Alexander "Alec" Trevelyan (006) is a fictional character, the primary villain in the James Bond film GoldenEye, portrayed by actor Sean Bean. The likeness of Bean as Alec Trevelyan was also used for the 1997 video game, GoldenEye 007.

Film Biography

Character information

Once known as Agent 006 under the employ of Her Majesty's secret service, Trevelyan betrays MI6 during a mission to blow up the Arkhangelsk chemical weapons facility in the Soviet Union while working with his close friend, James Bond (Pierce Brosnan). During the operation, Trevelyan is caught and apparently executed by the base's commander, Colonel Arkady Ourumov (Gottfried John). Presuming Trevelyan dead, Bond continues the mission and escapes aboard a supply plane.

Nine years later, Bond's pursuit of a stolen helicopter and investigation of an explosion at Severnaya leads him to Saint Petersburg, where he learns from Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) that "Janus", the head of the crime syndicate responsible for the theft, is a Lienz Cossack. Later, when he finally meets Janus, Bond is shocked to discover Trevelyan, who staged his execution at Archangelsk and now employs Ourumov, now a General in the Russian Army. Trevelyan's face is scarred from the explosion at the weapons factory, a direct result of Bond changing the sequence detonation timers.

Trevelyan reveals that his motive for his betrayal is a personal one. His parents were Lienz Cossacks who had collaborated with the Nazis but attempted to defect to the British at the end of World War II. When the British instead sent them back to the USSR, many were executed by Stalin's execution squads. Though Trevelyan's parents survived, his father, ashamed to have lived, killed his wife and himself. At the time, Trevelyan was only six years old and was taken in by MI6 and went to work for the British government.

Scheme

Trevelyan's scheme begins with the theft of the experimental Tiger helicopter from the French La Fayette docked in Monte Carlo, using his two primary operatives, Ourumov and Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen). With the helicopter, the two fly to the GoldenEye satellite facility in Severnaya, where they murder the staff and steal the access disk and keys for the GoldenEye satellite and program the satellite to target the facility. The GoldenEye satellite, actually two disposable satellites named Petya and Mischa, are capable of emitting targeted electromagnetic pulses capable of destroying any machinery with an electronic signal. As Petya destroys the Severnaya facility, Ourumov and Onatopp escape aboard the Tiger helicopter, which is insulated against electromagnetic radiation (most likely equipped with Zorin microchip technology, which was mentioned by Q to be impervious to electromagnetic shockwaves emitted from outer space).

Mischa would then be used to aid Trevelyan in stealing hundreds of millions of pounds via computer from the Bank of England in London, and erasing all evidence of the transaction. Mischa would destroy the city, crippling the British economy and government, triggering a catastrophic currency crisis, and causing global stock market and economic chaos. Trevelyan, having obtained the only valuable currency of pounds sterling, could have economic supremacy over the British and the world in an era of terrorism for decades.

Bond stops this scheme with the help of former Severnaya technician Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco) and CIA agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker). While Bond is running across the cradle to disable the GoldenEye, Trevelyan starts chasing him. Trevalyan finally gets the better of Bond and is about to shoot him when Bond kicks a ladder releasing it and carrying Bond to the bottom of a satellite antenna, suspended high above the dish. Trevalyan then climbs down to Bond, who slips and is just able to stay on the tiny platform. Bond eventually knocks Trevelyan off the antenna, but reflexively grabs him by the legs. While hanging, Trevelyan smugly asks Bond, "For England, James?" to which Bond replies, "No, for me." Bond then lets go and Trevelyan falls all the way down to the dish. The antenna array, due to Bond's sabotage, explodes and collapses in a fiery wreck onto a screaming Trevelyan, crushing him to death.

Production facts

Trevelyan is the only 00 agent (other than Bond himself) to have a main character role in a Bond movie which includes a sizeable screen and speaking time. The only other 00 agent to have any amount of screentime is 009 in Octopussy, portrayed by stuntman Andy Bradford. Besides seeing the back of their heads or before they are shortly killed and/or dead already (Thunderball, The Living Daylights, and A View to a Kill, respectively), other 00 agents are rarely seen and only spoken of. Ironically, Bean auditioned, and was considered for, for the role of Bond (see List of actors considered for the James Bond character).