Jesper Christensen as Mr White

Mr White is a fictional character in the James Bond films Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, played by Jesper Christensen. He is a middleman of a terrorist organisation called Quantum which plays the same role fulfilled by SMERSH in the novel version of Casino Royale.

Biography: Mr White is first seen as an intermediary between Quantum and LRA commander Steven Obanno. White introduces Obanno to Le Chiffre, and arranges for Le Chiffre to bank $101,206,000 for Obanno. Le Chiffre loses this money, due to Bond’s intervention, and plans to cover the loss by winning up to $150 million at the Casino Royale tournament, hoping to do so before Mr White and Obanno discover he has lost the funds. It is also presumed that Mr White and Obanno are not notified of the casino tournament.

While Obanno is enraged over the loss of money, Mr White is more concerned that Quantum’s reputation has been damaged because a contractor betrayed their trust. As a result Mr White storms Le Chiffre’s boathouse, where he murders Le Chiffre’s gang. Subsequently, Le Chiffre’s pleas for mercy do not satisfy Mr White, who personally executes him by shooting him in the forehead with a silenced SIG P226. This also spares Bond from further torture at the hands of Le Chiffre; unwilling double agent Vesper Lynd made a deal with Mr White’s organization to spare Bond in return for the $150 million.

In Venice, while Quantum’s thugs abduct Vesper and battle Bond, an unnoticed Mr White retrieves the money. With Vesper’s suicide, it appears that the money and MI6’s attempted trace to Mr White’s organization is gone, but Vesper leaves Bond the number for Mr White on her cellphone. In the final scene, Bond traces Mr White to his villa along Lake Como and shoots him below the knee with a suppressed HK UMP9.

In the opening of Quantum of Solace, Mr White’s men pursue Bond in a car chase around Siena in attempt to retrieve their abducted boss. Bond manages to shake them off and Mr White is brought for interrogation by M. Mr White expresses regret that Vesper’s suicide prevented his organisation from attaining Bond as an operative, and also mocks M and tells her that his organisation has operatives infiltrated everywhere. At this point, Craig Mitchell, a senior MI6 agent sitting in, draws his weapon and shoots the guard agent present. M and Bond dive for cover and Mitchell escapes. Bond pursues Mitchell and kills him while M heads for safety. In the confusion Mr White escapes.

Later Mr White is seen at an opera performance in Bregenz with the other Quantum members, when Bond takes an earpiece hidden inside a gift bag at the opera performance from a Quantum member, Bond hijacks the signal and takes pictures of a few Quantum leaders who leave the performance. Unlike his colleagues, White recognises the danger of being identified, and stays hidden in the crowd, saying to the woman beside him “Well Tosca is not for everyone,” referring to the escaping Quantum members. In the end, Mr White is still at large, making him the first recurring villain since Jaws and Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Though unused in the final cut of Quantum of Solace, a scene was shot where Bond arrived at the estate of Guy Haines, an advisor to the Prime Minister and Mr White’s superior in the Quantum organization. In this scene Bond kills Mr White and begins to question Haines about Quantum; instead the producers chose to use the traditional gunbarrel sequence at the end of the film.

See also:

• Bond villains