No Time to Die: Rami Malek Addresses Rumors He’s Secretly Playing James Bond Villain Dr. No

For some time now a prevailing fan theory has taken hold of the James Bond community online, as many suspect that, just like Christoph Waltz’s “Franz Oberhauser” in SPECTRE, Academy Award winner Rami Malek‘s villain in No Time to Die is not who he says he is. The theory is that Malek’s villain, dubbed Safin in interviews and promotional photos, is secretly Dr. No, the first villain that James Bond ever faced on the big screen. Some of the “Evidence” that Malek is in fact Dr. No is sparse and a bit of a reach, including that Malek has seldom been seen in any of the film’s footage without gloves on (Dr. No famously had robotic hands in the original film). In a new interview, Malek addressed these theories but wouldn’t fan the flames like Waltz did five years ago.

“Yes,” Malek told British GQ when asked if he’d heard of the theory. “That’s interesting. I’m not going to bite on that, but I do think it’s interesting. They’ll just have to wait and see…Let the rumours fly, because no matter what you expect from this movie, you will be shocked when you watch the film. I will not add any fuel to that fire.”

Other pieces of “evidence” that fans have said points toward the Dr. No theory is 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 There’s the title itself, No Time to Die, which could be taken literally if he is in fact Dr. No. Stranger things have happened with the franchise.

The wait for No Time to Die has gotten even longer for fans of the franchise as the film was originally scheduled to debut in April of this year but was pushed to November of 2020 days after tickets first went on sale. A month ago it was pushed once again to April of 2021 and will arrive a full year after it was originally scheduled to. Currently set to arrive on April 2, 2021, director Cary Fukunaga isn’t convinced that it won’t be delayed yet again.

What are you hoping to see in No Time to Die and from Malek’s villain? Do you think he’s secretly Dr. No? Sound off in the comment section below and let us know.