X-Men: Days of Future Pasts's Dinklage on Bolivar Trask: Not Quite the Villain

As soon as Peter Dinklage signed on to play a then-unidentified character in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the rumor was that he would be the film's villain. Given the fact that everyone knew Sentinels played a role, the immediate assumption was that Dinklage would play Bolivar Trask, although later names like Apocalypse got bandied about, with the idea that Dinklage (who suffers from achondroplasia, which causes dwarfism) could be anyone, regardless of appearance, if CG enhancement was used and that Bolivar Trask had, anyway, already appeared in a previous X-Men film--briefly and as an African-American man of average height. And while a new Entertainment Weekly interview refers to Dinklage's role as "mysterious," credible sources doubled down on the Trask angle, which ultimately was confirmed by the Trask Industries viral website, where fans can see the photo at left. "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." Of course, that's true of most villains--and certainly of iconic X-Men villain Magneto, who is the standard-bearer in the franchise. It's hard to seem totally evil, anyway, says Dinklage, since he's splitting screen time with someone who's a bit of a notorious narcissist and political opportunist in real life: "[Trask is] up against Richard Nixon," Dinklage said in the interview. "He's got some hurdles." X-Men: Days of Future Past is due in theaters May 23, 2014.