The news that Mathieu Amalric, star of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, has been cast as the next Bond villain may not be such a great sign for Bond 22. Nothing against Amalric––in fact, just the opposite: the best actors have a tendency to show up in the worst Bond films. Here’s five bits of evidence to support that thesis; tell us what we’ve missed/why we’re wrong in the comments.

1) Max Von Sydow, Never Say Never Again

A lot of 007 purists barely acknowledge this “unofficial” Bond film, which was made outside the auspices of the Ian Fleming-sanctioned production company behind the rest of the franchise. But we have to include Von Sydow on this list, as the actor, who coincidentally plays the father of Amalric’s character in Diving Bell, was the source of an initial rumor that Almaric would be taking on the role of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, played by Sydow himself in Never.

Never came out the same year as Octopussy, but made less money; it’s essentially a rehash of the far-superior Thunderball. Sean Connery came back to play Bond after a 12 year hiatus, whilst Von Sydow takes over the recurring character of Blofeld, head of the villainous SPECTRE, previously played by Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas and others. Wikipedia has a chart comparing the various Blofelds across the seven films in which they appear, which pegs the Pleasance and Savalas incarnations as a clear inspiration for Dr. Evil. Von Sydow’s characterization of Blofeld broke from that mold, and reactions were/are mixed. At Not Coming to a Theater Near You, Leo Goldsmith mocked Von Sydow’s “Dracula accent and silly haircut,” but The Bond Film Informant praises Von Sydow for making Blofeld “cool, calm and bearded.”

So, like father like fictional son? Somehow I can see Amalric rocking the “cool, calm and bearded” thing a little more easily than the “creepily impetuous Siamese cat-careeser” thing, but we shall see.

2) John Cleese, The World is Not Enough

It was just the first of two Bond films in which Cleese appeared, but this one seemed to sully the Pierce Brosnan run of the franchise for good. The fault is probably not Cleese’s, or even Brsonan’s; the target of most derision of The World’s is Denise Richards, who plays a short-shorts wearing nuclear physicist named Christmas Jones, apparently named solely for the purpose of allowing Bond to skeevily quip about how “Christmas came early this year.” Worse Bond girl ever? I’d have to watch World and A View to a Kill back to back, but I can’t imagine that Richards as Christmas could be any more preposterous than Grace Jones.

3) Christopher Walken, A View to a Kill

Speak of the devil. Probably the sole case in which a Duran Duran video is less ridiculous than the film inspiring it, Kill starred Walken (just seven years off his Oscar win for The Deer Hunter) as Max Zorin, a KGB-trained product of Nazi medical experimentation who devises a mad plot to “end the domination of Silicon Valley.” It’s perhaps the most absurd paycheck role taken by an Oscar winner that decade, but this is one case where the good actor elevates the silliness by totally surrendering to it. Walken is simultaneously too good for this kind of thing, and absolutely bloody perfect for it.

4) Benicio Del Toro, License to Kill

Blink and you’ll miss a smirking Benicio as a Bond sub-villain at the front of the trailer for this, the 16th Bond film, and one the few to decisively disappoint at the U.S. box office. License to Kill was the the first Bond film violent enough to qualify for a PG-13 rating; it was also the last to star Timothy Dalton, whose contract ran out in the six-year interim between this film and the next in the franchise, GoldenEye. The two Dalton films (he first starred in The Living Daylights) are widely derided, but at the time of Kill’s release, Roger Ebert called it “one of the best of the recent Bonds.” He also noted that “the major difference between Dalton and the earlier Bonds is that he seems to prefer action to sex,” which might explain the film’s sub-par performance. Ebert seemingly failed to notice Del Toro as a rising star, and he wasn’t exactly alone––it took several years after this for the future Oscar-winner to break out of roles like “Kid sitting on car” and “Bob, the friend from Miami.”

5) Michael Lonsdale, Moonraker

This is kind of a cheat: Lonsdale is a serviceable character actor who has been in hundreds of films…none of which I can name, other than Stolen Kisses and Goya’s Ghosts. But I’m mainly tacking him at the end of this list simply as an excuse to embed the trailer for Moonraker, the 1979 Bond-in-space travesty cobbled together to blatantly cash in on the popularity of Star Wars. Skip directly to 2:05 for the infamous space shuttle battle sequence.