10 Best TV Characters With No Name
1. The Cigarette Smoking Man (The X-Files)
For all of The X-Files’ bevy of weird and wonderful antagonists - shapeshifters, underground demons, spooky twins, parasites, extra terrestrials, and so forth - arguably its greatest ever creation was its simplest: a rumpled, officious middle aged man with a suit, a terse demeanour, and a perpetual ciggie habit.
The Cigarette Smoking Man, played by Willian B Davis, was hired firstly as an extra. This grew to a cameo part with a couple of lines, and finally to the primary antagonist of the entire show. He’s an enigmatic figure, eventually revealed to be at the heart of an intergalactic conspiracy that goes to the very top and beyond.
The sheer mystery of the character combined with Davis’ subtle menace in the role and the shades of light and dark made The Cigarette Smoking Man one of the most memorable parts of The X-Files. He’s tasked with making decisions beyond the comprehension of any living human - and often these decisions have tragic consequences.
He does eventually reveal his name, but this is in season 11, long after the show had gone off the boil. He spent the best part of 15 years without a name - there’s no sense destroying his mystique after all that.