#british esquire

[hoosbandewan]

Ewan Mitchell + 🐔

[ncuts]

Ncuti Gatwa’s Favourite?

Food spot in London: “I've just found a new one in Greenwich called Angle Ninety – it does high-style Nigerian food. The jollof bangs. The suya bangs. The lamb cutlets bang. It's just a little spot that does great food, and I think they do events there too. But also, honourable mention to Borough Market.”

Food spot in Scotland: “My mum's kitchen.”

Art gallery: “I like the National Portrait Gallery and I like the V&A.”

Museum: “The Natural History Museum. I need to go back there. I've only been there once and it was f****** amazing.”

International holiday destination: “Rio de Janeiro. I love Brazil and Rio is an incredible place.”

Staycation: “Maybe Devon? I like Devon and I like Cornwall. They're beautiful places: colourful houses; beautiful scenery. I just shot a film in Devon called The Roses and I definitely want to go back.”

Pamper spot: “I've got to give you three: 1) Ama Hair Salon, 2) for massages – OK now we're going boujee – The Corinthia, and 3) Omorovicza [The Spa at Liberty]. I like to pamper myself! We've all got to look after ourselves!”

Concert venue: “Principality Stadium in Cardiff – I went to see Beyoncé there twice. Other than that, I do like a night at Ronnie Scotts.”

Cinema: “There's one in Notting Hill where they've got like sofas and they've got a chandelier. That place is nuts. What's it called? That's it! Electric Cinema!”

Park: “Hilly Fields. And then head up to Blackheath.”

Any destination in the past: “Ancient Egypt.”

Any set in entertainment history: “Maybe The Matrix. To see all the pods.”

Year: “I would want to go 200 years into the future. I would want to see how we've done. I would want to see if we had sorted out climate change. I would want to see if we have sorted out all the world conflicts. And I would want to see if we've kept AI under control.”

Read More:

[bdsmsub67]

George MacKay - Esquire Singapore Photoshoot - 2019 added by DarkSarcasm

Photographed by Charlie Gray for Esquire Singapore, December 2019

[jerryhabibisource]

Actor and Musician Jerry Habibi for D Magazine June 2024, 50th Anniversary:

"THE HARDEST WORKING MAN IN SHOW-BIZ"

He is the first Middle-Eastern (MENA, SWANA) individual profiled for D Magazine in their 50th Anniversary Issue.

[sweetaprilbutterfly]

Ewan Mitchell's 2024 photoshoots for magazines: WWD Magazine, photographed by Rachell Smith British Vogue, photographed by Jen Carey Esquire, photographed by Guy Aroch The New York Times, photographed by Peter Fisher HERO Magazine, photographed by Fabien Kruszelnicki The Times, photographed by Grey Hutton GQ Magazine, photographed by Lulu McArdle

[miwtual]

“It’s like he recognizes that, in this moment, that he is caught completely vulnerable. Belly up, the most vulnerable we’ll probably ever see Aemond, and humiliated by his brother.” — Ewan Mitchell with British Esquire

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Don’t you kinda feel bad for Meghan? I just want her to admit she’s not perfect, that she may have treated staff badly, and then quietly go away for a while to get much needed therapy, and then idk she could go on selling stuff and influencing on insta or doing whatever she wants? I really really don’t like her but I’m worried everyone is doing too much in trying to take her down. If only she would give up the pretense that she’s this saintly woman maybe people would stop going so hard on her. Sometimes I wonder if there really is a smear campaign headed by the palace. I kinda feel bad seeing everyone from Vanity Fair to Camilla Tominey to Neil Sean to that Lady C woman to even deuxmoi coming after her. I really don’t like her and I just want her to stop being pretentious, but I don’t really want her life to be ruined, maybe tbh just because I know her stans wouldn’t shut up about their victimhood narrative. At the end of the day, she is a biracial woman who joined the royal family and that couldn’t have been easy, but geez why can’t this woman just take accountability? She treated staff badly because of her own insecurities. All of this would be solved if this woman would just get therapy. I don’t know. I just don’t know how this will end. It all seems bleak.

I do feel a little bad for her, but this is Meghan's own doing. She's so consumed by having fame, power, and wealth that her ambition is nakedly transparent for all to see. She's essentially an influencer version of the coworker who collects certificates but doesn't actually have the skills or know what they're doing (you know the kind - "Jane Smith, Ph.D., PMP, MSLIS, Security+, DBA, Esquire"). She talks a good game with PR, but when push comes to shove, she isn't doing what she says she is and you don't have to look hard to see that.

Criticism from the likes of Lady C, Vanity Fair, and keyboard warriors are not going to ruin Meghan's life. At the end of the day, she's not going to be hungry, destitute, and homeless because of criticism. She will housed because she's the mother of Harry's children and she has friends. She will have money because she's the wife (or ex-wife, should that ever become the case) of King Charles's son and she has proximity to the British Royal Family.

What Meghan may not have is respect and likability. But that isn't going to ruin her life. It's going to make achieving her goals of independent fame, wealth, and power extraordinarily difficult. It will make her hustle for the rest of her life chasing the exhaust from Kate's motorcade.

She definitely hasn't had it easy by any means. It's clear she really had some struggles and for that, she absolutely deserves sympathy. But when she exploits sympathy and empathy to get attention, make money, gain power? That's what people criticize, and rightly so, IMO.

This is going to end in irrelevance and obscurity -- for both of them. Harry isn't the Anne, Andrew, or Edward of his generation. He's actually Charles Spencer; on the outside looking in, invited only to the events about Diana. And Meghan isn't Wallis or Fergie; she's Daisy Buchanan.

[hoosbandewan]

EWAN MITCHELL breaks down 'House of the Dragon' season 2 scenes & Aemond's journey with Esquire UK

[archivequinn]

My Archive ─ Joseph Quinn Studio Photo Shoots 📸

2017 ✦ Nuit Magazine

2019 ✦ Glass Magazine ✦ The Rakish Gent Magazine

2020 ✦ Tatler Magazine

2021 ✦ By Phil Sharp

2022 ✦ Netflix Tudum ✦ By Pip ✦ Contents Magazine ✦ Esquire Magazine by Erik Carter ✦ WeareFlock by Phil Fisk ✦ Zegna ✦ 1883 Magazine ✦ Wonderland Magazine ✦ Esquire Singapore ✦ SID Magazine ✦ Wonderland Magazine (Gris Dior) ✦ GQ Spain ✦ GQ Spain Men Of The Year Awards ✦ GQ Men of the Year Portrait

2023 ✦ Wonderland Magazine (Gris Dior) ✦ Dior J'adore Exhibition (part 2) ✦ Vanity Fair Venezia ✦ Venice Italy ✦ Hoard - The Italian Rêve (behind the scenes) ✦ TimeOut (behind the scenes part 1 part 2) ✦ GQ Men Of The Year Awards 2023

2024 ✦ CinemaCon Breakthrough Performer of the Year Award ✦ Man About Town Magazine ✦ Entertainment Weekly, People Magazine ✦ GQ Hype ✦ A Quiet Place Day One Instagram ✦ Interview Magazine ✦ San Diego Comic-Con ✦ By Pip ✦ British Vouge ✦ L'Officiel Hommes ✦ British GQ - Gladiator II

[bdsmsub67]

George MacKay - Esquire Singapore Photoshoot - 2019 added by DarkSarcasm

Photographed by Charlie Gray for Esquire Singapore, December 2019.

[destinyc1020]

Anon really is mischaracyerizi g what was in that excerpt: here it is:

“It was much the same way at the 2018 Academy Awards when I put Tom Holland in a custom Hermès double breasted tuxedo that got him named one of the best dressed by British GQ and Esquire. That night, he transformed into an adult in the eyes of many. And sure, a perfectly tailored, smart suit can help shape that idea, but the clothes were just a reflection of what was already inside.”

That was a great look. But Law notes that the look and the reception to it was a reflection of Tom’s inner confidence.

Law is a diva, for sure, but some people just looking for reasons to be mad.

Thanks Anon ❤️

Yea I liked Tom's look at the Oscars! 😊 I've been wanting him to go to another Oscar ceremony since then... even if just to present.... 😭😩

Anyway, Tom looked very handsome and dapper at the Oscars...

.... But my FAVORITE look of his that night was the red wine suit he wore for the Oscars Vanity Fair After Party! 😁 That one was 👌🏾😍

Both Tom & Z looked great that night! Him in wine 🍷 , and her in champagne 🍾

(You can't tell me Law didn't do that on purpose lol 🤭)

[nynnph0]

my bioshock headcanons (and canons) pt.1

(should have clarified this, the ages they are all at the time of 1960, or the time they died. so grace, gil, delta, sinclair are not as old as i think they would be by the time bioshock 2 takes place.)

andrew ryan

jewish - belarusian - russian

6'0 · 54 · 1906/01/26

bisexual (heavy f lean) neutral

sander cohen

jewish - american - czech

5'9 · 53 · 1907/07/12

homosexual ally/phobic

brigid tenenbaum

jewish - belarusian - german

5'4 · 32-35 · 192(5-8)/08/08

asexual aromatic lesbian ally

j.s. steinmann

jewish - american - german

6'1 · 49 · 1911/04/30

heteroflexible ally

frank fontaine

american - italian

5'8 · 42 · 1918/03/15

heteroflexible neutral

sofia lamb

british

6'3 · 48 · 1912/09/23

asexual aromatic ally

(deems love stupid)

augustus sinclair, esquire

panamanian - british - cuban

5'6 · 46 · 1914/07/28

pansexual ally

yi suchong

korean

5'6 · 52 · 1908/12/16

homosexual phobic

gilbert (gil) alexander

polish - romanian

6'4 · 36 · 1924/11/05

homosexual ally

grace halloway

brazilian - american

5'8 · 33 · 1927/11/07

heterosexual ally

anna culpepper

argentinian - caribbean

5'5 · 26 · 1933/09/09

heterosexual ally

reginald (reggie) furey

american - irish

6'3 · 53 · 1905/08/19

heterosexual neutral

jökull (johnny) sigrúnsson

icelandic - finnish

5'9 · 37 · 1923/06/23

bisexual ally

jack

jewish - belarusian - russian - dutch - swiss

6'4 · 4 · 1956/??/??

asexual aromantic ally

mary-catherine (jasmine) jolene

dutch - swiss

5'6 · 30 · 1929/04/30

heteroflexible ally

[ilikethisacompletelynormalamount]

When Andrew Scott and Jessica Gunning met on the set of British comedy drama Pride in 2014, little did they know that a decade later they would both be celebrating Emmy nominations – Andrew for Ripley and Jessica for Baby Reindeer. Nor did they anticipate that they would remain such great friends. “The film really bonded us together,” grins Andrew, as he joins Esquire and Jessica to discuss the film’s 10 year anniversary. ...

Friendship is at the heart of what Pride is all about. Written by Stephen Beresford and directed by Matthew Warchus, it tells the uplifting and boisterous true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), an activist group founded in 1984 in London to raise money for the Welsh miners. The film shows how both LGSM and the miners overcome mutual prejudices through a common goal of solidarity, at a time of raging homophobia and class division.

[wearethekat]

January Book Reviews: The Minstry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Picked this book up because it was on the Best Books of 2025 list on the site formerly know as tordotcom. In The Ministry of Time, our unnamed protagonist is recruited as a "bridge", employed to acclimate people taken from the past in a secret British ministry project. Assigned to doomed polar explorer Graham Gore, our narrator begins to realize that there's something sinister going on behind the project...

I came into this book with low expectations, as one does with a much-lauded novel recognized as one of the best books of the year by Esquire and Vanity Fair, but in fact I was blown away by the quality of the prose and the writing. The Ministry of Time is a very well executed book. As one might expect from a book chosen as one of Barack Obama's picks for the summer, it leans more heavily on litfic tropes, rather than thoroughly interrogating the time travel elements from a SF genre standpoint. Our narrator is a woman supremely uninterested on how time travel works or what implications it might have, and Bradley is clearly barely more engaged in the topic. Instead, this is a book concerned with what it means to be a white-passing mixed race woman, a woman busily trying to assimilate while ignoring the injustices her job entails as best she can.

The Ministry of Time is also a romance novel about our narrator falling in love with Commander Graham Gore from history while sharing a house, and on this point I had mixed feelings. It's a lovely romance as written, a bright gentle slow burn. However! It's a little uncomfortable to read the narration gushing about Gore's clear gray eyes and lithe figure and quick mind when he's a real man from a doomed polar expedition who died nearly two hundred years ago. It feels a bit presumptuous. And also very much like the author wrote this book in a haze of polar expedition enthusiasm immediately after watching The Terror. (The show is, in fact, mentioned in the acknowledgements.) I do also feel that Gore is being fetishized a touch for his historicity and for the morals and repressions of his time. You know. He's not like all the other men, he's a Victorian.

A beautifully written and thoughtful novel, but I do wish Bradley had invented a fictional historical polar explorer instead. I will most certainly be reading a sequel, if it's published.

[denimbex1986]

'Before his life-changing call from director Christopher Nolan, his sensational performance as the father of the atomic bomb in Oppenheimer, and the well-deserved Oscars buzz following the film’s release, Cillian Murphy spent nearly a decade portraying working-class Brummie gangster Tommy Shelby in Steven Knight’s British crime drama, Peaky Blinders.

Inspired by the real-life gang of the same name, the six-season series followed the Shelby family’s business dealings, relationships, unsavory acts, and pursuits of power in Birmingham, England, 1919. Thanks to compelling writing, word of mouth, a Netflix streaming slot, and standout performances from a stacked cast — especially Murphy’s — what started as a small show on BBC Two in 2013 grew into a global phenomenon.

Oppenheimer’s immense scale and widespread acclaim may have solidified Murphy as a household name, but in the years leading up to the monumental project, Peaky Blinders allowed him to meticulously refine his craft, wholly inhabit a character, and take his acting prowess to the next level. A decade after the riveting series premiered, Tommy Shelby remains one of the actor’s most indelible roles — a truth even more impressive when you learn that Murphy wasn’t Knight’s first choice for the Peaky protagonist.

That’s right. The 47-year-old Irish actor nearly lost the role of Tommy Shelby to Jason Statham, but a text sent to Knight post-audition, which read, “Remember, I’m an actor,” changed everything. Ahead of Peaky Blinders’ final season, Knight told Esquire he “never forgot” Murphy’s show of confidence. Despite the clear departure from his appearance and past roles, the actor was sure he could embody the physically imposing, virile gang leader. And he was right. “It’s a cliché, but no one else could have been Tommy Shelby,” Knight admitted later in the interview. “It would be absurd. It was as if Cillian was always waiting.”

Since Murphy first rode through the gritty Birmingham streets on horseback sporting a fresh undercut and a razor-trimmed cap pulled over his eyes, the role felt as bespoke as one of Tommy’s signature three-piece suits. On the surface, Murphy nailed the Birmingham accent, convincingly knocked back lowball glasses of whiskey, confidently handled a gun, and seductively smoked thousands of cigarettes on set. But his abilities to access and expose the deeper complexities, contradictions, and PTSD of the broken World War I veteran were particularly profound.

As the leader of the tight-knit Shelby clan, Tommy was a commanding, ambitious, fiercely intelligent force; an enigma who routinely committed despicable acts, but possessed enough potential for good that he repeatedly gained empathy from viewers — with help from Murphy’s charisma and authentically pained portrayal. Haunted by flashbacks of France and fueled by booze for a majority of the series, the Peaky Blinders leader perpetually grappled with a restless mind and stained soul, while guarding a heart capable of immense love. He was, all at once, completely unafraid of his own death and terrified of losing others. And since business was always personal, his family became his greatest strength and most sizable weakness.

A fraternal feeling and the sheer weight of familial responsibility shone strongest in scenes with Paul Anderson’s Arthur, while Tommy’s intimate relationship with Helen McCrory’s Aunt Polly — which deepened and shifted on the daily — peeled back his layers and offered glimpses of vulnerabilities. Tommy’s shell was undeniably softest with Grace (Annabelle Wallis), the woman who made a tea drinker, father, and eventual fortress out of him. Through small talk and genuinely sexy sex scenes, heart-to-hearts and heartbreak, and the brutal gut-punch of unexpected mourning, Murphy tapped into the full range of human emotions to convey and process the love and loss of Tommy’s wife. He never fully recovered from her death, but devastating breakdowns after the loss of Polly and his daughter Ruby proved he was still able to feel.

Murphy effortlessly exuded swagger, showed subtle humor in moments like the famous “no fucking fighting” scene, and slipped into pure panic at the drop of a hat. He loudly expressed grief in palpable scenes, such as Tommy’s brush with death in the Season 2 finale — when he almost had (and lost) “fucking everything” — or the bone-chilling final seconds of Season 5, when he hopelessly held a gun to his head, emitting a guttural scream born from insufferable trauma and fury. But despite the grand outbursts, so much of Tommy’s emotions were expressed without words; through Murphy’s facial expressions, jaw clenches, silent spirals, and intense gazes from his deep-set ice-blue portals.

Whether Tommy was strutting through smoky streets in solitude, leading grand shootouts with adversaries like Luca Changretta (Adrien Brody), digesting Alfie Solomons’ (Tom Hardy) verbal acrobatics, recovering from ruthless beatings, chomping on a leaf with his toddler, or battling his inner demons, Murphy’s performance was mesmerizing. Over the course of Peaky Blinders’ run, the actor brilliantly resided in the middle-ground between hero and villain, light and dark, and savior and sinner. And without fail, he flawlessly found his way back under the multi-faceted character’s skin after substantial filming gaps and major projects like Dunkirk and A Quiet Place Part II. In the 36 hours we got to spend with him on-screen, Murphy delivered a career-great performance, crafting an incredibly lived-in character, while masterfully evolving alongside him.

A decade after Peaky Blinders first premiered, it remains a razor-sharp series that boasts Knight’s brilliant storytelling; captivating characters; stunning set design, wardrobes, and haircuts; a killer soundtrack led by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand”; and a cast that was firing on all cylinders. The series’ legacy is as strong as the Shelby family in their prime, and when the credits roll on the dark final season — one made considerably more challenging by COVID-19 and the real-life death and mourning of McCrory — you’re reminded again that no one else could have been Tommy Shelby; that Cillian Murphy, as promised in his post-audition text, is one hell of an actor.'

[polijakefim]

Travis Fimmel isn’t your typical movie star

IGET THE SENSE 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.”

Fimmel was the face of the show, and, ultimately, the reason for its runaway success – Vikings ran for six long seasons, with spinoff series, Vikings: Valhalla, now in its third season on Netflix (it was recently announced it won’t be renewed for a fourth). 

“When we started casting for Vikings, I was very sure I didn’t want the clichéd version: the big, loud, brutish, hairy fighter that had existed for a long time in folk memory,” explains the series creator, British screenwriter Michael Hirst. “We got pretty close to the date of production when we received a self-tape from Travis, [recorded] from his farm in Australia. He didn’t bother to put on any viking gear, and he didn’t shout. He was pretty quiet. He hesitated often in delivering the lines, as if he was really thinking about them.” It was his air of thoughtfulness – and his piercing blue eyes – that landed Fimmel the starring role. “He absolutely inhabited that role. He did not ‘play’ a viking; he was a viking,” adds Hirst. “Travis was one big reason why the show grew as big as it did. He was our lead. He was our poster boy. He was our signature. He redefined for a modern audience what a viking was. He smashed the old clichés forever.”

‘Smashed’ is an understatement. If, before Vikings, your impression of Norsemen aligned with the folk memory Hirst describes, Fimmel’s Ragnar Lothbrok probably blew your mind. In addition to being a devoted parent and husband with a soft and curious side, Ragnar Lothbrook was hot. But his hotness didn’t just stem from his physical assets – which, glimpsed in steamy sex scenes soundtracked by primal grunts, didn’t leave much to the imagination. It came through in the intellect and depth Fimmel brought to the character.

“My goal was always to make the character a family man who would do anything for his kids. You know, a lot of tough love, but it comes from doing what he thinks is right for his family,” Fimmel explains. “I think the character had a lot of flaws, so sometimes he didn’t necessarily see straight. But everyone’s got flaws; it’s just about not letting your flaws beat you.”

When I ask Hirst about how Fimmel approached his role, the writer gives a frank response. “Travis wasn’t always easy to work with. He had – or he developed – his own ideas about his character, and we started a dialogue which continued until Ragnar’s death,” he says. “I believe that we respected each other, and our meetings – which we both often dreaded – nearly always turned out to be positive and productive.” Hirst recalls one crucial moment towards the end of the series’ fourth season, when Fimmel believed Ragnar shouldn’t say a word for an entire episode. “He told me that he was sure Ragnar could communicate his desires and responses just by looking, just by ‘being’. So I reread the script. I noted that other characters in the scenes could indeed convey the information that was needed. And it was also true that I had come to realise how much meaning and emotion Travis could convey simply by ‘looking’. It’s a gift that very good actors have.

“I agreed to Travis’ request but swore him to secrecy,” Hirst admits. “Our American paymasters could never know, because they would never have agreed.”

THE CATEGORY OF FAME that comes with being the handsome star of a niche historical drama, especially one with fantastical elements, can be intense (Game of Thrones star Kit Harington once referred to feeling so objectified by fans and critics, it was “demeaning”). And certainly, there are fans out there who follow Fimmel for his good looks first, and his acting second. To those who line up for his autograph at Comic-Con conventions – teenagers in cosplay, men who larp on a Tuesday night and middle-aged mums that turn to speculative fiction as an escape from reality – Fimmel is the perfect man. Or, rather, Ragnar Lothbrok is. But in their minds, there is no difference.

On the Travis Fimmel Facebook fan page, which has over 65,000 followers and admin that upload photos and updates daily, posts attract comments like “handsome man”, “him so cute” and “be still my beating heart”. “If I get to go fishing with him, I don’t think we would be doing much fishing,” writes one fan beneath a photo of Travis holding a fishing rod, accompanied by a few tongue-out emojis. Fimmel’s personal Instagram – he has three million followers on the platform, while only really posting about Travla – is also flooded with declarations of love and admiration.

Fimmel isn’t in it for these reasons. To him, fame is something he’d rather go without, while recognising it’s a necessary evil – you can’t make money in Hollywood when no one knows your name. “Too many awards and attention in that industry. I’m not that interested in that,” he deflects. “We’re not saving the world or anything. I don’t get too deep into it. As long as it makes money, I’m happy.” I seek to clarify that although he enjoys acting, unlike method actors and tortured-artist types, for him, it’s just not that deep. “I’ve never once enjoyed it, not once,” he says, without the slightest hesitation. “I mean, it’s deep work-wise – you have to be deep to continue working. But I don’t get bogged down in it. Like I said, it’s just a job.” Delicately, I ask why he continues to do something he doesn’t enjoy and never has. “Well, I haven’t made enough money to retire yet. As soon as I do, I’ll move home for good . . . I don’t know what else I’m going to do. What keeps a guy working in the mines? What keeps a carpenter working all the time? What keeps anyone getting up in the morning and going to work? What keeps us doing it? I’m very happy for people who love their job – jealous and happy. But it doesn’t do it for me. I’m not driven by it.

“What am I driven by?” he says, repeating my next question. “That’s a good question. I’m not very driven anymore.” I can hear him chuckle. “Nah, I guess it’s just trying to do good at what you’re doing. Trying to always be better than you were the last time.”

He’s got the X FACTOR, and people want that . . . Sorry, Travis, but you’re a MOVIE star – whether you like it or NOT.”

Those who’ve worked with Fimmel aren’t so convinced he dislikes acting. As Bjorn Lothbrok, Ragnar’s firstborn son, Canadian actor Alexander Ludwig saw firsthand the care and thoughtfulness Fimmel brought to his Vikings character.

“He’s one of the most talented and hardworking people I’ve ever worked with. I’ve seen how much time and dedication he puts into what he does. It’s the same kind of time and dedication he puts into his farm. He does everything like a farmer would. It’s very meticulous. He plants these seeds and he focuses, and he’s always prepared,” says Ludwig over the phone from LA. “But he will be the first person to tell you he’s not passionate about his craft. If you were to talk to him about the business, you would never believe that he’s someone who loves what he does. And I will literally die on this hill,” quips Ludwig with a laugh. “He’s too good. And he stuck around too long not to have loved it. I mean, he should have won awards for that show.”

“Travis is arguably one of the most beautiful men in the world, and he does everything he can not to be. I think that says a lot. Because . . . I mean, he’s got the talent. He could so easily have gone down that route to be one of, you know, one of ‘the guys’. I think that’s what makes him so real, is that he just genuinely doesn’t care about that. He’s just not about any of the bullshit that comes with what we do.”

Kriv Stenders, who directed Fimmel in 2019’s Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan, is more receptive to the idea of Fimmel not enjoying what he does. He recalls one day on set, when the cast and crew had an hour to nail a particularly complex scene. “It was a hard day, and Travis was having trouble with the scene. He was in this wet kit, it was pissing down with fake rain and when I went over to talk to him, I looked back and saw what he was looking at, which was literally six cameras, cranes, all this machinery,” recalls the Aussie director. “And I went, ‘Oh, fuck’. That’s what he sees. That’s what he has to deal with every day – the pressure to be like, Everyone’s here, we’ve got an hour to make this brilliant and it’s all up to me. Now. Go. And that’s hard.

“But at the same time, Travis is cursed with a gift. He’s one of those people, when you look at them in reality, you go, ‘Okay, wow, good-looking guy’. But the minute you put the lens on him – and it’s very rare in this business – you look through the viewfinder and get blinded. The charisma that he has is just astronomical. He’s got the X factor, and people want that.” Stenders lets out a laugh. “Sorry, Travis, but you’re a movie star – whether you like it or not.”

Throughout our time chatting, Fimmel is most animated when talking about the beer. When I ask what project he’s proudest of (referring to his acting work), he says it’s “the beer brand”. He muses about his desire to make a beer that supports Australian farmers by using Australian ingredients and keeping the profits in the country. “I want to support the way I grew up and the people I know. We have a beautiful country and hardworking people, and I think sometimes city people can forget that. But those [country] people – they’re not trying to be anyone else. That’s where the heart of Australia is.”

“He said, ‘All I’ve got is me and my time. So, please, what can I do for you?’” says Jason Law, the CEO of Farm Angels, the charity that puts on Flanno for a Farmer, which supports farmers impacted by natural disasters, mental-wellbeing issues and the rising costs of primary production. “He gets that one of the key things that causes things like depression in farmers is that they feel a bit forgotten. They feel taken for granted and like no one cares. He wants to show farmers that we can get people to care.

“He hates interviews,” adds Law with a laugh. “He thinks he’s bad at them, and I don’t think he likes opening up. We never want to push him to do anything, but he always says, ‘If you need me to do something like that, I’ll do it’.”

Dune: Prophecy premieres on Binge in November. 

Black Snow season two is coming soon, only on Stan.

Editor-in-Chief: Christopher Riley

Words: Amy Campbell

Photography: John Russo

Styling: Chloe Takayanagi

Grooming: Kristin Heitkotter 

Producer: Kenneth Waller.

Find out where to buy the issue here.