Lee Pace has a busy summer: His new series about computer programming in the 1980s, AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, just premiered last Sunday, and then he vaults to the big screen on Aug. 1 playing the villain in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

In it, Pace plays Ronan the Accuser, the genocidal leader of the alien Kree race, whom the actor compares to Osama bin Laden. Ronan strikes a deal with the intergalactic dictator Thanos (the purple guy from the post-credits scene in The Avengers) to retrieve a powerful artifact in exchange for wiping out Ronan’s enemies. Director James Gunn told Yahoo Movies UK that Ronan is “a really twisted guy … He believes that strength is virtue and weakness is sin and that’s what he lives by. He’’’s very scary because of that.”

It’s a darker turn for Pace, who’s probably still best known as a likable, aw-shucks TV leading man from Bryan Fuller’s two canceled-too-soon series Pushing Daisies and Wonderfalls. Buthe’s also celebrated huge movie success over the last five years, including parts in The Hobbit, The Twilight Saga, and Lincoln … and then there was that ill-advised time he starred opposite a CGI dog in Marmaduke. He breaks them all down for Yahoo Movies here.

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Guardians of the Galaxy is getting a lot of buzz.

Chris Pratt is awesome. He is like a decent, decent man – old-fashioned Hollywood star. He’s easy and honorable and funny. I had the best time… we didn’t have too many scenes together, but when we did, you don’t stop laughing. I mean, I’ve got a little bit of Ned [from Pushing Daisies] in me – I’m awkward. You play a character that long and it draws something out in you – but after doing Guardians of the Galaxy I’m now much more evil than I ever thought I would be. Super, super evil. [Laughs]

There’s been a lot of secrecy surrounding your character. What more can you reveal about Ronan, besides his super evilness?

I’ve never played a character like Ronan before. I like a bombastic villain, and that’s what I had a good time doing. It was the most fun playing this character… I was stronger than I’ve ever been, doing all this training, and the character is just a beast. He’s just so evil. At first when I started working on him, I was thinking, “We’ve seen so many great performances of villains by very talented actors in superhero movies. I’ve got to find something relatable about this guy.” But the more I played him, the more fun I had with just being evil. [Laughs] Evil, evil, evil. He’s an alien – there’s no kind of human rules. There’s nothing to relate to, actually. It just became, like, the more dark I could conceive of him, the more I understood him.

What’s your most evil trait? Is it the eyebrows?

You don’t even see my eyebrows! It’s covered up with that black ceremonial paint. He’s like Osama bin Laden – he’s like a religious fanatic. It’s so cool. When in my life did I think I’d be playing a character like this? When I got the call about this, I was like, “What? OK, OK… I’m in.” I’d auditioned for Star-Lord, and then Chris obviously got the part… and then they called my agent and said, “We have another part for him!” So I quickly put that on tape and Ronan worked out.

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