There are actors who go deep in prepping for a role, diving headlong into research, living and breathing the character on set and off, reading every single thing they can find in order to flesh out their performance.
And then there’s Travis Fimmel.
“I know a lot of people do all the backstories and research how to be a detective,” he says when I ask him about his approach to the cold-case detective James Cormack, a character he portrays for a second time in the season two of Black Snow. But, he makes it clear, that is not his style.
Sure, it’s a unique job, being that kind of cop, but they’re still people. “They go through exactly the same feelings, the same everything. So I just always make it about wanting to be loved and to have someone be proud of me. I want a girlfriend. It’s about your parents, issues that happened when you were a kid, or as a sibling. That’s the only thing I bring to it. I’m just trying to get into the mindset and trying to make it emotionally real for the audience to get behind and try to understand my stuff.”
The Glass House Mountains provide the backdrop for the search for Zoe Jacobs (Jana McKinnon).Credit: Stan
So, in other words, you research being a human?
“Exactly, mate,” he says, laughing. “F—, if you had said that straight away that would have been my answer. You let me go on and on. Well played. I’m gonna write that one down.”
Fimmel jokingly dismisses his performance style – twice in the course of our conversation – as “very bad acting”. But it seems to be working for him a treat.
At 45, he has amassed a credible list of meaty roles, both local and international. He’s talking to me about Black Snow straight after he’s done a round of interviews in support of the big-budget HBO series Dune: Prophecy, in which he plays Desmond Hart, a veteran of multiple military campaigns in Frank Herbert’s sci-fi universe. (He filmed it so long ago, he tells me, that when he was asked questions about plotlines he had to ask his interviewers for details, and responded “gee, that sounds pretty interesting”.)
He was the lead in Ridley Scott’s Alien-adjacent sci-fi series Raised By Wolves. He’s up for a best supporting actor award for Netflix’s Boy Swallows Universe at the AACTAs in February. And of course he remains best known as Ragnar Lothbrok, the star of the historical epic Vikings.
Travis Fimmel as Desmond Hart in Dune: Prophecy. Credit: HBO/Foxtel
But nowhere is Fimmel more at home than in northern Victoria, where he grew up on a farm near Echuca, and where he still spends as much of his time as possible.
“Mate, I enjoy working in Australia, I enjoy being around all Aussies,” he says. “It’s great to work here and keep the money in Australia so we can do more projects. And obviously, doing an Aussie accent is so much easier.”
The first season of Black Snow was set in northern Queensland, and revolved around the disappearance of a young Pacific Islander woman in 1994. The second season is set a little further south, in the Glass House Mountains, north of Brisbane.
This time, the missing person, Zoe (Jana McKinnon), disappeared in 2003. She was a presenter on a community radio station (cue soundtrack of terrific indie Ausrock from the period), and while her parents and best friend (Megan Smart) cling to the possibility that she just ran away, there’s a good chance her disappearance is mixed up in a very Queensland mix of dodgy developers, corrupt cops and pork-barrelling pollies.
Season one derived a lot of its power from a little-known chapter of Australia’s colonial history (and utilised an inexperienced but excellent cast of Islander background). Season two’s story is in more familiar territory, and the cast includes some of Australia’s best-known TV actors – Dan Spielman, Kat Stewart and Josh McConville among them. But still, it doesn’t shy away from the social issues that made the first season so rich.
Kat Stewart plays Queensland politician Julie Cosgrove.Credit: Stan
This time around, it’s the housing crisis (with an undercurrent of domestic violence). And while it’s not front and centre in the plot, it is, says Fimmel, “definitely lurking, always”.
The fictional Moorvale on the Sunshine Coast hinterland has untapped development potential in 2003, which has long since been realised by the time Cormack breezes into town. But while that’s made some people rich, it’s also left others homeless, or worse. And as a country boy, that’s a theme close to Fimmel’s heart.
“A lot of city people moved out during COVID and bought places in beautiful little towns and Airbnb them, and now the locals can’t afford to rent in towns they’ve been in for three generations or whatever,” he says. “That’s created a lot of caravan parks and homelessness in places like Bellingen and Bright and Mullumbimby, places where locals can’t afford to live anymore.
“We’re not talking Toorak – we’re talking about places where this should be affordable, but city people buy there and don’t live there a lot of the time, they just rent their places out and make a lot of money from other tourists.”
Fimmel may be laidback – if you looked up “laconic” in the dictionary, it would likely come with a picture of him – but he’s clearly invested in Black Snow. As well as starring, he’s a producer on the series. He even makes his directorial debut in the second-season finale.
Was that a big deal for you?
“I don’t know, mate,” he says, stroking his beard. “I’ve always been very involved with the production and writing and all that stuff, so I’m there on set anyway, so it’s not as big a commitment as you’d think it would be.”
Do you think you’ve learnt a lot about directing simply by watching others do it?
“Yeah, for sure. You’re always learning from other directors, learning from every department, really. And being an actor, if you’re actually listening and don’t worry just about yourself, you’re in a prime position to hear everything that’s going on. But I have completely my own voice, from years of being on set.”
He’d do it again, he says, “if the right script came along”. But he’s just as happy working to build his beer brand, Travla (slogan, “don’t fence me in”).
“There’s 28 country boys in on it, from where I’m from,” he says (MasterChef’s Andy Allen was one of the original posse of four who set it up a couple of years ago. “Nothing’s Australian anymore, so we’re just trying to sell it as a tasty Aussie lager that’s actually owned by Australians and the profits stay in our own country instead of supporting other people’s countries.”
Is there any product placement on Black Snow?
Megan Smart is Samara Kahlil, a police officer haunted by the disappearance of her best friend 20 years earlier.Credit: Stan
“I tried to get it in,” he admits. “I’d put a can somewhere, and then the producers would sneak it out while I’m acting. But I’d always have one in my pocket and I’d try to get it in there.”
Perhaps he’ll have more luck with the third season, assuming this is a character and a story he’d like to come back to.
“It’s all up in the air at the moment, but I’d love to do it again,” he says. “There’s so many unique places in Australia, visually stunning joints we can take advantage of. We’ll see how this season goes, but there’s thousands of places that would be interesting to see on camera, for sure.”
Black Snow season 2 is on Stan from New Year’s Day. Both Stan and this masthead are owned by Nine.
