Kevin David Sorbo (born September 24, 1958) is an American actor. He is best known for his starring roles in two television series: as Hercules in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and as Captain Dylan Hunt in Andromeda.
Kevin Sorbo was born in Mound, Minnesota, where he attended Mound Westonka High School. He is the son of Ardis, a nurse, and Lynn Sorbo, a junior high school mathematics and biology teacher. His father is of Norwegian descent, while his mother has English, German and Scottish ancestry. He was raised in a Lutheran family. Sorbo attended Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he double majored in marketing and advertising. To help make tuition, he began to work as a model for print and television advertising.
In the mid 1980s, Sorbo started working in television commercials and worked in over 150 commercials by 1993. His acting career also began during this period with guest appearances in several television series such as 1st & Ten, Murder She Wrote and The Commish. He was considered for and lost out to Dean Cain as Superman in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and was a possible contender for the role of Agent Mulder in The X Files which went to David Duchovny. He appeared in a popular series of international TV ads for Jim Beam bourbon whiskey, known for Sorbo's repeated catchphrase "It ain't Jim Beam".