Travis Van Winkle

Travis Van Winkle is an American actor and producer, born on November 4, 1982, in Victorville, California, USA. He made his feature film debut in Accepted (2006) and soon gained recognition for his roles in major studio projects such as Transformers (2007) and Friday the 13th (2009).

Throughout his career, Van Winkle has built a reputation for his versatility, moving seamlessly between comedy, drama, and action. On television, he is best known for his performances in Hart of Dixie, The Last Ship, and the Netflix hit You, where he received praise for his charismatic and layered portrayal.

Travis Van Winkle has been the reliable utility player of genre television for nearly two decades. He made his feature debut in the comedy Accepted (2006), then stepped into horror history as Trent in the 2009 Friday the 13th remake — the kind of role that makes you immortal to a very specific, very loyal audience.

Since then he's been a steady presence on television: Danny Green on TNT's The Last Ship, Cary in the third season of You, and a run of procedurals where he does the unglamorous work of making the plot believable. It's the journeyman's career, done right — always working, always solid.

Travis Scott Van Winkle was born on November 4, 1982, in Victorville, California — yes, he shares a name with the rapper, which has caused no end of confusion. When he was two, his family moved to Oscoda, Michigan; at eight, they moved again to Peachtree City, Georgia, where he graduated from McIntosh High School. He attended the University of West Georgia but left at twenty to chase acting in Hollywood. Before the camera found him, Bruce Weber found him: Van Winkle modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch. His TV debut came in December 2004 on Quintuplets, followed by the classic young-actor circuit of guest spots — That's So Raven, Malcolm in the Middle, The O.C., 7th Heaven.

His feature debut arrived with the Justin Long comedy Accepted (2006), and the following year Michael Bay put him in Transformers (2007) as Trent DeMarco, the smug rival boyfriend. Here's a piece of trivia only genre fans appreciate: in the 2009 Friday the 13th remake — another Bay production — Van Winkle played Trent Sutton, effectively the same archetype with a different last name, and this time Jason Voorhees got him. For horror fans, that's immortality. Around the same stretch he headlined the spoof Meet the Spartans (2008), appeared in the horror film Asylum, and showed up in Julianne Hough's ‘That Song in My Head’ music video.

Television is where Van Winkle built his real career. He played Lieutenant Danny Green — leader of the Naval Mountain Warfare unit aboard the Nathan James — for 56 episodes across all five seasons of TNT's The Last Ship (2014–2018), anchoring the show's action credibility. He recurred as Jonah on Hart of Dixie, popped up on Happy Endings, 2 Broke Girls, and Two and a Half Men, and did the procedural rounds on Scorpion, Instinct, and Made for Love. It's the journeyman's career, done right: always working, always solid, making plots believable.

The second act has been his strongest. He played Cary Conrad in the third season of Netflix's You (2021), holding his own in the show's escalating suburban nightmare, and then joined Arnold Schwarzenegger's Netflix action comedy FUBAR (2023–2025) as CIA operative Aldon Reese — the kind of role that finally let his physicality and comic timing work together. Nearly two decades in, Van Winkle remains what he's always been: the reliable utility player of genre television, and one of the few actors who can claim both a Transformers credit and a Friday the 13th kill.