Though the actor has opened up previously about what to expect from his villain character in the new James Bond movie, No Time to Die, Oscar Winner Rami Malek has questions of his own. Official releases for the film have previously confirmed his name as “Safin” and the first footage from the trailer offered a creepy tease of his role in the movie, without explicitly stating what his evil, villainous plan will be. Speaking in a new interview, Malek threw fire onto recent fan theories about his character, without actually addressing them.
“I don’t even know what my character’s final name is in this movie,” Malek said in an interview with EW. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s Safin. It is.”
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Despite his previously announced moniker, some fans have theorized Malek might actually be playing a familiar character to Bond fans: Dr. No. Though Malek quickly deflected his own doubts about the character, his comments will continue to fuel the theories until the movie is released. Malek went on to discuss his character, which James Bond himself Daniel Craig called “misunderstood.”
“I think all villains, if you play them correctly, are misunderstood,” Malek replied. “They all think they’re being altruistic at heart. But he does some malevolent things, but at his core I think he’s only doing what he feels might have somehow part of how he was effected in his life….He considers himself as being progressive, someone who can solve one of the world’s biggest problems in a very definite way, and he does consider himself a hero almost in the same way Bond is a hero.”
Some of the “Evidence” that Malek is in fact Dr. No is sparse and a bit of a reach, including that Malek has not been seen in any of the footage without gloves on (Dr. No famously had robotic hands in the original film). There’s also the fact that the SPECTRE organization, of which Dr. No was a member, was just introduced in the previous movie. Considering the 2015 film identified all of the previous villains from Craig’s other James Bond movies as SPECTRE operatives, it would keep the tradition going, especially since Christoph Waltz will return as SPECTRE’s leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Finally, there’s the title itself, No Time to Die, which could be taken literally if he is in fact Dr. No.
The cast of No Time to Die will also include Ana de Armas, Lashana Lynch, Naomie Harris, Lea Seydoux, Ben Winshaw, Jeffrey Wright, and Ralph Fiennes.
No Time to Die is set to be released on April 10th.
