Pranke Forum

There has been chatter that Waltz plays Bond’s most notorious adversary, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the comical, cat-stroking, Connery-era menace and boss of the shadowy criminal enterprise Spectre.

Actually, Waltz plays Franz Oberhauser. For Fleming fans, that name will ring a distant bell. Franz is the son of Hannes Oberhauser, an Austrian climbing and ski instructor, and friend of Bond’s father, who briefly became the young Bond’s guardian after the tragic death of his parents – in an Alpine climbing accident, no less.

“A wonderful man,” Bond describes him in the Fleming story, Octopussy. “He was something of a father to me at a time when I happened to need one.”

Hannes Oberhauser was later shot dead by the dastardly Major Dexter Smythe; his frozen corpse was discovered in a melting glacier. Bond took it upon himself to track down his former guardian’s killer. So, Waltz’s Franz Oberhauser is Bond’s foster brother. It seems from the trailer he is a senior operative at Spectre – conceivably still under the control of Blofeld – and possibly was connected to Quantum, another nefarious outfit hellbent on world domination (crumbs!), represented here again by Mr White, familiar to fans of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

There has been much speculation that Spectre will be Craig’s last film as Bond. I thought he’d signed on for two more after Skyfall, meaning there would be at least one more after Spectre.

“I don’t know,” he says. He really doesn’t know? “I really don’t know. Honestly. I’m not trying to be coy. At the moment I can’t even conceive it.”

Would he at least like to do another one? “At this moment, no. I have a life and I’ve got to get on with it a bit. But we’ll see.”