he shows much affection to. The others are merely rides in the hay.
  • He was quite good with the two girls in Japan, Aki and Kissy. He seems happy to marry either of them, and is actually a little dissapointed when he learns his marriage to Kissy is a sham.
• The Hero
• Iconic Characters: Sean's version is still the standard by which all are measured.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold
• No Indoor Voice: A fairly restrained version. It's not so much that he shouts a lot, but his voice certainly packs a lot of baritone power.
• The Pornomancer: Even by Bond standards. Watch Dr. No. Every woman in the movie falls for him. He's also the only Bond to make a lesbian heterosexual.
• Rated "M" for Manly: He is often described as the "manly" Bond.

George Lazenby

• Badass
• Cartwright Curse: George Lazenby's loss is the most famous in the series.
• The Casanova: He seduces an entire RESORT of beautiful women.
• The Charmer
• Chick Magnet
• Chivalrous Pervert: Played straight this time: Tracy starts out as suicidal and emotionally unbalanced, but Bond gives her a reason to live.
• Combat Pragmatist: Even more so than Connery, and possibly to Craig's levels. When Lazenby's Bond fights you, you're in trouble.
• Continuity Nod: "This never happened to the other fella."
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Oddly, did not prevent him from getting laid repeatedly.
  • More like Obfuscating Blandness. He was impersonating an academic, and in fact used that intellectual angle to seduce a lot of women.
• The Other Darrin: No other Bonds went through much controversy upon announcement except for Daniel Craig. George Lazenby was compared to Sean Connery constantly.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Effectively, changing his posture a bit and changing his voice a little is enough to fool Blofeld. Despite the fact that he and James Bond met face to face in You Only Live Twice.
  • OHMSS was set up to be a straight adaptation of the novel (as opposed to YOLT). OHMSS came before YOLT in the book, so the disguise was not paper thin.

Roger Moore

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Roger Moore played James Bond as a heartless playboy and consummate Englishman versus Sean Connery's rough and tumble secret agent.
• Badass
• Bond One-Liner
• The Casanova
• The Charmer
• Chick Magnet
• Combat Pragmatist
• Cool Car: Lotus Esprit.
• Cultured Badass
• Deadpan Snarker
• Disposable Woman: Roger Moore's Bond is even more heartless than Sean Connery's version, if that's possible.
  • Well, early Moore. He improved as time went on, so by For Your Eyes Only he probably had as healthy a relationship with women that he's ever had (a 16 year old girl trying to seduce him notwithstanding).
• Does Not Like Guns: Roger Moore kills a ridiculous amount of bad guys on screen. 167 according to at least some counts. However, he only rarely does so using a gun. He prefers to toss them off buildings or use elaborately odd weapons like a explosive air pellet.
  • That said, he's also actually shot the Big Bad on at least two occasions, something other Bonds have not done.
• Double Entendre
• Evil Counterpart: Scaramanga.
• Foe Yay: Solitaire, Rosie Carver, Andrea Anders, Octopussy, and Mayday.
• Handsome Lech
• Mood Whiplash: Like Brosnan's Bond movies would be, Moore's Bond movies were interlaced with some very serious scenes and some very silly scenes.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Roger Moore's James Bond was always playing nicer than he really was as his many brutal executions across his movies proves.
• The Smart Guy: Roger Moore's character compensated for not being as tough as Sean Connery by acting like 007 had an IQ in the excess of 200 and expertise on every subject in the world.
• The Trickster

Timothy Dalton

• Anti-Hero: Type III or Type IV in Licence to Kill.
• The Atoner
• Badass
• Blessed with Suck: Dalton's character seems awfully annoyed that he has fabulous life of impossibly beautiful women and world travel.
• Byronic Hero
• The Charmer: Oddly not as much a Chick Magnet as his predecessors.
• Cool Car: Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante in The Living Daylights.
  • Even better, Cool Cello.
• Darker and Edgier: So much from Roger Moore's version that many fans suffered Mood Whiplash.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Honey Trap: One of the few occasions that Bond is explicitly identified as being such.
• It's Personal: Sanchez destroyed Felix Leiter's life completely. Bond is NOT pleased.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold
• Manipulative Bastard: Dalton's Bond is essentially Iago to Sanchez's Othello in Licence to Kill.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge
• Ten-Minute Retirement
• Turn in Your Badge
• Warrior Poet: Bond has at least one lengthy dissertation about how he hates his job and it would be doing him a favor to fire him.

Pierce Brosnan

• The Atoner
• Badass
• Bond One-Liner
• The Charmer: Like his predecessor, mostly he focused on one girl at a time.
• Chivalrous Pervert
• Cool Car: Various BMW models.
• Double Entendre
• Dull Surprise: Done well. Brosnan is one of the most understated Bonds, whispering most of his dialogue and keeping an air of cool detachment - perfect for the different tone the '90s films went for.
• The Hero
• Hurting Hero: Throughout the Brosnan films, it's clear that Bond is not a happy man.
• Incredibly Lame Pun
• It's Personal: 006, Elektra, and Elliot Carver all get under Bond's skin.
• More Dakka: Pierce Brosnen expends more ammunition than all other Bonds combined.
• Love Hurts: Paris Carver and Elektra King.
• Mood Whiplash: The Brosnan films have some of the darkest moments in the entire series; arguably Bond's execution of his own lover Elektra King is darker than anything in the Craig films. Yet mixed in with this a dependency on terrible puns and goofy over the top gadgetry.
• New Old Flame: Paris Carver
• Parental Abandonment
• Shoot the Dog: Willing to kill former lover Elektra.

Daniel Craig

• Anti-Hero: Type IV or Type V
• The Atoner
• Badass
• Bond One-Liner: Lampshaded in Quantum of Solace when M realizes exactly what Bond means when he says someone was a Dead End.
• Byronic Hero: Broods over the morality of his job and losing Vesper.
• Cartwright Curse
• The Charmer: Still capable of seduction at will.
• Combat Pragmatist
• Cool Car: Aston Martin DBS V12.
• Darker and Edgier
• Deadpan Snarker
• Honey Trap: More obviously so than previous Bonds with his seduction of Solange.
• It's Personal
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Daniel Craig's Bond still has a human side, as expressed with Vesper, Mathis and Camillie.
• Made of Iron: Daniel Craig's Bond gets beaten up more than any other of his kind and is fine the next minute.
• Parental Abandonment
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge
• The Stoic: Bond is more emotionally reserved than in other incarnations.
• Turn in Your Badge: Subverted. Bond just ignores orders he doesn't like.

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Bond Girls

James Bond films are as famous for their host of beautiful women in various states of peril (or being perilous) as they are for their titular hero. These beauties are referred to as Bond girls. They have been subject to numerous feminist critique both negative and (sometimes) positive. The Bond Girls themselves (or rather, the actresses who play them) consider it being part of a club, almost as exclusive as being Bond himself.

Contessa Teresa "Tracy" Draco di Vicenzo

Played by Diana Rigg (AKA "Emma Peel" of The Avengers). Bond first meets Tracy in the opening of On Her Majesty's Secret Service as she's about to commit suicide by walking into the ocean. Bond saves her life and later her father, the head of the Corsican Mafia asks him to court her. They eventually fall in love and marry at the end of the film. Tragically, right after their wedding Tracy is killed by a bullet fired from a speeding car by Blofeld and his henchwoman Irma Bunt.

• Action Girl
• Badass Driver
• Broken Bird
• Deadpan Snarker
• Mafia Princess
• The Chief's Daughter: Of a Corsican criminal clan.

May Day

One of the more memorable Bond Girls, she actually starts as The Dragon to the psychotic yuppie Max Zorin in A View to a Kill. As such, she kills several people associated to Bond; however, at some point Zorin double-crosses her...

• Hot Amazon
• Scary Black Man (Gender Flipped)
• Taking You with Me
• This Is Unforgivable! ( Her Heel Face Turn is motivated by Zorin killing her Amazon Brigade and leaving her for dead)

Kara Milovy

A Czechslovak cello player who ends up being used as sniper bait by her Russian boyfriend in The Living Daylights. Bond recognises she's an amateur and merely injures her. They end up riding a cello case through the snow and a cargo plane in Central Asia.

• Elegant Classical Musician
• Hair of Gold
• Plucky Girl

Wai Lin

A Chinese secret agent sent to cover Elliot Carver's story and investigate WTF is going on with him, in Tomorrow Never Dies. She also believes at first that she and Bond must kill each other, but are forced to work together when they're both caught by The Dragon.

• Action Girl (maybe the best example in the franchise. Being played by Michelle Yeoh pays off)
• Badass (Did we mention she's played by Michelle Yeoh?)
• Enemy Mine (With Bond)
• Hot Scoop (her cover)
• Kung Fu Fighting (Once again, she's played by Michelle Yeoh)
• Spy Catsuit

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Bond Villains

Bond Villains are amongst the most recognizable bad guys in movie history. While they tend not to be as famous as the Bond girls, some of the most recognizable characters in movies have been Bond Villains.

Ernst Stavro Blofeld

James Bond's recurring archnemesis in both the books and movies. Blofeld has been parodied almost as many times as James Bond himself and remains the archetypal Bond villain. He appeared, played by different actors, in five official movies (From Russia with Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever). He also appeared in Never Say Never Again and made an uncredited appearance in For Your Eyes Only. His unusual name derives from his being half Polish and half Greek.

• Arch Nemesis
• Bad Boss: One of the originals.
• Backup Twin
• Bald of Evil: Possibly the Trope Codifier.
• Big Bad
• Blofeld Ploy
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Bizarrely, Blofeld rarely gives into this. He's usually content to just see James Bond killed or actually wants him to warn the West of his demands.
• Captain Ersatz: Due to the rights never being sorted out, Ernst has been replaced several times by a nebulous figure stroking a white cat and thinly disguised stand-ins. The most famous is TAROT's leader Scorpius in the James Bond Roleplaying Game.
• The Chessmaster
• Diabolical Mastermind: Blofeld controls the massive criminal empire of SPECTRE.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: More like Dropped Him Down A Chimney.
• Expy: Hugo Drax in the movie Moonraker and Karl Stromberg are both Blofeld-lite, without being direct Blofeld replacements.
• Elite Mooks: His many, many, many named henchmen.
• Faceless Goons: His not so named Henchmen.
• Iconic Characters
• It's Personal: He's the murderer of Bond's wife Tracy.
• The Man Behind the Man: One of the original and the best.
• Morality Pet: Averted. Blofeld discards his cat whenever in danger.
• Nebulous Evil Organization
• Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Oddly averted. Blofeld is bankrupt by On Her Majesty's Secret Service and must steal the resources of Willard Whyte.
• The Other Darrin: Blofeld was played by different actors in all his films. This is a Justified Trope, unlike with James Bond, as it was stated that Blofeld regularly used plastic surgery.
• Red Right Hand: You Only Live Twice had a disfigured eye and scar. Ernst's baldness has also become synonymous with the character in a manner similar to Lex Luthor.
• Right-Hand-Cat: Definitely the Trope Codifier.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Blofeld is the Evil Mastermind of SPECTRE but usually is acting through villains that James encounters before him.
• Swiss Cheese Security: Bond four times, infiltrates Blofeld's headquarters.
• The Syndicate: SPECTRE
• Uh-Oh Eyes: The novel Thunderball describes Blofeld at length, and a full paragraph is devoted to his unique eyes. The black irises are just the beginning.
• You're Insane!: You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever
• You Have Failed Me...
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness

Villain Henchmen

Jaws

A henchman who works for Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me and Hugo Drax in Moonraker. He is distinctive for his metal teeth, huge stature and his persistence in surviving everything that gets thrown at him.

• Balls of Steel
• The Brute
• Determinator
• The Dragon
• Dragon Their Feet
• Giant Mook
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He and Dolly in Moonraker.
• Implacable Man
• Made of Iron
• The Voiceless

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Supporting Characters

The books and movies have several recurring characters, many of whom appear in every instalment.

M

James Bond's boss, the head of MI6. Was played by three different actors. The first switch was The Other Darrin, but when Judi Dench took over the role it was a new character.

• Cool Old Lady: Dame Judi Dench's take on the character.
• The Other Darrin: Bernard Lee was replaced by Robert Brown as the actor, but it was still the same character.
  • There's multiple interpretations of the Brown M, seeing as Robert Brown turned up as a government official in The Spy Who Loved Me, a little before his debut in Octopussy
• Power Hair
• Reasonable Authority Figure
• Spell My Name with a Blank: Eventually his full name was revealed, but at first it was given as M**** M********

Miss Moneypenny

M's secretary, who has a not-so-secret crush on Bond. Played by three different actresses in the official films.

• The Other Darrin
• Sassy Secretary
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Bond, much to her dismay.

Q

The man who gives Bond all those wonderful toys. Played by Peter Burton in Dr. No, before being played by Desmond Llewelyn for a very long time – 1963 to 1999, in seventeen of the eighteen pictures released during that time. When Llewelyn died, the character retired and one of Q's subordinates became the new Q, played by John Cleese, in Die Another Day.

• Gadgeteer Genius
• Mad Scientist: Q shows elements of this occasionally.
• Mr. Fixit
• Passing the Torch

Felix Leiter

Bond's friend in the C.I.A.

• Cool Shades: Wears them in Dr. No.
• The Generic Guy
• Hero of Another Story: Sometimes
• The Other Darrin: Leiter has been played by a different actor in almost every one of his appearences, the only exceptions being David Hedison (in Live and Let Die and Licence to Kill) and Jeffrey Wright (in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) The latter was the first time he was played by the same actor in two consecutive films.
• Overshadowed by Awesome

Valentin Zukovsky

• Anti-Hero: Type V
• Russian Guy Suffers Most

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