Read on for more thoughts from Manganiello on his lovesick (but warm-bodied) wolf, the True Blood role he originally went in for, and why his upcoming nude scene may inspire cries of complaint.
Now that you're done shooting the season, can you sit back and enjoy the reception?
Oh yeah. Also, I can enjoy eating junk food again. [Laughs]
When I talk to most of the actors from True Blood, they say that they feel like they shoot the show in a bubble, because it's almost all done even before it starts airing. I wonder: Was that different for you, because there was a lot of scrutiny about this part and then a lot of fanfare right away when you got it?
Yeah, it is like being in a bubble, because the hours are so long and the episodes take so long to shoot. The other thing is that it's a huge cast, so all thirty of you meet together at the table read and then you go off in separate groups to shoot the scenes and you really don't get to see everybody. Seeing the episodes when they air is really neat because you have no idea what everybody's been doing for the last seven months.
Did you let yourself go online after your first episode to see how the fans received you?
I did, yeah. I couldn't help it, I did go. It seemed like everyone was pretty happy with Alcide.
What about you? How nervous were you to see that first episode after you'd spent months playing this character?
I'll admit that I was definitely a bit anxious to see it, because the show is a lot more complicated than it looks. I think people sometimes dismiss the show because, "Oh, it's a supernatural show with wolves and vampires running around," but it's really complex. Alan and the other writers are so good at writing these nuanced characters, and that alone is enough to play. Then aside from that, you get a dialect, and aside from that, you're a werewolf! You get in there the first day of shooting, and you think, "I'll either look really cool or I'll look like the biggest idiot on the planet."
What was this audition process like? Were you going in there for callbacks and there were a ton of big, hulking guys in the waiting room?
I'd actually been called in for a different werewolf role -- I went in and auditioned for Coot, and I was the first one up when there was no script or sides available for Alcide yet. It got whittled down to about five guys, and I noticed that the other four guys were very different from me. I kind of figured, "OK, maybe they're going in a different direction," and sure enough, they called me up and said, "You're not getting this part, but there's this other part that debuts in the following episode, and we want you to chemistry read with Anna Paquin for it." That was Alcide.
That's a big upgrade!
I was excited for it. Alcide was the part that I wanted, and I'd heard about it when a buddy of mine sent me a web link to a blog site for fans of Charlaine Harris's books. They were blogging about who should play these different characters who'd be showing up on the show, and sure enough, fans were posting pictures of me to play Alcide. That's how I found out about the books and found out there were werewolves in them, so I started pursuing the part of Alcide.
So how did you handle it? When you went in for Coot, did you say, "Hey, I heard you were casting Alcide..."?
I didn't say anything to them, I just was super-excited to get in and read in front Alan Ball and the rest of the producers. I would have been completely happy to play Coot, but the character of Alcide in the books is described as being physically like me. It's almost like a perfect match, so I was really hoping that Alcide would come up. It was my favorite show before I auditioned for it, though, so anything on the show would have made me happy.
Now this obviously is the perfect role for a 6'5" guy like yourself, since you're supposed to be huge compared to the other characters. But I wonder, has your height ever been a liability when going in for some roles?
You know, I think what it is is that I go up for leading man roles more, and I think if you audition for or are in the running for supporting roles, there are a lot of leading men out there who are shorter than me. It has to be the right part for me to be stuck standing next to a leading man who's a foot shorter! It's generally something people don't go for a lot.
Back in the day, all the Academy Awards winners during the 40's, 50's 60's...they were all super tall. For whatever reason, we live in an era right now where leading men are short, so I have run into difficulty at times because with the leading men on projects, my height is a concern. Luckily, on this show, the role calls for a big guy. It's kind of one of those tough things where I've kind of had to make my living as a character actor -- a lot of the parts I've played have been "romantic interest of blah blah blah," or "big crazy best friend of blah blah blah," or one of the bad guys. It has been kind of a tough nut to crack, but luckily on [True Blood], they wanted someone who could match up physically with Alex Skarsgaard.
He's what, 6'3 or 6'4"?
He's 6'4", yeah. So that definitely helped.
Alcide seems like a really decent guy in these first few episodes. Do we see dark sides of him as the season goes on?
He's in a bit of a dark place since his fiancee is going to marry the leader of another pack. We sort of get some backstory on Alcide and find out that he hasn't had the easiest time being a werewolf; it's been a bit of a burden, and it's forced him to be sort of a recluse. It's almost like he has a secret identity, in the way that Superman has a secret identity. He's born with this power that he has to hide from the rest of the world, and he looks at human beings to find out what "normal" is and then he pretends to be that. You know, dating as a werewolf is kind of tough. [Laughs] There are a lot of talks that you need to have.
How do you feel about a potential romantic relationship between Alcide and Sookie?
That's all up to the writers. I just do what they tell me!
You've said that the first thing that goes through your mind when you get cast on True Blood is what you'll have to do to prepare for your nude scene. What's the second thing that goes through your mind?
[Laughs] The dialect, definitely. Where's this guy from? What does he sound like?
And what do you have to do to prepare for your nude scene? Is that treated like this really important day, or are they so over it on True Blood that they're like, "Yeah, we're not even bothering to close the set anymore"?
If [crew members] don't need to be there, they won't be there. With that said, [my nude scene] was in broad daylight in a field, and there were school buses of kids coming home at some point. There's gonna be some therapy bills down the line involved with that. You know, I think the crew was much more uncomfortable with it than I was. I kind of want to crack jokes and talk to them in between takes, and they just all stare at the ground. Still, everybody's super professional about it. How could you not be?
Lastly, Joe...you were a roadie for the band Goldfinger! How did that happen?
John Feldman, the lead singer, is one of my best friends in the world. He was going out on tour and he wanted me to come with him and just hang out, so he called me up and asked, "What are you doing for the next two weeks? Do you want to come on tour with us?" The dates all worked out, so I came on the payroll as security, which basically meant I had to throw drunk kids off the stage.
Drunk kids at a Goldfinger concert? I'm sure that never happened.
Go figure. [Laughs]