A native of Mound, Minnesota (a suburb of Minneapolis), Sorbo is the fourth of five children. His father, Ardis Sorbo, is a retired junior high school teacher, his mother, Lynn, a retired nurse. Always active and athletic, he played football and basketball throughout school and attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in marketing and advertising.
Prior to settling down in Los Angeles in 1987, he spent three years traveling the world, working in commercials and print ads. He became one of the most successful commercial actors in the business, appearing domestically and internationally on behalf of such products as Budweiser, BMW, Diet Coke and Lexus, but never lost sight of his long-held dream of becoming a true dramatic actor.