Zao (Rick Yune)

Character

Rick Yune plays Zao, a North Korean baddy. The character is not the film's main villain - he is Colonel Moon's right-hand man - but this guy is more than a match for Bond and he may just be trying to help Moon trigger off a World War.

Zao first appears in the pre-credits teaser sequence, where after a death defying hovercraft chase sequence, he captures Bond and returns him to Colonel Moon.

Above: Yune with a shaved head at the Spanish press conference

Yune has said about his role that he "leads a a double personality and you never know who is the character, depends the side you look." Zao is hit by the explosion that 007 creates when activating the bomb hidden in the case of diamonds the pretitles sequence. The Korean actor has to be covered in white body make-up with dazzling blue contact lenses. The 30-year-old has veins painted on his face and diamonds stuck to his head and body. He said: "I'm meant to look as if I have been in an explosion. It's a brilliant role and I love playing a Bond villain. The only problem is I'm topless in a lot of scenes in Spain and it's been raining. I've had to have a hot-water bottle on standby."

Biography

Born: 22nd August 1971, Washington D.C. USA

Rick Yune, 31, was on his year off from Wharton Business School and working as a Wall Street trader when he was "discovered" in an elevator by an agent. Within a year he became the first Asian guy to model for Versace and Polo. Then he landed a lead in "Snow Falling on Cedars", but things have not always come so easily for the actor.

As the only Asian kid growing up in a black neighbourhood near D.C., Yune got into a lot of fights. His parents sent him to military school and then to a Roman Catholic school. He got a black belt and the fights continued, along with his feeling that he'd always be an outsider. "In the media, Asians were either nerds or gangsters," he says. "I want to change that. I've never been afraid before, but now I'm afraid of failing." We bet he'll keep on rising, even without an elevator.

Yune's recent credits include The Fast and the Furious and The Fence.