Even if you’ve never seen an episode of Game of Thrones, chances are that if you’re a TV lover, you’ve watched Irish actor Aidan Gillen manipulate someone. Whether as the sexually aggressive Stuart Alan Jones in Queer as Folk, the politically slimy Tommy Carcetti in The Wire, the smirking criminal kingpin John Boy in RTÉ’s Love/Hate, or, of course, the opportunistic striver Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish in Game of Thrones, Gillen has taught audiences over and over again that he is not a man to be trusted.

But those scheming backstabbers couldn’t be farther from Gillen himself—and in advance of this Sunday’s Season 7 premiere, the Game of Thrones star got on the phone with Vanity Fair to both set the record straight and weigh in on whether this is still a show where someone like Littlefinger could ever wind up on top.

“I’m often mistaken for a villain—a moody type—which I’m not really,” the actor explains in a relaxed Dublin accent that sounds as different from Baelish as can be. While Gillen admits there are echoes of all those villains inside of him—“everything an actor does exploits an aspect of their personality”—he says a lesser-seen project, a 2011 British film called Treacle Jr., is more in line with who he really is. “I played this quite lovable, optimistic character called Aidan, conveniently enough,” he says, sounding almost wistful for a project where he wasn’t actively backstabbing anyone.

The best evidence for Gillen’s calm, unruffled demeanor is his unwillingness to complain about a single aspect of the Game of Thrones filming experience—which can be notoriously grueling, cold, and uncomfortable. Was there ever a moment when the long days and nights got to him? “To be honest? No,” he laughs, then adds helpfully: “I could make something up.”

Gillen acknowledges that sometimes his co-stars moan publicly about the cold, the food, or the heat of the various Thrones locations. “There was one point,” he recalls, “where everyone had these refrigeration units under their costumes, but I wouldn’t go there. Liquid nitrogen going through a tube in the vest. It just would have taken me out of the moment, wearing a fridge inside my tunic.”

But ever the gentleman, Gillen is quick to let his discontented colleagues off the hook. “It’s just one of those things to talk about when you’re in a position when you can’t really talk about the plot or what’s going to happen this season. You’ve got to find something to talk about, so you bitch about the weather, you know?”

That mandate of secrecy applies to Gillen as well, of course, but we do know a few things about his role in Westerosi politics this year. Having watched his protégé and the object of his creepy affection, Sansa Stark, rise to the top of the northern political set (both because of and despite his machinations), Littlefinger is poised to go full Iago—skulking in the shadows and purring poison in her ear. “Don’t fight in the north, or the south,” his character intones in the Season 7 trailer. “Fight every battle everywhere. Always. In your mind.”

But with Team Stark on a seeming upswing, dropping Freys like flies and treating Boltons like dog kibble, this latter-day version of Game of Thrones no longer feels like the same morally chaotic world where Littlefinger once held a dagger to Ned Stark’s throat. While the Stark ascendency is popular with many, there is a contingent of viewers (usually fans of the George R.R. Martin novels) who miss the unconventional fantasy world where someone like Littlefinger could wind up taking the Iron Throne. “Yeah, me too,” Gillen agrees with a laugh.