Anna Daniels
Rollo was hungry for fame, but the actor who played him says that he was more interested in serving the story than racking up screen time. In the lead-up to his return on Vikings season 5, Standen told Entertainment Tonight that he and series creator-slash-writer Michael Hirst realized that the end of Ragnar meant the end of Rollo’s involvement in the main plot.
“When I was still in the show prominently, when Travis Fimmel’s character, Ragar Lothbrok, died, I sat down with Michael [Hirst], and Michael and I, we both kind of said, “The Rollo plot line is very intertwined with the Ragnar plot line, and what’s there to do?'” the actor explained. He also said that he loved working on Vikings, but added, “I don’t want to stay in a show unless I can service the character and give the show a good storyline.”
However, Standen also believed that Rollo had unfinished business from the very first season that needed wrapping up. He said that Johan Renck, who directed the first three episodes of Vikings, had told him confidentially that one of Ragnar’s children was actually Rollo’s — at least, that’s what Rollo suspects. Standen figured out Renck meant Bjorn, the character played by Alexander Ludwig on the current season of Vikings. So when Hirst called him with the news that they’d found a way to fit Rollo back into the plot of season 5, Standen was thrilled. This gifted us the showdown between Rollo, Bjorn, and Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick), in which Rollo tries to claim paternity over Bjorn only to be rejected in favor of his brother yet again.
Having played the character with this moment in mind, Standen was pleased with how it turned out. “It felt rewarding to come back and actually purge all that stuff that I had in the previous seasons,” he told ET.
Written by: Looper
