The No Time To Die cast have kept impressively schtum about Daniel Craig’s final film in the franchise. At junkets and on late night TV, they all give off the distinct impression that Barbara Broccoli is hiding in the ceiling panels with a bazooka, trained and ready to fire at the mere hint of a spoiler. You’d have more luck extracting state secrets from James Bond himself, in all honesty.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t keep asking. And in our new profile with Rami Malek, out now in the Esquire ‘Style & Fashion’ issue, we managed to get the upcoming Bond baddie to address the biggest rumour surrounding his character. Specifically: that his character Safin is actually Dr No himself.
When we put the suggestion to him, Malek responded: "I heard that. Am I? I mean, isn't that an exciting thing to consider all the way up to the release?... There is a resurgence of an Ian Fleming influence on this film."
Which isn’t a denial! And that’s all we can really hope for during this 007 press run. As we state in the piece, we’d eat Oddjob’s hat if he doesn’t turn out to be the legendary Bond villain, but Rami refused to go into any more detail that that. "I have to be extremely careful. I can't really talk about the character."
Dr No was, of course, the first and most iconic Bond villain of them all, and it would be a nice bow to tie onto Daniel Craig’s Bond legacy. Rami mentions that more of Ian Fleming’s influence can be found in Cary Joji Fukunaga's movie, so it’s probably a good idea to look into Dr No’s original backstory.
In the novels, Julius No was born in Peking to a German missionary and a Chinese mother, and moved to Shanghai where he got involved in a mob syndicate. The he crossed over to New York, travels across the US and eventually sets up base in Jamaica, from where he controls his criminal empire. Will that lay the foundation for his character, or are we just getting ahead of ourselves?
As Malek is keen to stress, we'll just have to wait and see. Until then, check out everything we know about No Time To Die so far.
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