A new video feature for the upcoming James Bond movie No Time to Die offers a deeper look at the mysterious Safin, the villain played by Rami Malek (Mr. Robot, Bohemian Rhapsody). In the just-released clip, director Cary Joji Fukunaga (True Detective, Maniac) and Malek share their thoughts about why Daniel Craig’s fifth and final turn as Bond is poised to have one of the series’ most compelling adversaries.
“What I really wanted from Safin was to make him unsettling,” says Malek. “Thinking of himself as heroic… James Bond has to adapt to him.”
In the clip, Safin seems to fashion himself a “tidier” and somehow more ethical agent for change than Bond, a character choice and plot dynamic that echoes 2012’s fantastic Skyfall. In Skyfall, Bond and his spy organization MI6 explore more introspective themes about what their careers and missions have made them complicit in on a global scale. Safin explains to an offscreen character that he “just wants to make the world a better place.”
“What he wants and what he’s willing to do, makes him a very frightening character,” adds Fukunaga. “Both personally to Bond, but also on a global level.”
Fukunaga collaborated on the script with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Bridge (Fleabag, Killing Eve) has been credited as having a particular vision for Safin. In an Entertainment Weekly interview article published earlier this year, Malek said, “She had quite an impact on what I was doing… I’d have long long phone conversations with her, giving her context as to what we were essentially looking for in the scenes, and she would turn things over incredibly quickly. We know her as a very witty and funny writer, but she’s got a knack for drama and tension as well.”
No Time to Die is scheduled to hit theaters on November 20.
