I am really enjoying the History Channel’s “Viking” series. What can you tell me about the star of the series?
—Bradley Scott, Flagstaff, Ariz.
Travis Fimmel, 33, was raised as the youngest of three brothers on a dairy farm in a small country town located between Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. He was discovered by a modeling agent and first attracted notice when Calvin Klein picked him for an underwear campaign and he was plastered on billboards wearing nothing but his briefs.
After studying acting for two years, Fimmel was cast as the lead in the 2003 short-lived TV series “Tarzan.” Since then, his accrued credits include the films “Restraint,” “Ivory,” “The Experiment,” “Surfer, Dude” and “The Baytown Outlaws.”
On television, he starred opposite the late Patrick Swayze in the A&E series “The Beast,” which was canceled following Swayze’s death from pancreatic cancer; “Chase;” and in the TV movies “Southern Comfort” and “Outlaw Country.”
Most recently, Fimmel spent 18 weeks in Ireland playing Ragnar Lothbrok, the star of History’s nine-part “Viking” series. Fimmel is a fan of action roles because he claims to not enjoy having to memorize lines.
Of shooting on location, he says, “Ireland’s a lot greener than where I grew up, that’s for sure. It’s a beautiful countryside and they obviously get a lot more rain than we do. It makes our jobs at least a lot more enjoyable for me because I like the outdoors, and it’s a little bit better paycheck than what you get on a farm.”
