Characters / Panic Room

Altman Family

Meg

Meg Altman

Portrayed By: Jodie Foster

• Action Survivor: Is this along with the Action Mom
• Establishing Character Moment: Meg is shown to be very intelligent; on top of apparently reading classical literature, she's also the first person to notice the dimensions of a room are not how they are in the house's blueprints, because the titular panic room is hidden behind the wall.

Sarah

Sarah Altman

Portrayed By: Kristen Stewart

Stephen

Stephen Altman

Portrayed By: Patrick Bauchau

The Robbers

Burnham

Burnham

Portrayed By: Forest Whitaker

• Anti-Villain: Burnham only went along with Junior's caper because it seemed to be a largely victimless crime: an empty house, a dead man's bonds which will only go to an already rich family, in-and-out. His main motivation is sympathetic too, needing to afford a custody lawyer so he can get his children back.
• Big Damn Heroes: He returns in the nick of time to save Meg and Sarah.
• Conscience Makes You Go Back: Although he's capable of escaping with the bonds, he returns to save the Altmans from Raoul.
• Irony: It isn't lost on Burnham that he spent his career building panic rooms, only for one to provide a huge obstacle.
  Raoul: Hey! What is funny about this? Is this shit funny to you?
  Burnham: Well, I spent the last 12 years of my life building these rooms specifically to keep out people like us.
  Junior: It's all so ironic and amusing, okay!? Now, how do we get in?
• Never Hurt an Innocent: He refuses to physically harm Meg and Sarah beyond a little gassing.
• Only Sane Man: Out of the three burglars, Burnham is the only one who's halfway competent. Junior is incompetent to the core and while Raoul is no joke, he's too sadistic and unhinged to do much other than escalate the situation. Burnham, on the other hand, is a more cerebral, thoughtful man and if he were going it alone, he'd likely be successful.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He's only interested in the money, and nothing else.

Junior

Junior

Portrayed By: Jared Leto

• Beard of Evil: A crook (albeit a stupid one) with a full jaw-hugging beard.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He considers himself a criminal mastermind because the scheme was his idea and because his compatriots are working class compared to him being a rich kid, but neither Burnham nor Raoul respect him or take his orders despite his pitiful attempts to tell everyone he's in charge. That said, he does propel the events of the film; he's the one who discovered his grandfather's secret safe, enlisted Burnham and Raoul, and crucially he's the one who screwed up the plan before it even got off the ground. The trope is taken to its logical conclusion when Raoul shoots him dead.
• Bullying a Dragon: He continually gets on the wrong side of Raoul, the stoic, masked man who brought a silenced gun to rob a supposedly empty house. It ends with a Boom, Headshot!!.
• Establishing Character Moment: He immediately establishes himself as a selfish, loud-mouthed idiot when it turns out he got the plan wrong at the first detail, assuming for whatever reason that he was going by business days as a timescale for when the family would move in and not just...days.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Averted. He makes a big deal about being the good grandson who looked after his grandfather on the weekends for two years, but it was economically motivated and he talks about his grandfather like a pet he was obligated to take care of.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Junior might be a thoughtless, self-absorbed dick but it never occurs to him to off his partners like Raoul, who is stewing over. He's also against flooding so much gas into the room that it will actually knock out or kill the women; not least because you need conscious victims to be able to open the door for you.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He eventually decides the aggravation is too much and decides to leave.
• Stupid Crooks: He's a tremendous idiot who screws up even the most basic aspects of home invasion. He's sloppy on the details, he makes needless noise when he first breaks in, bullies his more competent cohorts and frequently says too much about his little side schemes. It's unclear exactly how he thought he'd get away with taking a much bigger piece of the pie than Raoul or Burnham.

Raoul

Raoul

Portrayed By: Dwight Yoakam

• Ax-Crazy: It's clear that he'll be a problem from the get-go when he reveals he brought a gun to a non-violent burglary of an empty house, but he keeps a lid on his viciousness until showing himself to be a very bloodthirsty individual.
• Big Bad: Junior might have set events in motion, but Raoul is the true antagonistic force of the film.
• Eye Scream: His right eye is blown out by a gunshot to the back of the head.
• Malevolent Masked Man: He wears a ski mask for much of the film, and is concerned with hiding his identity much more than Burnham or Junior.
• No Name Given: Neither Burnham nor Junior get full names either, but Raoul in particular is heavily implied to be a total alias. He sure doesn't look like a "Raoul".
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Raoul has a pretty soft, gentle voice for the most part in keeping with his portrayer, but he's also clearly a vicious monster.
• White Hair, Black Heart: His hair is shown to be a white-blond when he takes his ski mask off.