Clive Standen - star of Vikings - has hit out at pointless sex scenes and excessive violence on cable TV shows.

Standen, who plays the formidable Rollo on History's series, says that screen sex and violence are fine if they "move the story on".

"I think there's too much violence and too many sex scenes in dramas nowadays - especially on cable shows," he told Digital Spy. "It's a lot of noise signifying nothing. They've turned into moments where we go and make a cup of tea.

"You've got to almost put the audience in the battle. You've got to feel that some of your favourite characters are going to die at any second - that keeps it visceral and keeps it real."

Standen added that he often gets injured filming the rough-and-tumble battle sequences on Vikings, but insisted he has no complaints.

"I get shields in the face, I got caught in the shoulder by a spear," he revealed. "But it's Vikings. It does exactly what it says on the tin. If you're going to start complaining about that kind of stuff, then you've signed on to do the wrong job."

Bernard Walsh/History

Vikings charts the sibling rivalry between Rollo and his brother Ragnar (Travis Fimmel), with Standen admitting it's "easy playing the jealousy" with his co-star.

"Travis is one of those people that sickeningly is good at everything - so it's pretty much life mirroring art!" he laughed.

"I'm sure that he's going to surprise us all - he'll be a prime ballerina or a popstar next. He'll be bigger than Michael Jackson."

One of "farmboy" Fimmel's more surprising talents even made it into the show, as Standen recalled.

Bernard Walsh/History

"There's a scene where we're meant to be chopping up food and throwing it into the pot on the fire... and he decided he was going to skin a rat.

"So they got this dead rat and he just pulls all the fur off of the meat in one easy go. He chopped it up into pieces and threw it into the pot that I was eating out of... and that's all in the scene!"

Vikings has been renewed in the US for a fifth season, but while Standen was recently cast as the lead in NBC's Taken - a spinoff from the popular movies - he insisted he has no plans to leave Rollo behind.

"I've got a happy problem at the moment where I'm in two shows," he said.

"I'm going to be doing Taken until October time and I'm going to pick up and re-join the Vikings team later on in season five. I'm going straight from Toronto back to Dublin, so it's a good problem to have!"

Vikings season 3 continues tonight (May 31) at 10pm on History.

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