(November 17, 1966–     ): Accomplished French actress who portrayed duplicitous Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough. Marceau is dazzling as an orphaned billionaire’s daughter and former kidnap victim who is apparently intent on completing the dangerous oil pipeline started by her father. In reality, she’s suffering from Stockholm syndrome and in love with her former abductor, and deep into enacting revenge against her father and the person who advised him not to pay her $5 million ransom: M (Dame Judi Dench). As a woman who knows her gifts and how to use them, Elektra proves to be a challenging adversary for Bond (Pierce Brosnan). And, despite the pain she puts Bond through, the audience understands the anguish on 007’s face when he puts a bullet through her brain at the film’s conclusion. It’s a credit to Marceau’s performance that she could create such an indelible impression.

A Parisian native, Marceau made her motion picture debut as Vic Beretton in director Claude Pinotau’s romantic comedy The Party (1980), a film that also featured Bond player Jean Pierre Castaldi (Moonraker). She made her English-language debut as Bernardette in Bernard Schmitt’s comedy Pacific Palisades (1990), and she first caught the eye of American audiences as the French noblewoman opposite Mel Gibson in Braveheart (1995).