With Game Of Thrones sweeping all before it and Scandinavian thriller Headhunters landing soon, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is on the verge of a well-deserved breakthrough. After all, anyone who looks that much like Jaime Lannister deserves to have an oxen perpetually roasting on the spit of life.

There are precious few swords or sandles in his next major undertaking, though - unless sci-fi epic Oblivion has some major surprises in store for us. Tron Legacy’s Joseph Kosinski is already hard at work creating a post-apocalyptic world in which aliens lurk menacingly and Tom Cruise's solder, Jack, is charged with repairing the drones that protect our planet.

Coster-Waldau, who plays veteran weapons expert Sykes in the movie, explained his character's dynamic with Cruise's jaded trooper in intriguing terms when Empire caught up with him. "It's a Tom Cruise movie for sure; I don't think there's a scene without him. I play a soldier who's not a big fan of Tom's character. He's seen a lot of horrible things and there's a lot of boiled-up anger in him."

So is he on the side of the angels or the bugs? "I think Tom's character would probably described my character as a bad guy, but I don't think the audience would..."

Watch this space for more on a movie - or pick up a copy of the new Empire magazine for more from Coster-Waldau. Oblivion is current pencilled into Universal's diary for April 19, 2013. With Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough and Morgan Freeman also on board, it's already plenty intriguing.