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Ben Whishaw (Actor)
By: Anders Frejdh
Published:
2013-10-14
2013-10-14
Ben Whishaw became the fourth actor to play Bond’s quartermaster, more known as Q, in Skyfall (2012) (2012) where the character made a welcome return to the Bond franchise. Whishaw will reprise the role in the 2015 film, SPECTRE.
Producers Wilson and Broccoli explained why Ben Whishaw was the man for the job: “When it came to trying to reintroduce the character of Q, it made sense that he would now be a young technical genius and the character was written with that in mind. Ben was the obvious choice because he has this wonderful kind of openness to him, and a real intelligence and wit.”
Whishaw himseld said: “Q represented one of the central conflicts in the film – the old versus the new. It’s a battle and a theme that ran through Skyfall, between the way the world is going now and the way that the intelligence services are traditionally run.”
That’s especially true in an age when espionage takes place in cyberspace as much as anywhere else. “The new Q is a sort of computer genius, one of only six people in the world who has certain knowledge. He’s quite a mysterious person with a sly sense of humour,“ says Whishaw.
Editor's note:
"Q" was first played by Peter Burton in Dr. No (1962) where the characters screen name was Major Boothroyd. When Burton was unavailable for the second film, Desmond Llewelyn took over and played him in 17 Bond films between 1963 and 1999. John Cleese (who first appeared as Q’s assistant, "R", in The World is Not Enough) played Q in Die Another Day.
Photo above:
Anders Frejdh with Ben Whishaw in London, September 2013. © Ajay Chowdhury. All rights reserved.
Text written and updated by Anders Frejdh in November 2014
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