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Fictional character from the James Bond franchise

Q is a character in the James Bond films and novelisations. Q is the head of Q Branch (later Q Division), the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service charged with oversight of top secret field technologies. Q (standing for quartermaster), like M, is a job title rather than a name. The use of letters as pseudonyms for senior officers in the British Secret Service was started by its first director, Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith Cumming (1859–1923), who signed himself with a C written in green ink. Q has appeared in 22 of the 25 Eon Productions James Bond films, the exceptions being Live and Let Die (1973), Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008). Q also featured in both non Eon Bond films, Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983). Between 1963 and 1999, Q was portrayed in the Eon films by Desmond Llewelyn until his death in late 1999. He was played in subsequent films by John Cleese and Ben Whishaw.

The character Q never appears in the novels by the author Ian Fleming, where Q and the Q Branch are only mentioned; however, Q does appear in the novelisations by Christopher Wood as well as the later novels by John Gardner and Raymond Benson, who adopted Eon's decision to combine the character with Major Boothroyd, the armourer from Dr. No. In John Gardner's novels, the post of Q is taken over by Ann Reilly (called Q'ute by her colleagues). She also forms a relationship with Bond. It is supposed that she held the post for a short while only, because Raymond Benson's novels return Boothroyd to the post without explanation. Jeffrey Deaver's Carte Blanche introduces the character Sanu Hirani, who is referred to as 'Q' in that novel. Charles Fraser Smith is widely credited as the inspiration for Q due to the spy gadgets he built for the Special Operations Executive. These were called Q devices, after the Royal Navy's World War I Q ships. In the Fleming novels there are frequent references to Q and Q Branch with phrases like "see Q for any equipment you need" (Casino Royale) and "Q Branch would handle all of that" (Diamonds Are Forever), with a reference to "Q's craftsmen" in From Russia, with Love.

In the sixth novel, Dr. No, the service armourer Major Boothroyd appears for the first time. Fleming named the character after Geoffrey Boothroyd, a firearms expert who lived in Glasgow, who had written to the novelist suggesting that Bond was not using the best firearms available.

Boothroyd is also referenced occasionally in the Bond novels of John Gardner, but the author preferred instead to focus on a new character, Ann Reilly, who is introduced in the first Gardner novel, Licence Renewed, and promptly dubbed "Q'ute" by Bond.

Major Boothroyd appears in Dr. No and in the script of From Russia with Love. Desmond Llewelyn stated that, although he was credited as playing "Major Boothroyd" in the latter film, his name as said by M was replaced with "the equipment officer", as director Terence Young stated that Boothroyd was a different character. Beginning in Guy Hamilton's Goldfinger and in each film thereafter Major Boothroyd is most often referred to as Q; however, in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) he is referred to once again as Major Boothroyd in dialogue. In most films in which Q appears, he is restricted to a "behind the scenes" involvement, either based in London or in secret bases out in the field. Two notable exceptions in which Q becomes directly involved in Bond's missions occur in Octopussy, in which Q actually participates in field work—including the final battle against the villain's henchmen—and Licence to Kill in which he joins Bond in the field after 007 goes rogue.

In the first film, Dr. No, Boothroyd is played by Peter Burton in only one scene, in which he replaces Bond's .25 ACP Beretta 418 (on screen portrayed by a .32 Beretta 35) pistol with the signature .32 Walther PPK handgun. He is referred to by M as "the armourer," and later as Major Boothroyd. Scheduling conflicts prevented Burton from reprising the role in From Russia with Love, although he made two later uncredited appearances in Bond films, first as an RAF officer in Thunderball (1965) and later as a secret agent in the satirical Casino Royale (1967).

The real MI6's head of technology is one of the agency's four directors general, reporting directly to Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. While the Chief of SIS is called "C" and not "M", the head of technology is named "Q" after the Bond character, and the department's ethos is known as "Q culture".