Heywood Floyd

Floyd rides alone in a shuttle up to a station orbiting Earth. From there he calls his little daughter on the videophone; her birthday is the next day.

In the lounge, he runs into Soviet scientists who ask about rumors of an epidemic at Clavius, the American base on the Moon. Floyd politely changes the subject and confirms nothing. His arrival at the station is the film's first big space sequence, set to Strauss's The Blue Danube.

At Clavius, Floyd holds a briefing and argues that the discovery must stay secret, with the epidemic story as cover.

Then he visits the dig near Tycho crater. A black monolith stands there, deliberately buried some four million years ago. As the group poses for a photo, the monolith lets out a piercing signal that overwhelms them all. Floyd praises the team, asks for discretion and warns that the news could cause culture shock if it gets out unprepared. Floyd even runs his glove across the monolith's surface, just as the hominins did millions of years earlier.

Nine years later, Floyd has lost his post, blamed for Discovery's failure. A Soviet scientist comes to him with an offer: the Leonov will reach Jupiter before the Americans, but only Americans know how to bring Discovery and HAL back online.

Floyd agrees. He leaves his wife and son at home and flies out with engineer Walter Curnow and Dr. Chandra, HAL's creator. On the Leonov, commanded by Tanya Kirbuk, the three Americans are outnumbered and spend much of the trip in hibernation. The Floyd of 2010 is wearier than the one in 2001: he carries nine years of guilt and wants, above all, to understand what happened.

Chandra learns that HAL broke down because of an order to hide the mission's purpose from the crew. The order bears Floyd's signature.

Back on Earth, the US-Soviet crisis splits the two crews apart. Bowman appears to Floyd and warns that they have to leave. Floyd talks Captain Kirbuk into working together and using Discovery as a booster. On the way home, he writes to his son about the new sun in the sky. After the discovery, Floyd has to prove to the Soviets that he's hiding nothing else.

William Sylvester played Floyd in 2001 (1968). For 2010 (1984), the role went to Jaws star Roy Scheider.