Joe Manganiello

Joseph Michael Manganiello ( ; born December 28, 1976) is an American actor. His professional film career began when he played Flash Thompson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. His breakout role was as werewolf Alcide Herveaux in five seasons of the HBO series True Blood.

He is also known for his roles in films such as Magic Mike, Magic Mike XXL, Pee-wee's Big Holiday, What to Expect When You're Expecting, Sabotage, and Rampage. In late 2013, he became a published author when his first book, Evolution, was released by Simon & Schuster's Gallery Books. His directorial debut came in 2014 with the documentary feature La Bare, which he also produced and financed. He is also known for his role as Brad Morris in How I Met Your Mother. He is active with several charities, primarily UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh for which he serves on the board of trustees. In 2016, he was cast as Slade Wilson / Deathstroke in the DC Extended Universe, making his first appearance in 2017's Justice League.

Early life Manganiello was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Susan and Charles Manganiello. He has a younger brother, Nicholas. His mother is of Armenian, Croatian, and German descent. Manganiello's father was born in Massachusetts outside of Boston. Raised Catholic, he was a student at St. Bernard School, a Catholic elementary school in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania and then attended Mt. Lebanon High School, where he graduated with honors in 1995 and won the school's Great Alumni Award in 2011.

Growing up, he was the captain of his football, basketball, and volleyball teams and went on to play at the varsity level in all three sports. He then traveled to New York City and Los Angeles through his university to participate in group auditions, which provided him contacts in the entertainment business including an agent, a manager, and a screen test for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.

In the February 7, 2023, episode of PBS series Finding Your Roots, the researchers uncovered that Manganiello's legal paternal grandfather, Emilio Manganiello, Manganiello's maternal great-grandmother, Terviz "Rose" Darakjian, Darakjian later encountered Karl Wilhelm Beutinger, a German soldier, in an internment camp for survivors. Rose became pregnant by him. Beutinger soon left to return to Germany. He resumed his life there with his German wife and children, and never saw Rose Darakjian again. Manganiello's grandmother is the child of Beutinger and Rose Darakjian.

Career Early career

While a student at Carnegie Mellon University, Manganiello appeared in numerous productions in Pittsburgh's theatre scene, including Ulfheim in Henrik Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken, Lorenzo in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice for Quantum Theatre, and Joe in the Pittsburgh premiere of The Last Night of Ballyhoo. He reprised the role several years later, making a brief cameo in Spider-Man 3 (2007).

Manganiello began finding work in television, playing Tori Spelling's boyfriend on VH1's So Notorious in 2006, and guest starred on Las Vegas, Jake in Progress, and Close to Home. That year, he also played John Leguizamo's Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor in the CBS television pilot Edison. In 2007, he appeared in the Scrubs episode "My No Good Reason" and in the MyNetwork TV nighttime soap opera American Heiress. He also played Officer Litchman, the love interest to Linda Cardellini's character, for a four-episode arc on NBC's ER. He returned to the stage playing The Chick Magnet in May 2007 for the New York City premiere of Skirts & Flirts, a monologue show by Gloria Calderon Kellett, for which he was a finalist for HBO's Aspen Comedy Festival. directed by his former Carnegie Mellon professor Geoffrey Hitch. He played the lawyer Brad Morris on several seasons of the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother. In 2008, he joined the cast of The CW drama One Tree Hill for its fifth season, playing bartender Owen Morello. He shot the series in Wilmington, North Carolina, and returned for its sixth and seventh seasons.

Manganiello played Stu on the Fox sitcom 'Til Death for two episodes, and starred in the short film Wounded that year, which he originated on the stage and won Best Short Film at the 2011 Big Island Film Festival. He starred in the direct-to-video war film Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia in 2009 playing Lt. Sean Macklin, a Navy SEAL squad leader. In order to add authenticity to the production, he trained for several months with a former Navy SEAL, for whom he paid to come to the set and stay in the cast's hotel. The film was shot in Puerto Rico. He appeared in an episode of Medium in 2009, and has guest starred on all three series of CBS's CSI television franchise (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, and CSI: NY). He had a role in the independent film Irene in Time. In 2010, he appeared in television commercials for Taco Bell, promoting its new product.

True Blood In late 2009, Manganiello was cast as werewolf Alcide Herveaux in the third season of HBO's True Blood. His work on the show over the next five years would bring him both popular and critical recognition, including being voted The Favorite Pop-Culture Werewolf of All-Time by the readers of Entertainment Weekly Magazine, the 2011 Scream Award for Breakout Performance – Male, as well as a shared award for Best Ensemble, a Saturn Award for Best Guest Starring Role in Television and a NewNowNext Award. He familiarized himself with the novels while growing out his hair and beard. He also trained twice a day for months to add muscle to match the description of the character in the books.

In early 2011, Manganiello was asked to screen test for the title role of Superman in Man of Steel, for which he was rumored to be the front runner, but due to scheduling problems with True Blood, he was forced to drop out during the final stage. He told Access Hollywood in an interview: "They wanted me to screen test and they actually asked for my measurements for the suit and everything... their shoot date switched and it would have taken up 11 weeks out of my True Blood schedule. At the end of the day, we couldn't get the schedule to work... so, regrettably, I never got to screen test, I never got to put the suit on."

Upon completion of filming for season four of True Blood, he shot an episode of USA's White Collar with his former drama school classmate Matt Bomer, and then shot the film adaptation of the best-selling book What to Expect When You're Expecting before returning to Los Angeles to shoot an episode of Two and a Half Men with Ashton Kutcher.

Magic Mike and other projects Manganiello was cast as Big Dick Richie in Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike, the story of a male stripper in Tampa, Florida, played by actor Channing Tatum. Magic Mike would go on to become a cultural and box office phenomenon spawning its 2015 sequel Magic Mike XXL.

In between Magic Mike films and finishing out his last two seasons of True Blood, Manganiello branched out in a multitude of different ways. He shot David Ayer's Sabotage with his childhood idol Arnold Schwarzenegger, who would go on to become a friend and mentor to Manganiello, penning the foreword to his book Evolution which was released through Simon & Schuster's Gallery Books in the fall of 2013. That autumn also saw Manganiello's return to the stage once again as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire but this time for the prestigious Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, Connecticut.

A few months later, Manganiello would take his documentary film La Bare, which he financed, directed, and produced under his new production company banner 3:59 with his brother Nick, to Park City, Utah, for the Slamdance Film Festival. He received multiple offers from distributors in the lobby after the first screening and within 24 hours sold the International and Domestic rights, including sales to Showtime and Netflix. Manganiello was given the Triple Threat Award from the Maui International Film Festival later that year for his work on the film.

After True Blood In August 2016, test footage of Slade Wilson/Deathstroke was posted to Twitter by writer/director Ben Affleck. A few weeks later, Geoff Johns, DC Comics' then President and CCO, who was tasked to co-write/co-produce the solo Batman film with Affleck, confirmed that Deathstroke would appear in the shared film universe, with Manganiello portraying the character. In 2019, he was confirmed to appear in the Ben Affleck Batman film. However, Affleck was asked to step down from the film and Manganiello's future as the character has remained uncertain ever since.

In 2017, Manganiello won an Emmy as the narrator of the documentary Pittsburgh is Home: The Story of the Penguins, which documented the first 50 years of history of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team.

Dungeons & Dragons / Fantasy Over the years, Manganiello has worked extensively with Dungeons & Dragons as a writer, official ambassador, and paid consultant. His characters, including Arkhan the Cruel, are a part of Dungeons & Dragons canon, appearing in adventure modules, video games, and in toy stores. He has appeared in episodes of The Big Bang Theory, Nerd Poker, CelebriD&D, Critical Role and the web series Force Grey playing the game. In 2017, Manganiello and John Cassel wrote a spec-script for a film adaptation of the first Dragonlance novel for Warner Brothers. In 2018, he launched the company Death Saves which produces fantasy/heavy-metal themed streetwear as well as a range of high end jewelry, clothing and gaming accessories. Over the years, the company has created officially licensed products for the television series Game of Thrones and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, the indie horror film Mandy, Dungeons & Dragons, and at one point had full reign over the catalog of the late fantasy painter, Frank Frazetta.

He worked as a game designer for Hasbro's remake of the adventure board game HeroQuest to write a quest book as a stretch goal in 2020. Although the stretch goal was not reached, he later announced he worked with Hasbro to have the quest book and additional game pieces included anyway.

In October 2022, Hasbro's eOne announced that Manganiello had been tapped to direct and produce the first, official documentary about the history of Dungeons & Dragons, along with co-director Kyle Newman and his brother and producing partner Nick under their 3:59 banner, to be timed to release during the 50th anniversary of the game in 2024.

Personal life Manganiello is a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He directed and produced the 2007 short documentary DieHardz about Steelers fans who meet up at bars in Los Angeles, California. He is also a Pittsburgh Penguins fan and hosted the 2017 NHL Awards and the 2017 NHL expansion draft.

He was once a roadie for the band Goldfinger and is friends with lead singer John Feldmann; he toured internationally with the group as a member of their security. They married in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 22, 2015. On July 17, 2023, Manganiello and Vergara announced to Page Six that they had separated and were planning to divorce after seven years of marriage. The divorce was finalized in February 2024.

Since September 2023, he has been in a relationship with Caitlin O'Connor. In December 2025, the couple moved from Los Angeles, California to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where they both grew up.

He is a longtime practitioner of Transcendental Meditation and learned at the David Lynch Foundation center in Los Angeles.

In October 2022, he was granted Italian citizenship through his paternal grandmother's Sicilian ancestry. In 2025, he joined the Armenian Assembly of America's Advocacy Summit in Washington, D.C., and was a keynote speaker at the United States Congress' Armenian Genocide commemoration.

Filmography

Film

Television

Web shows and series Year Title Role Notes2017 Force Grey: Lost City of Omu Himself / Arkhan The Cruel Main cast, 18 episodes Saturn Award Best Guest Starring Role in Television Scream Award Breakout Performance – Male 2017 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards Narrator - Sports Program One-Time Special Pittsburgh is Home: The Story of the Penguins