- "Blofeld sends his regards."
- ― Primo to James Bond
Primo was a mercenary and proxy to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the incarcerated leader of SPECTRE. He was later employed by the terrorist Lyutsifer Safin. Portrayed by French-Algerian actor Dali Benssalah, he served as the tertiary antagonist of the 2021James Bond film No Time to Die.
Biography[]
Background[]
The mysterious Primo was a high-ranking mercenary and assassin employed by the criminal organisation SPECTRE. At some point he was augmented with a prosthetic left eye, which was notably paired to a similar unit used by the organisation's leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld; effectively making Primo his link to the outside world whilst incarcerated in HM Prison Belmarsh.
No Time to Die (film)[]
Primo was active in Matera, Italy during a vindictive smear operation against James Bond's lover, Madeleine Swann. The brainchild of the recently imprisoned Blofeld, Primo and his men attempted to assassinate Bond at the grave of Vesper Lynd, implicating Swann in the bombing. They ultimately succeeded in Blofeld's goal of inculcating paranoia in the former spy and destroying their promising relationship.
Five years later, Primo led a SPECTRE commando raid on a London laboratory to steal a highly classified virus-like nanoweapon that was called "Heracles" and abduct its lead developer, Dr. Valdo Obruchev. He was taken to the El Nido Bar, Cuba, where SPECTRE intended to test their newly acquired weapon by luring Bond to a celebratory meeting of the organisation's hierarchy and then lethally infecting him with Heracles. Primo would spend much of the evening without his bionic eye; which, representing Blofeld, was given a place of honour in the ceremony. However, unbeknownst to Primo and his employers, Obruchev was actually working for the vengeful terrorist Lyutsifer Safin and secretly reprogrammed the weapon to massacre SPECTRE's leadership instead of their intended target.
With the organisation essentially destroyed, Primo was later approached with an offer of employment by Safin's representative, Logan Ash. He was dispatched to protect Safin's recently-acquired chemical works somewhere in the Sea of Japan/Okhotsk. There he acted as chief enforcer and, at Safin's command, attempted to force the captive Madeleine Swann to drink an eyesight-damaging poison. Seizing the opportunity to escape, she splashed the drink in his face, stole his sidearm and locked him in the cell. He was later released and led a defence of the facility's control tower; during which he and Bond grappled and fell down a staircase, culminating with 007 using his Electromagnetic Wristwatch to overload (and violently explode) his prosthetic eye, killing the latter in the process.
Personality[]
A sinister, intimidating, tenacious and determined terrorist, Primo took great pleasure in doing harm and terrorizing people, although his true motivations remained unclear. As a high-ranking SPECTRE agent, he possessed a variety of skills and had several subordinates under his command. Primo carried out his bosses' orders to the letter, but he did not hesitate to leave SPECTRE and join Safin's camp because his instinct for self-preservation overrode his loyalty to the criminal organization. Like many other primary henchmen of previous Bond villains, he doesn't speak very much, preferring to be more of a silent man of action, but he still does so a little more than some of the others since unlike them, he does periodically speak when necessary throughout his appearances, whereas others have had little to no lines at all onscreen.
Physical Appearance[]
Primo appears to be Croatian or Algerian with a stylized dark haircut, and often wears a stylized summer jacket, a black shirt and tactical pants.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Dali Bensallah is the first Algerian-French actor to be portraying a Bond villain or a character.
- The design of Primo's eyeball is stated to be based on the iPhone's camera lens.[1]
References[]
- ↑No Time to Die - File (en) (2022).
