What’s a hit man without a code name? James Bond is 007; The Gray Man’s Court Gentry is Sierra Six; even Get Smart’s Maxwell Smart goes by Agent 86 when he’s on the clock. In David Fincher’s new assassin thriller The Killer, the titular professional has more than a few pseudonyms, and they all have a shared origin. Played by Michael Fassbender, this killer has a taste for television — every one of his aliases is borrowed from a classic sitcom. “He may have been raised on [television],” says The Killer screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (who previously teamed with Fincher on their shared breakout Se7en). “It may have been more of a parent to him than any parent.”
The running gag originated with an earlier Fincher/Walker collaboration. “I was doing a polish on Fight Club,” Walker tells Tudum. “Fincher and I realized that Edward Norton’s character had to have little name badges on, or sign up sheets for his support groups he would go to. And Fincher was like, ‘Well, let’s just use names from Planet of the Apes, like Dr. Zaius or Cornelius, etcetera.’ ”
Tools of the trade: The Killer’s collection of passport forgeries and identification.
When Walker began working on The Killer, he decided to similarly sneak casual sitcom name-drops into scenes where the main character introduces himself, as a subtle Easter egg for particularly discerning viewers. Fincher persuaded him to blow the idea up further. “I started even more obscure than they are now, with characters like Mr. Mooney,” foil to Lucille Ball on her ’60s vehicle The Lucy Show, Walker says. “It’s the genius of Fincher that he was like, ‘OK, here’s your kind of silly little hidden joke. Let’s bring it forward.’ ”
Under Fincher’s watchful eye, the production made sure to spotlight each and every alias. “When he was shooting a lot of the car interiors and doing a few tiny reshoots and inserts,” Walker says of Fincher, “he shot close-ups of plane tickets, close-ups of the driver’s license, he made sure to show every single name first and last.” You can see each of those names — as well as a handy guide to which sitcoms they spring from — below.
The Killer’s Massachusetts driver’s license, listed as Sam Malone.
Undercover in Massachusetts, the Killer takes on the name of a familiar Bostonian: Sam Malone, the charming bartender played by Ted Danson on Cheers and Frasier. “Sam Malone is a very obvious one,” Walker concedes. Not too obvious for the Killer.
A computer screen bearing another Killer alias
At another juncture, the Killer assumes the identity of Robert Hartley, Bob Newhart’s alter ego on the popular ’70s sitcom The Bob Newhart Show. Hi, Bob!
The Killer produces a credit card reading ‘Lou Grant.’
One of the Killer’s many credit cards reads “Lou Grant,” a tribute to the gruff news editor of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Ed Asner originated the character, and continued to play him in a dramatic spin-off series also titled Lou Grant; the beloved performer won Emmys for both shows.
A plane ticket from Miami to Santo Domingo bears the name Archibald Bünker.
Better known as Archie Bunker, the cantankerous protagonist of All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place was played by Carroll O’Connor in both programs. There’s no evidence that the character’s name originally bore an umlaut, but maybe the Killer knows something we don’t.
A Paris boarding pass and credit card belonging to Felix Unger.
Felix Unger (sometimes spelled ‘Ungar’) first appeared in The Odd Couple, the much-loved play by Neil Simon, and later in various film and television adaptations. Felix (played over the years by Jack Lemmon, Tony Randall, Ron Glass, and Thomas Lennon) is the neat freak in the classic sitcom’s, well, odd-couple dynamic, terrorized by a slobby roommate. “I think some people aren’t aware of The Odd Couple as much as maybe they should be,” Walker says. Time to study up.
A Bancredito credit card owned by an Oscar Madison.
The Killer doesn’t discriminate. He borrows the names of both Felix Unger and his aforementioned slobby roommate, Oscar Madison (played on-screen by Walter Matthau, Jack Klugman, Desmond Wilson, and Matthew Perry). It’s polite of him, but if we’re being honest, the fastidious Killer is much more of a Felix than an Oscar.
Another boarding pass, this time for Howard Cunningham.
The father of Happy Days’ protagonist Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard), Howard Cunningham (played by Tom Bosley in the series and Harold Gould in the pilot) is one of only two characters to appear in all 255 episodes of the show. The other, Henry Winkler’s scene-stealing Fonzie, might leave too much of an impression to suit the Killer’s ends.
A Hertz rental agreement signed by Reuben Kincaid.
“Reuben Kincaid is probably one of the more obscure ones,” Walker says of the The Partridge Family character. Played by Dave Madden, Kincaid was the manager of Shirley Partridge’s (Shirley Jones) titular singing family.
A wire transfer authorization signed by George Jefferson.
Sherman Hemsley’s George Jefferson first appeared alongside fellow Killer alias Archie Bunker in a 1973 episode of All in the Family, before movin’ on up to the role of star in spin-off The Jeffersons, which ran for 11 seasons. He’s a character who’s near and dear to Walker’s heart. “The best thing that could come from this is that a lot of people flock to try to find out who some of these people were,” he says. “George Jefferson, are you kidding me? He’s like one of my favorite characters ever created. If this movie is kind of a window into that world, as silly as that sounds, that makes me very happy.”
