In the 2006 film, Le Chiffre is Albanian by birth (though officially stateless), and his one notable physical feature was a defective tear duct, which causes him to cry blood. In the novel, he is the paymaster of a French trade union secretly controlled by the Soviet agency SMERSH. Ian Fleming based the character on Aleister Crowley.

His alias is French for 'The Cipher' or 'The Number'. Le Chiffre is the main antagonist of Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, and all of its adaptations. ~ Le Chiffre's most famous quote as he tortures James Bond.

The only question remains: will you yield, in time?

And of course, it's not only the immediate agony, but the knowledge that if you do not yield soon enough, there will be little left to identify you as a man. It's the simplest thing to cause more pain than a man can possibly endure. You know, I never understood all these elaborate tortures.