Peter Dinklage on mysterious 'X-Men' role: He's not exactly the villain

Peter Dinklage is currently shooting the fourth season of HBO's Game of Thrones, but the actor recently wrapped production on next year's X-Men sequel Days of Future Past.

His role in Bryan Singer's film was initially described in media reports as the "main villain" and then was later revealed to be Bolivar Trask (photo of Dinklage in character, fully embracing the 1970s, above). Marvel fans know Trask as a scientist who creates an army of menacing robots called The Sentinels designed to guard humanity against X-Men mutants. But Dinklage said he didn't want to play Trask as an evil guy.

"I didn't want to play the villain," Dinklage told EW. "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."

On X-Men's Trask Industries viral marketing site, the company is described as being founded in 1967 and specializing in "genetics-based defense technology with our Mutant Detection Device and Sentinel program." Trask sees the mutants as a threat and his goal is to try and protect the human race from extinction.

In the film, Dinklage said the character is challenged by a tough presidential adversary. "He's up against Richard Nixon," Dinklage said with a wry smile. "He's got some hurdles."

X-Men: Days of Future Past assembles the cast from the first trilogy and mixes them with cast from the 1960s-set X-Men: First Class, with a storyline that time travels from the present to the 1970s. Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin and Ellen Page from the original films are on board with First Class stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence, along with a host of newcomers.

Here's a couple viral video teasers (the first is silent):