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The American movie industry is littered with examples of popular personalities, such as musicians, reality TV stars, models, and even professional athletes, who tried their hands at acting with disastrous results. There has, however, been a handful of rare cases where the individual involved goes on to shine and succeed, and one of those rare cases is Travis Fimmel.
Blessed with a stunning face and a chiseled body, Fimmel first rose to fame as a model back in the early 2000s and went on to appear on the cover of numerous men’s fashion magazines. Travis Fimmel later quit modeling for acting in the mid-2000s and has since gone to build an identity as a genuine movie and TV star so much so that his modeling days now seem like a byline in his story. The Aussie star, however, remains unfazed by all the attention he has garnered and has revealed that he would be also as happy if he had just ended up as a farmer.
How He Went From Milking Cows To Calvin Klein Billboards
On the 15th of July 1979, Travis Fimmel was born near Echuca, Victoria, Australia. He grew up on a 5,500-acre dairy farm in Lockington. His days were filled with milking cows and he grew to loathe the monotony of the routine. He then moved to Melbourne to pursue a career as a professional Australian rules footballer; however, a broken leg cut his career short.
Though he was accepted to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University to study commercial architecture and engineering, he deferred his admission to travel abroad.
Upon finishing school, Travis Fimmel left Australia and made his way to London. In the English capital, Fimmel got a job as a bartender and used his spare time for travelling. It was during one of his bartending shifts that he met an agent who convinced him that he had the requisite good looks to make it in showbiz. Having no concrete life plans of his own, he accepted this and moved to L.A. in 2000.
In the city of angels, Travis Fimmel’s good looks and washboard abs made him an instant success in the modeling industry and he went on to appear on the cover of magazines such as Numero Homme, America’s TV Guide, and W Magazine (alongside Brazilian supermodel, Gisele Bündchen). He also featured in the music videos for popular female musicians, such as Jennifer Lopez and Janet Jackson, and was named one of the sexiest bachelors alive by People Magazine in 2002.
Overall, Travis Fimmel spent a total of two years focused on modeling and the highpoint of this stage of his career was when he landed a lucrative one-year deal to serve as the face of Calvin Klein. The deal saw him promote some of the brand’s fragrance line. He also fronted an underwear campaign that was promoted on billboards around London. The billboard images were quite racy as it fully showed off his ‘package’. It, therefore, led to lots of cases of rubbernecking (traffic congestion caused by distracted drivers) amongst female drivers and had to be pulled down.
Travis Fimmel Landed His Breakthrough Role on ‘Vikings’
Whilst making his mark as a model, Travis Fimmel also used his spare time to attend an acting school where he was tutored by Ivana Chubbuck, an iconic acting coach who is credited with training some of Hollywood’s big shots like Halle Berry, Brad Pitt, Eva Mendes, and Sharon Stone. The Aussie native took to his acting lessons like fish to water but found it hard working up the courage to actually go for auditions. He, therefore, clung to his modeling career until the day that he worked up that elusive courage.
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That occurrence signaled the end of Fimmel’s modeling career and he has not looked back since. Rather, he downplays his modeling career, stating that he just did one modeling job and doesn’t think much about it, and is instead solely focused on his acting career. The Aussie native made his acting debut in the 2003 adventure-drama series, Tarzan, where he portrayed the titular character. Since then, he has slowly and steadily built up a reputation as one of Hollywood’s most recognized stars, having featured in a diverse array of projects and portraying a wide range of roles.
One of his most iconic roles remains the portrayal of the legendary Viking chieftain and cunning raider, Ragnar Lothbrok in the History Channel series, Vikings. The historical drama series debuted in 2013 and Fimmel served as its lead character for the first four years, appearing in a total of 45 episodes. He eventually took a bow after his character was killed off, but he had already done enough to make the show one of the most-watched shows in the world. His performance also propelled him to the spotlight and he was nominated for Best TV Hero at the 2013 IGN Awards.
Cementing His Reputation As A Hollywood Heartthrob With ‘Warcraft’ And ‘Raised By Wolves’
Since his Viking days, Travis Fimmel has gone on to appear in several other notable projects, both on the big screen as well as the small screen. The Aussie star played the lead role in the 2017 action fantasy film, Warcraft, which is an adaptation of the popular videogame of the same name. The film did not impress critics but it went on to gross $439 million on a budget of $160 million.
Most recently, Travis Fimmel can also be seen leading the cast of the epic sci-fi series, Raised by Wolves which debuted on HBO Max in 2020. Produced by acclaimed director, Ridley Scott, Raised by Wolves follows the efforts of two androids to raise two human children after the destruction of the earth. Fimmel had stated that he never wanted to commit himself to another TV project; he, however, changed his mind due to the involvement of Ridley.
The Truth Behind His Rumoured Romance With Paula Patton
The Australian-born actor is currently single but there are rumors that he could be in a relationship with American actress, Paula Patton, who played his love interest in the movie, Warcraft. In the film, their chemistry was quite obvious and this led to speculations that there was something going on between the two. The rumors gathered momentum following Patton’s divorce from her husband, Robin Thicke, in 2015. At the moment, neither Travis Fimmel nor Paula Patton has come out to confirm or deny these rumors and as such, we cannot say definitively if they are an item.
Before now, Travis Fimmel has been involved with several women including Joy Bryant, an American model with whom he parted ways before he became popular. The Vikings Star is also said to have briefly dated a Russian lady named Nita Kuzmina as well as American porn-star, Ceara-Lynch. Fimmel also got involved with singer, Nicole Appleton in 1999 but they went their separate ways in 2002. He then went on to date a Kiwi model named Rachael Hunter for a while before moving on to the American model, Jessica Miller, both in 2002. Unfortunately, these relationships ended like the ones before it but that did not stop the actor from continuing his search for true love. He eventually paired up with actress, Merrin Dungey in 2002 but for some unknown reasons, they broke up the next year.
