In case you didn’t know, yesterday was the Super Bowl.
But before the kickoff and that killer Madonna halftime show, Indianapolis was crawling with Hollywood’s hottest dudes (and some chicas too—like Nikki Reed…but more on her later). And the hottest of the hot? True Blood’s abtastic Joe Manganiello, of course.
So did any very eligible female football fans catch Joe M.’s eye?
Nope, apparently it was a total guy’s weekend—guess we shouldn’t be too surprised, huh?
Joe attended the superhero-themed Patrón Presents: The Maxim party featuring Coca-Cola Zero Countdown held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in the Horticulture and Agriculture Building (which, for the night, was turned into Batman’s Gothem City).
True Blood’s resident werewolf happily chitchatted with the press (who had plenty of questions about his six-pack, Magic Mike and, well, his six-pack), before slipping inside the shindig to hang with his pals.
“Joe and his male friends made themselves comfortable at a VIP table,” a fellow partyer dished to us.
So why isn’t somewhat newly single Joe (who split from his former fiancé last September) ready to mingle?
Who knows! We certainly don’t think he’d have trouble landing any babe he wanted—and we do mean any.
“Female fans were giggling and very obviously talking about how cute he is,” our soiree spy spills. “But Joe only had time for his bros.”
Well, if Joe isn’t ready to hop into another high-profile relaysh (how very un-Hollywood of him), we won’t force him. Just leaves more time to hit the gym, right? [xx]
RUGGED APPEAL. Actor Joe Manganiello transcends the werewolf genre. He does, however, play the werewolf Alcide Herveaux on the hit TV show True Blood and his popularity is rising very fast, with females the world over swooning over him. By M. Berlian
While he’s most famous as Alcide on True Blood, Joe Manganiello, originally from the rugged U.S. city of Pittsburgh has been plying his trade for over a decade in such hits as One Tree Hill (as Owen Morello), ER and two of the Spider-Man films, in which he portrays Flash Thompson. This coming May, you’ll see him in What to Expect When You’re Expecting working together with Cameron Diaz, Matthew Morrison and Dennis Quaid.
In June 2012, Manganiello will co-star in the Steven Soderbergh-directed Magic Mike, in which he portrays Big Dick Richie, a male stripper, alongside Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer and Olivia Munn.
Overall, life is good for Joe Manganiello.DA MAN: Who was your biggest influence while growing up that encouraged you to pursue a career where so many want to do it, but so many fail?
Joe Manganiello: There was a cascade of events that led to my pursuit. My mother took me to see a production of the Hobbit with puppets, as a kid, and I remember being absolutely enthralled but I didn’t want to be an actor until later in life. I remember vividly this sense in my gut that this was what I was supposed to do. I also had a high school theater teacher that saw something in me and kept bugging me to try out for the senior musical, and so I did and I got the part. That gut feeling then led me to try out for one of the toughest drama schools in the world and I ended up getting accepted with a scholarship. The moral: trust your gut.DA MAN: As a youth, you also dabbled in filmmaking along with friends, does that fire still burn within you?
Joe Manganiello: Yes, I am currently developing several projects as a producer.DA MAN: What experiences, positive or negative, have made you a stronger person?
Joe Manganiello: Quitting drinking and smoking have been the two biggest turning points of my entire life.DA MAN: Do you have any regrets about pursuing a career in showbiz?
Joe Manganiello: None whatsoever. I love every single second of my life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.DA MAN: After finishing at Carnegie Mellon’s esteemed drama school, did you go straight into a project or did you have any of those ‘starving actor’ type jobs?
Joe Manganiello: I screen-tested alongside James Franco for my part in Spider-Man the week after I graduated from CMU and got the part. However, it didn’t start shooting for six months, so I paid the bills as a bodyguard for singer/actor Tyrese Gibson and as a bouncer at a Mexican rock bar and an afterhours club.
True Blood’s Joe Manganiello dancing along to LL Cool J performing at GQ’s LACOSTE and Patrón party. And when we caught up to the hunky True Blood star later, he told us that he had met Colt’s great Peyton Manning, and he spent time at the DirecTV Beach Bowl catching passes from the legendary Joe Montana.
When we asked how many women he thought would be seeing his stripper movie Magic Mike for the plot, he smiled and said: “Hopefully none!” [xx]
True Blood’s Joe Manganiello is coming on the show this season to play a new neighbor for the Burkes, and Bomer teases: “We have this really cool Rear Window-esque episode where Elizabeth is suspicious of some new neighbors after something goes down. He plays an ominous, suspicious neighbor.”
Manganiello and Bomer also co-star in the much-talked-about skinfest movie Magic Mike, and Bomer says he has hit the gym with Manganiello on at least one occasion.
“I have actually worked out with Joe,” Bomer tells me. “I’ve known Joe for 15 years and we’ve seen each other in so many embarrassing circumstances, that for me, to have one more by trying to work out with him was no big deal!”
Anyone wish to have been a fly on that gym wall? Yeah, didn’t think so. [xx]
The presence of monsters echoes throughout history; historians and anthropologists alike have diagnosed the mythical beasts as a vector of our most bridling fears. They are manufactured in our subconscious and assembled solely for the purpose of defeat, and yet, no matter their atrocity, monsters are secretly championed all the way to their demise. These villains are among us with increasing abundance, so if in fact enlisted for our own catharsis, the indication of their prevalence paints a less than reassuring picture of the current cultural times.
At mention of the social climate that invites an insurgence of supernatural media stars, Joe Manganiello sits discernibly taller in his seat. As a resident werewolf on the popular vampire series, True Blood, his credentials for our discussion to follow are promising, and within just moments of conversing, every bit deserving of the hype. Immediately, he confides how pleasant it is to discuss something other than his ab routine. “It’s really nice when you get to sit down and talk about what goes into the show and books about culture,” he says, “or why [True Blood] is popular and how it fits into the grand scheme of things.”
True Blood’s resident lycanthrope JOE MANGANIELLO lands in Hong Kong to promote the latest season of the hit HBO show, as CHRISTINA KO tries not to swoon
I CAN’T BE sure whether or not I’m projecting when I meet Joe Manganiello at Mandarin Oriental’s M Bar and he seems to be gregarious and eloquent and well-prepared and courteous and really, really (for lack of a better adjective) hot. My tendency to devour True Blood episodes the way a fat kid eats cake – urgently, unceremoniously, fanatically – may just cloud my judgement a pinch.
But if my opinions have been compromised, then so too have those of millions of TV viewers across the world – True Blood ranks as
HBO’s most-watched show since the heyday of The Sopranos – and the hype just keeps growing. The show hits the sweet spot, not so much capturing the zeitgeist as creating it with a pitch-perfect blend of nail-biting plot, modern satire, B-movie gore, graphic sex and Southern charm, with a cast of diverse and surprisingly human superhuman characters including, in no particular order, telepaths, vampires, werewolves, maenads and witches.Manganiello is best known for his role as the werewolf du jour, the hunky, feral good guy Alcide Herveaux, introduced to the cast in season three as a travel companion-cum-bodyguard to Anna Paquin’s lead character, Sookie Stackhouse.
Born Joseph Michael Manganiello on December 28, 1976 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is an American actor of Italian-Sicilian descent. His parents Charles and Susan were both born in Boston, Massachusetts but moved to Pittsburgh a few years before Joe was born. He has one younger brother, Nicholas, who works behind the scenes in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.
