‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ Star Peter Dinklage Opens Up About Bolivar Trask

Although 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' opens next summer, we still don't know too much about Bolivar Trask, the latest villain to threaten mutantkind. Played by 'Game of Thrones' star Peter Dinklage, Trask is the scientist behind the Sentinels, giant killer robots that have been menacing the X-Men for decades in the pages of the comics. But beyond that? We don't know much about his on-screen incarnation. Thankfully, Dinklage himself recently opened up about his character, revealing that one of 2014's biggest bad guys might not be such a bad guy after all.

Speaking with EW, the Emmy award-winning actor says his take on Trask isn't overtly villainous or nasty. Instead, he tried to approach the character from a grounded and sympathetic point of view:

I didn’t want to play the villain ... He’s a man of science. He’s a man of invention. He actually sees what he’s doing as a good thing -- [his ambition is] definitely blind and he’s quite arrogant. He’s strove all his life for a certain respect and attention.

In other words, don't expect Dinklage to be twirling that era-appropriate mustache you see him wearing in every image from the set. It sounds like he's playing someone a bit more complicated than your usual superhero movie villain. Also, Dinklage makes it clear that the X-Men aren't the only people standing in Trask's way during the film. It turns out that other, more historically accurate figures will try to block his progress:

He’s up against Richard Nixon. He’s got some hurdles.

Although Dinklage can certainly try to make Trask an understandable villain, the viral website for Trask Industries all-but-confirms that he'll ultimately be a bad guy worthy of our scorn (and of the X-Men's action). After all, this slick, corporate site deals entirely with technology being developed to wipe out the mutant threat, and that is so not cool.

'X-Men: Days of Future Past' arrives in theaters on May 23, 2014. For further glimpses at Trask and his work, you can take a look at the viral videos below.