Characters / Sunshine

The Film

Capa

Robert Capa

Played By: Cillian Murphy

"Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb. My bomb. Welcome to the Icarus II."

The crew member who stands out from the rest—he's the only one who's not a trained astronaut and doesn't have an engineering or military background; he's a theoretical/particle physicist. He's the one who came up with the idea to use the bomb to "heal" the sun and is the expert on the bomb, and as such the most vital man of the mission. Is a loner, but has a special connection with Cassie.

• Alone with the Psycho: When he discovers that Pinbacker is alive (and thoroughly insane). He struggles against Pinbacker later in the film.
• Badass Bookworm: He is very smart and manages to last longer than any of the other characters, even surviving several encounters with Pinbacker.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments. Especially during the discussion about whether or not to kill Trey; he snarks at Mace about the latter's ice-cold attitude towards it.
• Female Gaze: Wears a sleeveless top for a big part of the movie.
• Geek Physiques: He's quite toned and attractive for a scientist.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He delivers the Icarus 2's payload, restarts the sun, and saves humanity at the cost of his life.
• Naïve Newcomer: He's clearly rattled by the danger posed by the spacewalk, breathing heavily. Even though he's trained for a spacewalk a thousand times before, it's still not the real thing.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Robert Capa was one of the most famous wartime photographers of the 20th century.
• Not So Stoic: Despite being one of the most calm and composed survivors, he starts to snap a little as shit hits the fan.
• The Quiet One: He doesn't speak much for the film. Notably, during the discussion which ensues when discovering the Icarus I, he's the only one who says nothing until the Captain addresses him, while the other seven are arguing vividly.
• Science Hero: He's a particle physicist who was the one who had figured out how to "restart" the sun with the bomb ^note This wasn't said in the movie, but is in the background stories the producers provided on the official movie site.. Also, in the end he's all alone facing a psychotic murderer, but manages to detonate the bomb anyway, saving humankind.
• Smart People Play Chess: Plays chess against Kaneda, displaying his intelligence.
• Took a Level in Badass: By the end of the film he's gone up against Pinbacker and saved all of humanity.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While it was a calculated risk, his decision to rendezvous with the Icarus I leads to the deaths of the entire crew and puts the mission in jeopardy despite its eventual success.

Mace

James Mace

Played By: Chris Evans

"We are delivering a payload cause earth's star is dying and if it dies, we die, everything dies. So that is our mission. There is nothing, literally nothing, more important than completing our mission. End of story!"

The engineer responsible for Icarus' (the space ship's computer and artificial intelligence) maintenance. Is very no-nonsense. Doesn't get along with Capa.

• Badass Bookworm: With more emphasis on the bad-ass, but he's still very smart.
• Beard of Sorrow: Isn't the most well-adjusted when he sports an unkempt beard at the beginning of the movie. His shaving it (and getting a buzz cut) marks an improvement in his state of mind.
• The Big Guy: The most physically imposing of the team.
• Cassandra Truth: If everyone had just listened to him at the beginning about not taking the detour, none of the bad events in the film would have happened.
• Character Development: While in theory he already understood the importance of Capa for the mission, after volunteering him on the spacewalk, he seems to genuinely reconsider after Kaneda dies to fully seal their heat shield, and Capa is very close to dying thanks to the detonation of Icarus 1's airlock.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Repeatedly immersing yourself in freezing liquid is bad enough. Getting your leg pinned so you can't climb all the way out? Absolutely horrifying.
• Deadpan Snarker: He kind of has to be as the blunt Only Sane Man.
• Decoy Protagonist: While he has all the characteristics of the traditional protagonist it becomes clear that the real main character is Capa, and Mace ends up dying just before the climax.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Dies after repeatedly immersing himself in freezing liquid to fix the ship.
• Hot-Blooded: He's quick to anger.
• Important Haircut: Cuts his hair at the beginning of the film and shaves his beard, as a sign of his determination to focus on the mission.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Yes, he's curt and rude, but he's not wrong. The fate of humanity rests on their shoulders.
  • He's introduced both insulting Trey's cooking and insulting Searle's sun-gazing, but as he points out for the last one, the psych officer is becoming a little worrying.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a bit of a jerkass for putting the mission first, but he does care about his team.

• The Leader: Not officially, but he assumes de facto leadership after Harvey's death.
• Only Sane Man: While he's blunt his solutions to problems are usually the most logical; problem is, most of the time the crew goes against him.

Cassie

Cassie

Played By: Rose Byrne

"Only dream I ever have... is it the surface of the sun? Every time I shut my eyes, it's always the same."

The space ship's pilot. She's notably less rational and "calculating" than the rest of the crew.

• The Conscience: Is the only member of the crew who doesn't agree with the decision to kill Trey.

• The Heart: She values human life and is reluctant to kill Trey to conserve the ship's oxygen.
• Irony: Despite wanting to preserve Trey's life and being horrified by having to end it, she shows absolutely no mercy to Pinbacker, stabbing him and even ripping his arm off thanks to the damage he sustained from the sun.
• Kill the Cutie: Can be considered the cutie of the crew, as she is the most sweet (see The Heart), and is mortally wounded during the final fight with Pinbacker.
• Perpetual Frowner: She rarely smiles.
• Stupid Good: She refuses to vote for killing Trey (who's already suicidal) to save enough oxygen so the Icarus crew can complete the mission and save the human race because she considers it wrong.
• Took a Level in Badass: She and Capa take on a rampaging Pinbacker.
• Uncertain Doom: Definitely dead, but her fate is ambiguous: was she killed by Pinbacker or by impact with the sun?

Corazon

Corazon

Played By: Michelle Yeoh

The crew's biologist, responsible for the oxygen supply of the space ship.

• Deadpan Snarker: Like many of her crewmates.
• Foreshadowing: She is so obsessed with the plants in the Oxygen Lab that it nearly kills her the first time after a fire in the Lab, and it ‘’definitely’’ kills her after she’s too focused on the last sapling to notice Pinbacker coming up behind her, who stabs her.
• Friend to All Living Things: She lovingly maintains the plants in the oxygen garden. When a fire devastates the garden, she's horrified.
• Heroic BSoD: When the oxygen garden is destroyed she goes into a bit of a shock, desperately crying, and her crew mates have to drag her away for her own safety.
• In the Back: Pinbacker knifes her in the back with a scalpel.
• The Spock: She's very much rationally driven, especially when she argues for killing Trey.

Searle

Searle

Played By: Cliff Curtis

"Total light envelops you. It becomes you. It's very strange...I recommend it."

The crew's psychiatrist. He was specifically chosen for the mission because it was suspected the reason of Icarus I's failure was human mental health issues. However, he is obsessed with the sun and with light from the beginning of the movie on.

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: It may sound ridiculous that space missions don't have on-board psychiatrists, hence why Searle's suggestion of being one is necessary, but this is in fact true.
• Butt-Monkey: The crew takes slightly soft ones at his habit of literal sungazing quite frequently at the beginning.
• Death by Irony: The crew's psychiatrist, chosen for the mission specifically because he theorized the Icarus I mission failed due to the strain of the mission on the crew's mental health. He's the first of the Icarus II crew to go truly insane himself, and chooses to die viewing the sun unprotected.
• Driven to Suicide: Volunteers to stay behind so the others have a chance of escaping Icarus I, then commits suicide by overexposure to the sun.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Stays behind on Icarus I (which has separated from the other ship) to make sure that Capa, Mace, and Harvey get back safely. After doing this he commits suicide by exposure to the sun.^note Downplayed though because some of the reason he chose to stay behind that he was getting obsessed with the sun, just like Pinbacker had become, and he didn't want anything more than facing the sun without the shield, even knowing it would be his death.
• Face Death with Dignity: Faces his imminent demise with no fear.
  • He also takes the revelation that he'll have to fire the airlock open with no protection in complete stride.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: While Mace, Capa, and Harvey suit up, either in the spacesuit or in makeshift insulation, he can be seen not doing that, foreshadowing that he's realized one of them will have to sacrifice themselves to get Capa back, and thus be able to finish their mission.
• Foil: To Pinbacker. They're both obsessed with the sun, but as Cliff said about his own character, Searle "would sacrifice those beliefs and views, his life, for the greater good, whereas Pinbacker, who's come to a place he believes is right, would sacrifice the world for his beliefs. They're two sides of the same coin."
• Opaque Lenses: What he wears.
• Sanity Slippage: At the start of the film, he's enamored with the sun and spends time basking in sunlight. As the movie progresses, his fixation on the sun leads him to spend more time bathing in sunlight, so much so that his face is badly sunburned. He never progresses to the state Pinbacker got to, but it does lead to him easily choosing to stay behind in the Icarus I and committing suicide by overexposing himself to the sun.
• The Shrink: He serves as a mental health professional for the Icarus 2 crew. He was the one that came up with the theory that the original Icarus mission had failed due to human mental health issues, and was deliberately chosen to go along with the current mission to prevent this from happening again.
• Space Madness: Albeit a mild version. See Sanity Slippage.

Harvey

Harvey

Played By: Troy Garity

"Twenty-three hours ago while making a routine check on the comms systems, I scanned the frequencies and heard a transmission... It's the Icarus I."

The communications officer of the space ship. Since communication is cut off pretty early in the film, he doesn't have that job anymore. But he's also second-in-command and thus nominally becomes the captain after Kaneda dies.

• Asshole Victim: There's only one space suit and four people when they get stuck on Icarus I, and he selfishly claims the space suit for himself, even though Capa is the person who's critical to finish their mission to save humankind. When he consequently dies during the jump, it's hard to feel sorry for such a cowardly prick.
• Butt-Monkey: Doesn't get much respect from his men, though this is justified.
  Harvey: I am the CAPTAIN!
  Mace: You're a communications officer on a ship without any means of communication.
• Dirty Coward: Despite being the captain, he only cares about self-preservation and refuses to stay behind on Icarus I even though the mission is much more likely to fail without Capa.
• The Generic Guy: Doesn't really have much of a personality until his Dirty Coward moment.
• It's All About Me: Harvey only cares about himself, and he tries to act like he's the victim when his crew get justifiably disgusted by his behavior.
• Literally Shattered Lives: Gets frozen in space after missing the airlock, and his corpse is disintegrated.
• Number Two for Brains: Comes off as one of the crew members least suited for command. He's rather passive and moody and prone to becoming aggressive and self-pitying, as well as making emotionally-driven irrational decisions. He's a far cry from the cool, authoritative and self-sacrificial Kaneda.
• Sanity Slippage: A different and much more subtle version than Searle and Pinbacker. It isn't clear in the movie, but Word of God states that he is secretly going mad over the thought of never getting back to Earth and seeing his wife again, and that is what leads him to bad actions (such as jeopardizing the mission by denying Capa the space suit).
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Harvey misses the hole then freezes out there in seconds, his frozen corpse hitting an antenna, thus breaking his arm before flying outside the shield, reduced to dust in seconds by the Sun.
• You Are in Command Now: Previously the second in command, he becomes captain after Kaneda dies. Though this doesn't mean much in practice - see Butt Monkey.

Kaneda

Kaneda

Played By: Hiroyuki Sanada

The captain, an astronaut from Japan.

• Face Death with Dignity: He dies while conducting emergency repairs outside the ship. When he realizes that he cannot complete the necessary repairs and still return to the interior in time, he chooses to stay, and when the time comes, he accepts his death calmly.
• A Father to His Men: The fair and focused leader of the Icarus 2 crew.
• The Good Captain: His crew is his first priority.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He dies outside the ship while conducting emergency repairs. He deliberately chooses Capa's life over his own when he does so.
• Manly Facial Hair: He sports an impressive beard.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He always tries to look out for the safety of his friends.
• Sacrificial Lion: He dies early in the film.
• Smart People Play Chess: Plays chess with Capa, showing his intelligence.
• Team Dad: Everyone on the ship respects him.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Kaneda is the first member of the team to die, about one-third of the movie in.

Trey

Trey

Played By: Benedict Wong

"I'd need to look at all of the calculations, very carefully. But if I had to make a guess right now, I'd say we could adjust our trajectory. We could fly straight to them."

The computer specialist and math genius—he used to be a hacker before he was recruited for the mission. He's responsible for the myriad of calculations and settings needed to perform the mission.

• Asian and Nerdy: He's of Asian ancestry, and knowledgeable enough about science to navigate the Icarus 2.
• Despair Event Horizon: After he unwittingly jeopardizes the mission, Trey succumbs to depression and is put on suicide watch.
• Driven to Suicide: His crewmates find him in the medical ward with his wrists cut. While his death appears to be a suicide, Word of God states that Pinbacker did it.
• It's All My Fault: When he resets Icarus 2's new course, he forgets to conduct calculations for the shields, which leaves the ship vulnerable to the sun's intense heat and jeopardizes the mission. He's horrified when he realizes his mistake, more so when people start suffering from the repercussions.
• Good with Numbers: As stated by himself.
• Nice Guy: He is harmless and is consumed by self-loathing when his mistake gets Kaneda killed.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Normally is very skilled in his job and by all means he does his best when re-calculating the ship's trajectory... but he makes a crucial mistake that ends up fatally destroying the ship and the captain dead.
• The Smart Guy: He's known for being a genius with computers and math. Although his one crucial mistake ends up screwing over the team.
• Teen Genius: In his backstory it's revealed he was the best hacker on earth as a teen. It got him recruited by NASA, because they highly valued his skills.

Pinbacker (SPOILERS!)

Pinbacker

Played By: Mark Strong

"For seven years I spoke with God. He told me to take us all to Heaven."

The captain of the previous mission, the Icarus I, which got lost.

• The Ace: He was this. It's why he was chosen to lead the original mission.
• Ambiguously Evil: While he's very clearly nuts and outright murderous, the degree is ambiguous-did he murder Trey and the Icarus I crew, or did they actually commit suicide?
  • Trey was clearly hidden, but whether this was to prevent other crew members from finding him before he commit suicide, or
  • The Icarus I crew is in the prayer position. Had they too gone insane and decided to die praying to their new "god," the Sun, or did Pinbacker murder them with the immense heat, causing their bodies to retract into the prayer position after death? He very clearly had
• Amoral Afrikaner: Hard to place because we don't really get a look at him, but Word of God says he's South African. It's easier to hear the accent in his recordings. Also an interesting example in that we have no idea what kind of person he was before he lost his marbles.
• Ax-Crazy: The Pinbacker that the Icarus 2 crew encounters is delusional and murderous.
• Bald of Evil: Likely burned off, as he clearly had hair prior to his disfigurement and has been exposed to too much sunlight due to his madness.
• Big Bad: The main antagonist of the film, and the one who orchestrates Icarus II crew's problems.
• Body Horror: Because of his prolonged exposure to sunlight, he's covered in third degree burns. Also, during his fight with Capa and Cassie at the end of the film, Cassie grabs his arm, and his skin and flesh slough off in her hand.
• Dissonant Serenity: In his first video recording (made pre-disfigurement), his description of a miniature meteor shower that nearly barbecued his crew shows that he was already starting to lose it.
  Pinbacker: It was... beautiful.
• Egocentrically Religious
  Capa: My God. Pinbacker.
  Pinbacker: Not your God. Mine!
• Evil Counterpart: Provides one to pretty much the entire crew.
  • Like Searle, he’s heavily obsessed with the sun to the point where his sunbathing burns him, but while Searle only lets his obsession get him a few sunburns (and is probably a coping mechanism for Kaneda’s death)
  • As the sun-obsessed captain of Icarus I, he’s also one to Kaneda. But Kaneda very quickly realizes Pinbacker is insane from watching a mere recording of him, and he selflessly gives his life to repair the Icarus II’s heat shield, whereas Pinbacker is heavily implied to have cooked his own crew with the full might of the sun.
  • Like Corazon, he is obsessed with nature-her plants, and him, the Sun. In fact, this is what kills her, as he corners her in the ruins of the Oxygen Lab because she was too focused on one surviving sapling.
  • Like Harvey, he appears skilled enough with communications that he was able to continue broadcasting the distress tone, with this intriguing Harvey enough that it drew the Icarus II in.
  • Unlike Mace, he’s never shown piloting the ship-but he shares the capacity to do what they must for their goals, and both are willing to kill Trey.
  • He shares his religious and mechanical knowledge with Capa and Trey’s physics and mathematical knowledge respectively.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Baritone.
• The Fatalist: After his sanity slippage, he concludes that efforts to save humanity are futile.
  Pinbacker: All our science, all our hopes, our dreams, are foolish! In the face of this, we are dust, nothing more. Unto this dust, we return. When he chooses for us to die, it is not our place to challenge God.
• Foreshadowing: The very first hint we get of his existence is that despite having to have been open to roast Icarus I's crew to death, somebody closed the observatory shield again, allowing the Icarus II crew to find their bodies rather than be roasted to death themselves.
• Full-Frontal Assault: He doesn't wear clothing, showing off his burns and wounds as he attacks the crew.
• The Fundamentalist: Having lost his mind, Pinbacker believes that he can talk to God and that he's carrying out God's will by sabotaging efforts to restart the sun.
• Genre Shift: He represents the movie's shift from hard-ish Sci-Fi with No Antagonist to a borderline Slasher Movie.
• Hypocrite: If humans are nothing but dust to God and saving them is futile as he claims, why does Pinbacker think it even necessary to sabotage said efforts, let alone that he, a single human, could talk to and be chosen by God for this task?
• Implacable Man: He's convinced that God wants humanity to die so that they can ascend to heaven. He meets any attempt to thwart this with violence, he cannot be reasoned with or cowed, and he is unnaturally durable despite being completely naked and horribly burned.
• Made of Iron: There's no reason he's pretty much completely indestructible. He just is. Despite already being covered in third-degree burns.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The camera avoids lingering on him for very long, and when it does there's usual a distortion effect.
• Naked Nutter: When the crew of the Icarus II finally find him, he's basking naked in the sunlight, now openly worshipping the sun as a god. For good measure, he's covered in hideous burns and blisters from exposure to the harsh light, so it's likely that wearing clothes would be too painful for him anyway. In any event, this swiftly transitions into Full-Frontal Assault.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His presence onboard the Icarus 2 meant that the mission would have failed due to lack of oxygen. By killing Trey and Corazon and reducing the number of crewmembers onboard to four, they had enough oxygen left to reach the delivery point.
• Not Quite Dead: Pinbacker was believed to have died along with the crew of the Icarus 1. However, he's very much alive and determined to thwart the Icarus 2 mission.
• Omnicidal Maniac: His effort to stop the Icarus crew by brutally murdering them would doom all mankind to extinction. He thinks he's serving God's will by doing so.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: He was The Ace, the guy humanity entrusted its future with when they launched the Icarus I. Then he suffered a Sanity Slippage and turned against his cause.
• Religious Bruiser: He's a formidable opponent who believes that he's carrying out the will of God.
• Sanity Slippage: Pinbacker lost his sanity while leading the crew of the Icarus 1.
• Satanic Archetype: He acts as an adversary to humanity on God's behalf (or so he believes in his madness), bringing to mind Satan's traditional role in the Hebrew Bible as the Adversary. When Capa meets him face-to-face, he's bathed in light, evoking Lucifer as an angel of light.
• Space Madness: During Icarus 1's journey, he went insane, presumably from the same thing (characterized by an obsession for the sun) that Searle and Kaneda have, and possibly the stresses of the mission.
• Spanner in the Works: After he goes insane, he sabotages the Icarus 1 mission and creates enormous problems for the Icarus 2 mission.
• Straw Nihilist: In his lunacy, he concludes that humanity's efforts to restart the sun are in vain, and that humans are inconsequential "dust" before God.
• Uncertain Doom: Well, definitely doomed, but the exact instance of his death happens off-screen and it's unclear if he outlives Capa to become his proclaimed "last man".

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