Joe Manganiello - The Man Behind the Muscle
Men's Health UK|April 2016

From alcoholism and depression to making a million women feel welcome, Joe Manganiello's life has been riveting and, at times, implausible. For beneath the gym-honed exterior is a man who's made getting his way a very serious business.

Jamie Millar
Joe Manganiello - The Man Behind the Muscle

In the world of Tarot reading, the Knight of Cups heralds exciting developments, especially of the romantic kind. It can signify opportunities. It can also represent someone in need of stimulation, with an artistic sensibility.

Knight of Cups happens to be the name of a film released this month by Terrence Malick, the highly revered and legendarily inscrutable director. Most actors would give their right kidney to appear in one of the eight films he’s directed in a career spanning more than 40 years; Joe Manganiello might just be in his latest opus through serendipity.

“Terrence used to watch True Blood,” explains the 39-year-old actor, hitherto known principally for playing werewolf Alcide Herveaux in the occult HBO series. (To be blunt, it’s not the kind of thing you’d expect an auteur like Malick to watch on Catch Up.) “I got invited to meet him on the set and he threw me into a scene. I had no idea what I was doing, who the characters were, nothing. He just said, ‘Get in there.’ From what I understand, I wound up in the movie.”

Likewise, sometimes in life, the stars align. In June 2014, Manganiello was voted Hottest Bachelor by People magazine, thanks no doubt to his minimally clothed roles as both Alcide and the unambiguously named male stripper Big Dick Richie in Magic Mike and its XXL sequel. During the accompanying interview he revealed that his celebrity crush was the pneumatic Modern Family actress Sofia Vergara. In November 2015, Manganiello and Vergara got married at a ceremony in Palm Beach, Florida.

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