Kevin Durand, who plays rat exterminator Vasiliy Fet in the hit FX vampire horror series "The Strain," said that his role in the Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan-created show is "such a great escapism" for him as an actor.

"I really wanted to be a part of it," the 40-year-old Canadian actor said in an interview earlier this year on the Toronto set of the show, according to the Los Angeles Times.

 "For me,  character-wise, he's so textured and rich, I saw a lot of opportunities to have a lot of fun with this guy," he said of his character Vasiliy. "Ultimately he's a good guy -a lot of people haven't cast me as a good guy in a while so it's nice to get to play someone heroic."

"It's kind of an interesting thing that an exterminator really finds what he was born to do in this apocalyptic kind of setting," Durand continued. "He kind of disappeared in the crowd when everything was going fine in society and then all of a sudden, his skill set, the value of it shoots through the roof all of a sudden. And he loves it. He feels more alive in this world than he did when things were OK."

Durand, who is also known for his roles as Joshua in "Dark Angel," Martin Keamy in "Lost" and Fred J. Dukes/The Blob in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," added that Vasiliy let him to bring out the action hero inside him.

"I love getting physical with characters," Durand shared. "With this guy, there's this wonderful insane Viking warrior inside him and he's kept it repressed all these years because he would have ended up in jail. Now he's in a world where those primal instincts that were born into him are thriving."

Speaking of Viking, Durand told Entertainment Tonight Canada at the San Diego Comic-Con last July that he will be appearing in the upcoming third season of History Channel's "Vikings," and teased that his character might have something to do with the death of a fan-favorite character.

"Do you know how that happens?" said Durand. "Did you know that I was there? When the person dies ...yeah, I'm on 'Vikings'... it might have been my fault..."

When pressed for more details about his role in the Nordic drama, the actor said, "[Creator] Michael Hirst has written this mysterious wanderer character that... ahh wanders mysteriously... I think that's about all I can say now... he may wreak havoc, he might not. He might just be a poet."

Meanwhile, Durand reportedly revealed during a conference call for "The Strain" that he has been approached to play the comic book baddie Negan in the hit AMC zombie show "The Walking Dead," according to Nuke The Fridge.

Negan, a character first introduced in Issue 100 of Image Comics' "The Walking Dead," was the leader of The Saviors and is a primary antagonist in the comic series, according to The Walking Dead Wiki.