Jeremy Irons wears an unidentified watch

"There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat." Jeremy Irons delivers this line as John Tuld in Margin Call (2011), and it tells you everything about the character in twelve words. J.C. Chandor's debut film takes place over 24 hours at a Wall Street investment bank that has just discovered its risk models are catastrophically wrong. Tuld is the CEO who arrives by helicopter at 2 a.m. and immediately decides to dump the firm's toxic assets before anyone else realizes what they are worth. Irons plays him as a man who has survived previous crises by being ruthless without being stupid, and who understands exactly what he is asking his employees to do.

Tuld's watch is not clearly visible in the boardroom scenes — he wears dark suits with French cuffs, and whatever is on his wrist disappears into the dim lighting that Chandor uses throughout. It has not been identified. The character's name is reportedly a blend of Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain and Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld, and Irons plays him with the kind of quiet menace that suggests a man who has never had to raise his voice to end someone's career.