SAFIN

Rami Malek plays big baddie Safin (left) – and really did his research. ‘I looked at almost every villain in the history of film,’ he says. ‘I thought, “Why not have a sneak peak at all the greats?” Javier Bardem [who appeared in Skyfall as Raoul Silva] was in there. I may have stolen a thing or two from him... I wanted Safin to be scary and plausible. Someone who, if you were sitting opposite him, you’d be shaken, no pun intended.’

Safin has a history with Bond’s lover Madeleine and sees himself not as a villain in her life, but a hero. ‘He’s a product of an innocence that was lost early on, and he has difficulty in justifying what is right and what is wrong,’ he says. ‘From Bond’s perspective there’s an understanding of right and wrong, but Safin has a way of making you consider if that’s as accurate as it seems to be.’

When we first meet Safin his face is scarred and he is wearing an expressionless wooden Japanese Noh mask used in dance (see picture, page 4). Costume designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb says, ‘Depending on how the actor moves and the lighting, it can reverberate different emotions. It can be scary, serene or aggressive. Those three descriptions were exactly what we wanted Safin to be.’