Summary

Clive Standen felt he was lucky to have a job like Vikings and that the camaraderie of the cast and crew was unparalleled.
Travis Fimmel set a great example on set, leading to a feeling of fellowship among the team.
The experience of working on Vikings taught Standen that you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone.

For seven years, History Channel’s Vikings captivated viewers with the tale of Ragnar Lothbrok and his family, as the historical drama gave audiences a glimpse into Norse mythology. Clive Standen, who for five seasons portrayed Ragnar’s brother, Rollo, knows how special that role was for his career. Looking back on it all now, he says the relationship the cast and crew had on the series is unlike anything he’s experienced since.

Speaking with MovieWeb to promote his new horror film, Possessions (May 3), Standen reminisced about his time on Vikings, calling it a “well-oiled machine,” despite the hardships everyone faced during filming. He says it was that camaraderie that led to the success of the series, and that in the roles that followed, he hasn’t experienced such a feeling of fellowship since. He says now that he’s moved on, he realizes that he was “lucky to have a job like that.”

“The well oiled machine came from just everyone’s ability to muck in. And then you go do other shows, and then you go ‘Oh, it’s not like that.’ People go home, and they don’t mingle. The people are just there for their jobs, and I really do believe that
the success of Vikings came down to the people in Ireland
and the crew and the team that Michael Hurst and Morgan O’Sullivan, the Irish producer, put together. It’s only now that I’ve moved on that I’ve gone,
‘Oh, I was really lucky to have a job like that.’
”

Vikings Release Date March 3, 2013 Cast Peter Franzen Seasons 5

When asked what the biggest thing he learned as an actor working on Vikings was, Standen gave a heartfelt answer that pointed to the ability of everyone to pull together in difficult situations. He said it’s only now that he realizes “how close everyone was,” and says that even after all this time, everyone is still friends “all over the world.”

“The first thing that comes to my head is the most genuine thing I can say, which is
you don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it
. What we had on that show, to be able to do with 92 episodes or more, to have such a big crew and cast and for us all to get along and still be friends now all over the world, to create that quality, I think it was really, really hard to get the team together,
and I realize now how close we all were
, and how people mucked in.”

Travis Fimmel Set an Example While Filming Vikings

Airing from 2013 until 2020, Vikings also starred Travis Fimmel as Ragnar Lothbrok. The character was based on the 9th-century Viking, Ragnar Lodbrok, a farmer and warrior who pillaged Anglo-Saxon villages in England, and according to the Icelandic sagas, was also a Swedish and Danish King. Clive Standen portrayed his brother, Rollo, who in the history books went on to become the first ruler of Normandy.

As on-screen brothers, the pair became close not just when the cameras were rolling, but outside the production as well. Standen recalled that on the first day of shooting, Fimmel set the example for the cast and crew to follow, which would lead to that feeling of camaraderie he spoke of earlier.

“I mean from day one, Travis Fimmel the lead, Ragnar Lothbrok, I remember we had to go up to a massive mountain to film. Johan Renck, the director, and all the equipment needed to go to the top of the hill, and there are unions involved where you’re not allowed to touch this, and this cameraman can only touch that, and
there were all these boxes, and he just picked them up, two in each hand
, and just went ‘Come on then. It all needs to be up at the top, so we’ll all muck in,’ and all the actors picked up everything, and we all went off.”

You can catch Clive Standen next in Possessions when the film makes its way to VOD on May 3, 2024.

Vikings and its spin-off, Vikings: Valhalla, are both available to stream on Netflix.