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Netflix has officially announced the upcoming release of a new documentary titled Sons of Ragnar, a compelling exploration into the lives and legacies of the legendary Viking warrior Ragnar Lothbrok and his…..Read more
that Travis Fimmel would prefer not to do this interview. Not because he’s rude or uncooperative – as I’ll learn from those close to him, when it comes to causes he cares about, he’s nothing but generous with his time. He would prefer not to do this interview because he doesn’t like talking about himself, or, he doesn’t like talking about himself as ‘Travis Fimmel, the famous Australian actor’. No doubt, he’d much prefer to be known by a small community of country folk as a cattle farmer from the tiny town of Lockington in northern Victoria who runs a beer brand with 25 of his mates.
Unfortunately for Fimmel, we have to talk about acting. It’s because he’s a renowned Australian actor that he’s on the cover of this magazine. He’s in Europe when I reach him, for a friend’s wedding and a “small work thing”. Our phone connection is patchy, and I strain to hear what he says, the potency of his ocker accent not helping. In the background, I can hear the hustle and bustle of a day in the city unfolding – car horns, people talking, the ticking of a pedestrian crossing at traffic lights. He tells me that while filming the upcoming Dune: Prophecy, in which he plays a charismatic soldier with a mysterious past, he stayed in the heart of Budapest for seven months.
“It was a very nice place, but I was stuck in a little apartment in the city, so it wasn’t my cup of tea.” He feels the same way about the busy streetscape I find him in today. “Yeah, I’d rather just be home the whole time,” he says of the property he currently leases, just outside of Echuca, a 25-minute drive from the farm he grew up on. “People have the same mentality there; we all grew up the same. But . . . unfortunately, there’s a lot of work overseas. You know, there’s only 26 million people in Australia. You have to work overseas so you have a name. If you have a name, foreigners are more likely to buy Australian productions because of your name. But yeah, I’d rather be at home.”
A week earlier, Fimmel hosted our photographer, stylist and their teams at his ranch outside of LA, which I’ve been asked not to reveal the precise location of because the actor has the type of fans that would turn up on his doorstep if they knew. “I’m never actually there,” he says of the ranch. “It’s sort of pointless. I’ve got to sell that place.”
The photoshoot went quickly, with Fimmel taking some creative licence and suggesting we include bits of merch from his beer brand, Travla, in the photos. This could be mistaken for a case of shameless self-promotion. Really, it’s Fimmel’s way of giving exposure to something he cares about. Travla, he informs me, is one of only a few beers that’s Australian-owned, and made from 100 per cent Australian ingredients. “Nine out of 10 beers Australians drink are owned by overseas companies” is a statistic he repeats multiple times throughout our conversation. The Travla crew are also heavily involved in community projects, working with charities that support people in rural and regional communities. Clearly, Fimmel sets the tone; when telling me about Flanno for a Farmer, a Travla-supported initiative run by Australian charity Farm Angels, he asks whether I could please include the QR code to donate in this story. (While my editor vetoed including it on this page, you can head to the website to chip in.)
When I push the conversation in the direction of his other job – the one that involves lights and cameras, Hollywood-sized egos and red-carpet premieres – he makes it clear this won’t be a conversation about “the art and the attention of it all”. “It’s just a job. Like any other job, really. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t be doing it for free.”
