2012's Skyfall was one of the most acclaimed Bond chapters in history, and when director Sam Mendes and screenwriter John Logan both confirmed their returns for Bond 24, you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief among 007 fans and movie buffs alike.

At Pinewood Studios this morning (December 4), Mendes announced five new cast members for Bond 24, aka Spectre, who will join Daniel Craig, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Rory Kinnear.

Below, Digital Spy rounds up some key facts about the actors, and what little we know about their respective characters.



Christoph Waltz as Oberhauser

While he's probably the biggest name on this list, the Austrian-born Waltz was more or less unknown to English-speaking audiences until 2009, when he starred in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.

His performance as the charismatic, sociopathic SS agent Hans Landa (aka 'The Jew Hunter') earned him an Oscar and a tidal wave of offers from Hollywood.

Highlights of his varied CV since have included Muppets Most Wanted, Roman Polanski's Carnage, last week's Horrible Bosses 2, and Tarantino's Basterds follow-up Django Unchained, for which Waltz won his second Oscar in a role that could hardly be further from Landa.

The name Oberhauser may well be a John Harrison-style bit of misdirection -Â rumour has it Waltz is actually playing iconic Bond villain Blofeld, and if it's good enough for Roger Moore it's good enough for us. Not to mention the fact that in Dr No, Blofeld is head of the catchily-named terrorist organisation Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, aka SPECTRE.



LÃ©a Seydoux as Madeleine Swann

Native Parisian Seydoux has been quietly gathering steam for a number of years - she appeared in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol among others prior to her breakthrough last year in Blue Is the Warmest Colour.

The French romance made Cannes history in being awarded the Palme d'Or for both its director and its lead actresses. Seydoux and her co-star AdÃ¨le Exarchopoulos remain the only women ever to have won the award besides director Jane Campion.

As for Madeleine Swann, your guess is as good as ours, although some have taken her name as a highbrow play-on-words in reference to Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time. After Skyfall's breathtaking use of Lord Alfred Tennyson, we wouldn't rule it out.



Monica Bellucci as Lucia Sciarra

It's somehow hard to believe that Bellucci hasn't already been a Bond girl, and in fact she did audition for the role that ultimately went to Teri Hatcher in Tomorrow Never Dies (had Pierce Brosnan had his druthers, it would have gone the other way).

Bellucci has been keeping a low profile for some time now, after an eventful early noughties period that saw her play Persephone in the Matrix sequels and Magdalene in The Passion of the Christ.

The name Lucia Sciarra offers even fewer clues than the last, but based on next to no information we're wondering if one of these Bond girls may in fact be a villain herself. If so, our money's on Sciarra.



David Bautista as Mr Hinx

Former WWE star Bautista was already having quite the year, even before rumours emerged that he'd be playing henchman Hinx.

His casting in Guardians of the Galaxy was seen as someting of a gamble for Marvel, but it paid off handsomely -Â Bautista's relentlessly literal Drax was a standout character among a cast full of them.

Hinx, according to the casting breakdown, is a physically imposing assassin who "has several fights with Bond". It's certainly hard to imagine Craig's agile but diminutive Bond coming off well in a fight with Bautista, so those sequences should be quite something.



Andrew Scott as Denbigh

Best known for his serpentine Moriarty in the BBC's Sherlock, Scott would arguably be well placed to play a slick, suited villain. Since his debut there he's played a variety of lighter characters -Â among them a memorably wounded turn in this year's uplifting Pride - but when he was first rumoured for a Bond role last month, many assumed he would play a villain.

It's still possible that'll turn out to be the case, but at least according to what we know so far, Denbigh's on the side of the angels -Â early reports indicate that he works at MI6 under M and Bill Tanner.

Fun fact: there is a substantial amount of crossover fanfiction in which Ben Whishaw's Q is written as the brother of Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock. Not technically relevant, but a fact that makes us happy every time we remember it.

Watch video footage of today's Bond 24 announcement below:

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