James Bond set to face first Russian villain in 20 years in new film

Renard... remember him?

It looks like the new villain in the upcoming James Bond film, Daniel Craig's last as the tuxedo-wearing, martini-sipping, poker-playing, Aston Martin-driving, spy... er, man, has been revealed thanks to a casting call made by the movie's producers. When a similar casting call was made last time around, eager fans quickly pieced together the character of Hinx - a weird, silent eye-gouging hitman - that was eventually played by former wrestler and Guardian of the Galaxy Dave Bautista in Spectre.  This time around, it appears producers are looking for a 30 to 60-year-old leading male from Russia or the Balkans area. It was all the way back in Pierce Brosnan's The World Is Not Enough the last time a Russian villain faced off against 007, and it was Robert Carlyle's deranged former KGB agent Victor Zokas a.k.a 'Renard'. Obviously, it didn't end well for Renard, despite him being an actual terrorist and going up against a man that looked like a 46-year-old Geography teacher. It appears that the yet untitled Bond 25 will include a Russian male villain, a Russian female who one can only assume will inevitably join Bond for a bit of how's your father, and for some reason a Māori henchman, who may or may not make it a ménage à trois. For the male, the criteria casting execs are looking for is 'charismatic, powerful, innovative, cold and vindictive.' Sounds a bit like a certain Russian president to me. The female character, meanwhile, is being described as 'intelligent, brave, fierce and charming'. Shooting begins in December, so get your CVs into director Danny Boyle if you fancy dressing up in a ludicrous military outfit and monologuing your elaborate diabolical plan to Bond with the world's worst Russian accent before he punches you in the gut, saves the girl, and blows up your oil pipeline/evil genius underground base/a helicopter for some reason.