The characters from the film Spies in Disguise.
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Lance Sterling
- Voiced by: Will Smith
"You know how you can tell when you're the world's greatest spy? Everyone knows the name."
The world's greatest secret agent, who ends up on the run after being framed as the mastermind behind the drone attacks.- The Ace: He's the world's greatest secret agent for a reason. This works in a negative way too: when he is framed, he becomes The Dreaded and is the target of a manhunt.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Pigeon Lance is bright blue, with a small mark resembling a bow tie on his chest.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: His regular attire consists of a snazzy black suit, and he's the world's greatest secret agent.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Has rather thick eyebrows as a human and a pigeon.
- Blue Is Heroic: His pigeon form is mainly blue.
- Break the Haughty: Played for laughs when he becomes a pigeon, then done seriously when it looks like Killian killed Walter.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Didn’t remember Killian until he pointed out the mission, saw him as just another bad guy he faced before.
- Chick Magnet: Literally — when Lance turns into a pigeon, Lovey tries to cozy up to him, much to his annoyance.
- Clear My Name: He's framed as the mastermind behind Killian's schemes, and his goal in the movie is to prove that it wasn't him.
- Forced Transformation: He gets turned into a pigeon by one of Walter's inventions.
- Furry Reminder: Plenty of these during his time as a pigeon. For example, after he transformed:Walter: Lance, look at me.
Lance: L-look at you?! I can't not look at you, Walter! I can see my butt and your face at the same time! - Expy: Of James Bond. Or specifically, Daniel Craig's take on the character.
- Freudian Excuse: His I Work Alone mentality and actions stem from not wanting to see any more of his fellow agents die in the line of duty.
- Ink-Suit Actor: His (human) character design greatly resembles his actor, Will Smith.
- Irony: Before he become one himself, Lance had a low opinion of pigeons, seeing them as "rats with wings".
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Starts out with a massive ego (though not without a reason), and fires Walter for incorporating one of his cutesy gadgets into a mission despite it proving to actually be effective in the battle. He also blames Walter for turning him into a pigeon (despite him being the one who took the potion before Walter had a chance to explain what it does), and spends the first half of the movie hating Walter's guts because of it. Because of his status as a pigeon and being framed for a federal crime, he does suffer a Break the Haughty moment, and spending time with Walter caused him to warm up to him and realize that his inventions are useful after all. It's also revealed that a lot of his mannerisms stem from not wanting to see any more good agents die in the line of duty.
- Jerkass Has a Point: If you take away the morality of Walter's Do No Harm practices, Lance's contempt for him at the beginning of the movie isn't exactly unmerited. Regardless of the effectiveness of Walter's unorthodox gadgets, it doesn't change the fact that Walter meddled with Lance's equipment behind his back without his consent, and doing so caused Lance to be affected the same as his assailants and got a knife dangerously close to his throat due to being caught off-guard. Such behavior in spying and government businesses is inexcusable since as little as one miscommunication or mistake can mean the difference between success and failure, or life and death. Lance was the most merciful compared to how Joy Jenkins would've handled the news. He also has a point that sometimes villains, especially the worst of the worst, have to be put down hard.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Well, knowing, who he based on, it's not surprising.
- Lantern Jaw of Justice: He is a secret agent with an elongated chin who fights bad guys.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: While sneaking into Kimura's hotel, he is unable to stop himself from eating some discarded food from under a table. His pigeon instincts are just too strong for him.Lance: Why am I eating food off the ground? Why does it taste so delicious!?
- Morphic Resonance: While in pigeon form, he retains his Big Ol' Eyebrows while the lower half of his body is a darker blue as a holdover from his suit. The bowtie also appears as a bow-shaped mark on his chest.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He has a minor silent one when Killian reveals that the attack Lance led in Kyrgyzstan killed Killian's entire crew and horribly disfigured him.
- Scary Black Man: Well, as scary as a Will Smith character can get, but he's definitely not someone you'd want to fight against. He is able to overpower several thugs in the opening sequence, and even takes down some without even laying a finger on them.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: He acts like a devil-may-care jackass who treats everyone like crap most of the time, but he's actually intentionally isolating himself because he's lost too many partners in the field.
Walter Beckett
- Voiced by: Tom Holland
"Pigeons are seen in every corner of the world, and no one notices them. It's the most perfect form a spy can take!"
A scientist at the same agency Lance works at, whose non-violent (yet still effective) gadgets are ridiculed by fellow scientists and agents alike. Lance turns to him to make him "disappear" after he gets framed.- All of the Other Reindeer: Was always treated as "weird" by everyone else, from when he was a child up to his young adult years.
- Child Prodigy: He's been studying chemistry and technology since he was a young child and graduated from MIT at the age of fifteen.
- According to Eyes, he figured out a way to edit the human genome... in middle school.
- Childish Tooth Gap: He had this as a child.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Both as a child and as a young adult, Walter is considered "weird" by his peers because he insists that criminals should be dealt with non-lethally. However...
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Walter's gadgets, such as the "kitty glitter", do ultimately serve as effective distractions for criminals, and Walter is successfully able to non-lethally bring Killian into custody using his "inflatable hug" device.
- Disappeared Dad: No mention is ever made of his father, even in the prologue where he's a child.
- Dying as Yourself: He would rather die than kill, and nearly does, fortunately Lance is able to rescue him.
- Expy: Of Ben Whishaw's version of Q.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Provides the gadgets that Lance uses.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Subverted. Though he's aware there are really bad people, he believes the good guys shouldn't always have to fight them, much less kill them.
- Ink-Suit Actor: His character design is a blue-eyed caricature of his VA, Tom Holland.
- In Name Only: He has the same name as the main character from Pigeon: Impossible, and that's about it.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Walter has no social skills and he is naive and kindhearted.
- Nice Guy: Walter is arguably the nicest character in the film- he rarely gets offended and consistently shows kindness to everyone, including people who are actively trying to hurt or incapacitate him.
- Save the Villain: As part of his Thou Shalt Not Kill schtick, he saves Killian by trapping him in an inflatable hug.
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: One of the reasons, if not THE reason, he's considered a weirdo by nearly everyone in the agency, especially with their line of work. Lance tells Walter that "evil doesn't care that you're nice" and "can't save the world with hugs".
- Super-Cute Superpowers: Walter definitely seems to be In Touch with His Feminine Side when it comes to his work, as most of his gadgets involve glitter, stuffed animals, kittens, or the color pink. This initially causes embarrassment towards Lance when he's forced to use them in battle, although he learns to embrace it after realizing their efficacy.
- Tareme Eyes: He's got some of the roundest eyes of the entire cast, reflecting his idealism and general friendliness.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: His moral compass. He deeply believes that violence is never the answer and all of his gadgets are made to be as safe as possible yet still effective, much to the doubt of everyone at the agency, including Lance. Though his gadgets prove to be very effective after all.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: He sees the world as populated not by "good people" and "bad people", but just people he can help.
- What You Are in the Dark: He insists the whole movie that villains should be dealt with non-lethally. In the climax, he puts Killian in an "inflatable hug" to bring him into custody even though it puts Walter himself at risk of falling to his death.
Lovey, Jeff and Crazy Eyes
From left to right: Jeff, Lovey and Crazy Eyes
The pigeons that accompany Lance and Walter on their mission. Lovey is Walter's pet pigeon, while Jeff and Crazy Eyes are wild pigeons who bring Lance into their flock.- Abhorrent Admirer: Lovey falls in Love at First Sight with Lance's pigeon form, which greatly irritates him.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Lovey is downright ruthless when it comes to those she deems her enemies. When Marcy's agents corner Lance and Walter in Venice, she suggests that they Leave No Survivors. Lance, who has no qualms about killing when necessary, calls this "dark". During the Final Battle, she saves Marcy from a drone that was behind her shoulder, then claims she was aiming for Marcy's head.
- The Big Guy: Jeff is the largest of the pigeons we get to see in the film.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Lovey is cute and sweet, but shows some disturbing possessive tendencies towards Lance.
- Extreme Omnivore: Crazy Eyes will eat anything.
- Fat and Skinny: Jeff and Crazy Eyes, respectively.
- Fish Eyes: Crazy Eyes is named for his eyes.
- Gonk: Crazy Eyes has an uglier and more exaggerated design than the other pigeons, with large bulging eyes, scraggly feathers, and a skinny body. He also jarringly sports a used lollipop on his head.
- Love at First Sight: Lovey falls for Pigeon Lance at first glance.
- Loyal Animal Companion: All three of them. Special mention goes to Lovey, as she was Walter's pet from the beginning.
- Non-Human Sidekick: They all serve as this to Lance and Walter.
- Secret Weapon: Crazy Eyes becomes this after he swallows Walter's gadget pen. The unpredictability of his attacks quickly makes him a valuable asset to the team.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Lovey falls for Lance hard once he becomes a pigeon. While she is noticeably as surprised as everyone else at the sudden reveal that his pigeon form is biologically female, she still displays attraction towards him. Lance being turned human again does nothing to dull her ardor, to the point that she even actively tries to shoot Marcy with one of Walter's more volatile non-lethal weapons out of jealousy. Male, female, pigeon or human, Lovey only has eyes for Lance.
- Smarter Than You Look: Crazy Eyes, though dopey-looking and an Extreme Omnivore, is just as smart as the other pigeons.
- Those Two Guys: Jeff and Crazy Eyes, who are rarely seen apart.
Marcy Kappel
- Voiced by: Rashida Jones
- Ambiguously Brown: Her skin is brown, but nothing has been said on her ethnicity.
- Badass Driver: She does a pretty good job of keeping up with Lance's Cool Car right up until it takes a jump off a bridge.
- Hero Antagonist: She spends most of the movie trying to capture Lance, but as far as she knows she's chasing after an agent who suddenly went rogue. Once she sees proof of Lance's innocence, she's back on his side with no hard feelings, albeit without an explicit apology.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Has more than a passing resemblance to her voice actor.
- Inspector Javert: Her main contribution to the plot is her doing her job as an Internal Affairs agent.
- Internal Affairs: She serves in essentially her agency's equivalent.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: Downplayed. She's a bit rough around the edges, and has 5 cats, each one named after a member of New Kids on the Block.
- Male Gaze: We get some nice shots of her butt.
- Not So Above It All: She laughed when she finds out that Lance has been a pigeon the whole time. Then she quickly stops and realizes how messed up it is.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: She tries to talk down Walter from being Sterling's ally, and when Killian is exposed she allows him an apology.
- The Unapologetic: She doesn't directly apologize for assuming Lance gone rogue and trying to apprehend him. She does admit that Lance was right about his innocence, which Lance accepts.
Eyes
- Voiced by: Karen Gillan
- Bespectacled Cutie: She's drawn just as cute as the rest of the characters and happens to wear glasses.
- Fat and Skinny: The Skinny to Ears' Fat.
- Goggles Do Something Unusual: Her glasses help her scan and analyze things.
- Inksuit Actor: Her design looks like a bit like her voice actress Karen Gillan.
- Noodle People: Eyes is extremely tall and skinny, which contrasts with her short and chubby partner Ears.
- Prim and Proper Bun: Probably because having loose hair would get in the way of her glasses.
- Punny Name: Her primary device happens to be her glasses.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: She has high-tech glasses for analyzation and appears intelligent.
- Those Two Guys: Always seen with Ears.
- Youthful Freckles: Mainly used to emphasize her Bespectacled Cutie nature.
Ears
- Voiced by: DJ Khaled
- Eye-Obscuring Hat: Hence his name.
- Fat and Skinny: The Fat to Eyes' Skinny.
- Eye-Obscuring Hat: That also happens to cover most of his face.
- Make Some Noise: He specializes in sound-based attacks
- Punny Name: Like Eyes, his primary device happens to be his headphones and sound dish.
- Those Two Guys: Always seen with Eyes.
Joy Jenkins
- Voice by: Reba McEntire
- Alliterative Name: Joy Jenkins.
- Big Good: She's the head of the organization Lance, Walter, and Marcy all work at.
- Ironic Name: She is a stern, no-nonsense lady named Joy.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Joy is a tough but fair boss to Lance, and despite her annoyance at him occasionally blowing off her orders to be a team player, she trusts his judgment as an agent.
Killian
- Voiced by: Ben Mendelsohn
- All There in the Script: His name is never spoken onscreen, and is referred to as "Robo-Hand" by Lance and Walter.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's never specified what his specific role within his former crew was. The way he presents himself, it would be pretty easy to assume he was the leader, but he just as plausibly could have been a low-ranking grunt who lost it after watching his friends die because of Lance's take no prisoners approach to taking out the organization. It would explain why Lance doesn't recognize him. This would fit with the film's message that using extreme violence and deadly force can create more problems than it solves, or make existing problems far worse.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: If you go by the interpretation that he was the former leader of the criminal organization Lance wiped out, he's this, considering he can easily overpower the otherwise nigh-untouchable Lance.
- Awesome Aussie: A villainous example. He has an Australian accent courtesy of Ben Mendelsohn and is the Big Bad. When he and Lance confront each other for the first time, he's able to overpower Lance very quickly.
- Benevolent Boss: He truly cared for his original crew and to this day it's what motivates him against Lance.
- Best Served Cold: His modus operandi. All of his actions are made in an effort to destroy Lance Sterling for wiping out his previous crew.
- Big Bad: Of the movie.
- Create Your Own Villain: Played With. Turns out, whatever Lance did in Kyrgyzstan wiped out Killian's crew and horrifically maimed him, but he was already part of an organization that was wishing to do the world harm. It's just that Lance's actions made him even more dangerous and more specifically fixated on Lance, so it's more of a case of "Create Your Own Arch-Enemy".
- Cyborg: He has a cybernetic left arm, left eye, left ear and a good portion of the left side of his face.
- The Dreaded: Kimura was reluctant to talk about him for fear of his life.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: It's implied that he was somewhat close to his original crew, considering he really didn't take it well when Lance killed them. His actions in the present are partially to avenge them.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He certainly didn't expect Walter willing to sacrifice himself even for him. This may have led to his Heel Realization.
- Exact Words: After a scientist he kidnapped finishes his work, Killian decides to get rid of him. The scientist protests that Killian had promised to let him go, to which Killian agrees, letting him go... by dropping him onto some jagged rocks in the ocean.
- Expy: Due to his robot arm and rivalry with the crime-fighting, gadget-using protagonists, it's easy to draw comparisons between him and Dr. Claw. Although, he's not The Faceless.
- A Father to His Men: Deconstructed by virtue of showing what happens when a villainous example loses said men. The primary reason why he targets Lance and the H.T.U.V. is that Lance massacred his men during one of his missions. Killian developed severe survivor's guilt from the event and swore revenge. He was already a villain before the events of the movie, and it was this reason that drove him further into depravity for the sake of avenging the men and women he fought alongside with.
- Frame-Up: After scanning Lance's face in their encounter at the beginning of the film, he uses a holographic mask to frame Lance for his crimes.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: He very plausibly could have just been a lower-ranking grunt within his organization, considering Lance had no recollection of ever facing him, in which case, he went from just collateral damage in a destructive raid to a criminal mastermind who nearly eradicated an entire spy organization.
- Heel Realization: When the agents point out Walter saved him, Killian's eye goes from red to blue when he hears this, possibly implying this or he may have just felt guilty and known they were.
- Humiliation Conga: Courtesy of a non-lethal arsenal from Walter.
- Hypocrite: It would be easier to sympathize with his motives (his entire crew was killed in a past operation) if his plans didn't involve killing even more people than Lance likely did, including innocents. That and he was a terrorist before they died and he got scarred.
- Ink-Suit Actor: His character design has a bit of resemblance to his voice actor.
- Knight of Cerebus: Considering his goal is to eradicate an entire spy organization simply because one of their agents killed his former crew, he is not a threat to be taken lightly. He even kills a scientist by dropping him on rocks.
- Moral Myopia: He had no problems being part of a terrorist cell that was threatening hundreds if not thousands of people. However, when it's his own people who get wiped out, it's suddenly an atrocity worth swearing revenge over.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Seems to have a moment of regret when he hears the agents point out Walter saved him from death as his eye changes from red to blue.
- Never My Fault: He blames Lance for killing all his men and (in his own words) taking everything from him, while ignoring the fact that Lance only did his job and the fact that he was a criminal who tried to kill innocent people.
- Not So Above It All: Not even he can resist Walter's Kitty Glitter.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: He’s a dangerous criminal mastermind with a cybernetic eye that has red as its default color.
- Red Right Hand: His cybernetic arm, which he hides while pretending to be Lance. Also his cybernetic eye and a good chunk of the left side of his face which has robotic implants and nasty burn scars that he can hide under a hologram.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: Even when performing torture, the guy hardly raises his voice.
- Tragic Villain: The reason why he hates Lance so bad is that Lance killed Killian's crew in a past mission and scarred Killian. Made worse by the fact Killian truly did care for his comrades. The fact that his motive doesn't justify his actions only serves to highlight the film's message about violence and the Cycle of Revenge.
- Unknown Rival: Lance doesn't remember who he is when they finally meet face-to-face, while Killian has had a burning hatred for Lance ever since he killed his men.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: His menacing presence really stands out in an otherwise wacky comedy, with his villainy being played completely seriously. It's also not glossed over that his end goal would kill a lot of people.
Katsu Kimura
- Voiced by: Masi Oka
- Acrofatic: He's large, but he's no slouch in combat.
- Alliterative Name: Katsu Kimura.
- The Dragon: To Killian.
- Hidden Depths: Under the effects of Walter's Truth Serum, he states that he knows how to play the flute.
- Large and in Charge: Contrasted to his lean henchmen he's literally sumo-sized.
- Naked People Are Funny: He's naked the entire time Lance and Walter interrogate him, as they caught him just when he was stepping out of his hot tub.
- Paper Tiger: He may look big and intimidating, but he isn’t that efficient of a fighter.
- Tattooed Crook: He and his crew have irezumi tattoos.
- Yakuza: His minions primarily consist of Yakuza goons.
