You Don't Know Joe Manganiello

Standing six-foot-five with the body of a superhero and the face of an aftershave model, Manganiello looks nothing like most of the Hollywood leading men Ive met, who are almost invariably smaller than youd think in person. He is wearing a T-shirt with death saves scrawled across the chest, ripped blue jeans, and custom Air Jordan 1s made of python and alligator skin. I look down at his hands and notice his wedding ring, which is made of Damascus steel and would probably help us demolish these buildings were punching. After we lose and move on to Spider-Man, the star of the first movie Manganiello ever appeared in, I ask him what its like to revisit so many of his former roles in an arcade. I guess its kind of weird, he laughs. But like everything else, you get used to it.

Getting used to weirdness is something the 42-year-old Manganiello has become quite good at, and in the four hours we spend together, he is full of weird surprises. He may be Hollywood beefcake now, but as a kid growing up in the middle-class Pittsburgh suburb of Mt. Lebanon with Mom, Dad, and one younger brother in the 80s, he was a voracious fantasy and sci-fi bookworm. He tells me he resorted to shoplifting the works of Tolkien and Stephen King and Frank Miller because he read so fast that there was no way to justify buying that many books. I came to this interview assuming the tall, dark, and handsome Mr. Vergara (his wife, Sofia, 46, stars on Modern Family, earning $42 million per year) must have been the homecoming king in high school.

\"I always wanted to make popcorn for smart people. Magic Mike could have ruined everyone involved. Theres a real risk. Thats a big hole to crawl out of.

Nope. Manganiello laughs and waves me off. Even though he was captain of his football, basketball, and volleyball teams at Mt. Lebanon High School, he struggled with the same dating desert we normals endured as teens. He did not have a date to his senior prom, so he went to see the rerelease of Blade Runner by himself. In The Breakfast Club terms, he says he was then and still is half Emilio Estevez and half Ally Sheedy. Manganiello says he could have played basketball at a small college and pursued a career in law enforcement or something else large men do for a living, but he chose to go to art school instead. The guy who shot to fame as a sexy werewolf on True Blood and Big Dick Richie in Magic Mike is a classically trained theater actor who played Richard III (Shakespeare), Stanley Kowalski (Williams), and Doctor Astrov (Chekhov) at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. When I ask him what roles he gets sent now, he deadpans, Big, dumb, handsome guy, in a way that assures me hes in on the joke and okay rolling with it.

Rampaging stokes our appetites, and we set out for the Japanese restaurant Cho Oishi on the fourth floor of the mall. First, we stop at the ticket-redemption area to see what plush toy weve earned with our game play. After looking for an action-figure prize for his young nephew, Manganiello spots something even better: the Sophia Pet (half Chia Pet, half beloved character from The Golden Girls). My wife will love this! he says as he makes his way to the counter. Alas! The Sophia Pet costs 2,700 tickets, and we have only 1,000. I ask the woman behind the counter if there is any way we can pay the difference in cash money. She looks at me with disgust. Then Manganiello smiles at her sheepishly, and she is jolted into Oh my God, oh my God, a celebrity hunk is smiling at me! Soon she is scanning mystery bar codes under the register and we are headed to lunch with the Sophia Pet. I tell Manganiello his feat reminds me of the scene from Magic Mike XXL in which his friends dare him to elicit a smile from a cranky convenience-store clerk by gyrating to the Backstreet Boys I Want It That Way. Except I didnt even have to dance, he deadpans again. Im starting to think hes more big, funny, handsome guy.

The last time I saw Manganiello in person was seven years ago, at the ArcLight movie theater a few blocks away, the night Magic Mike opened. He and costars Channing Tatum and Adam Rodriguez surprised the audience by introducing the film shirtless and stripping down to their G-strings (over pants). When the three actors signed on to do the film, they thought they were making a gritty indie flick about the depressing lives of exotic dancers who were kings onstage and losers IRL. But in the deft hands of director Steven Soderbergh, their little B movie morphed into a capital-B Blockbuster, raking in $167 million. From my seat some 20 rows back, I watched the actors eyes flicker from confusion to terror as dozens of screaming women rushed toward them and frantic security guards rushed them out.

Manganiello goes on to tell funny behind-the-scenes stories from Magic Mike. When they filmed the movies first scene on the very first day, the female extras had no idea what they had walked into and sat stunned while the actors, including Matthew McConaughey, danced in front of them and stripped down to Fourth of Julythemed G-strings. The girls were animals. Absolute animals, Manganiello says, laughing. They ripped McConaugheys thong off at one point, and he had to do a tuck roll backward to get away. He chose the project because I always wanted to make popcorn for smart people. He realizes he was leaning into the publics stud-muffin perception of him. It could have ruined everyone involved, he says. Theres a real risk. Thats a big hole to crawl out of. (Yeah, just ask Elizabeth Berkley about Showgirls.) But he trusted Soderbergh to tap into the drama and humor of stripper life in a self-aware way. The actual stripping was no problem. It is choreography: We had dance and movement training, and all the guys were athletes, so it was pretty easy to pick up. That said, you want to come in in the best shape of your life. He still trains six times a week, a combination of CrossFit and bodybuilding. Now that hes in his 40s, he admits he gets more muscle soreness, so he spends more time warming up and cooling down. I ask if he feels pressure to get nipped and tucked and Botoxed like some leading men. Nooooo. God, no. No fucking way, he says. I mean, look, no disrespect. I just-its never even occurred to me.

We sit down to lunch, Manganiello orders us two Kobe-beef and scallop shabu-shabu combos, and we talk about his new film. Bottom of the Ninth (out July 19) tells the story of a top baseball prospect, Sonny Stano, who gets into a fight one night, accidentally kills another teenager with an errant punch, and goes to prison for 20 years. When he gets out of the joint at age 38, Stano begins the process of rebuilding his life and atoning for his mistakes. Manganiello read the script five years ago and decided that if he wanted this film to happen, hed have to make it. He produced it with his brother, secured the financing, and handpicked many of his costars. Vergara plays his love interest.

"It was so much fun for me! I wish I could work with him more," says Vergara. "We shared a trailer and it was so great to drive to work and back together while rehearsing lines and drinking coffee. It was very easy for me to play the character that was in love with him. It was hard for me to see him get upset or really sad in the scenes. It made me want to cry." She adds that her husband's passion is storytelling and he immersed himself fully in the process. "It was amazing for me to watch him be so into the work," she says. "From the production part, to helping the director in many ways, like making the baseball scenes look realistic and rewriting almost every scene sometimes the night before or while shooting, to make it all work. I really think he had a lot of fun."

Given that his life looks perfect, I ask what drew him to the role of a guy who watched his prime rot behind bars. There was a point where I really thought I was broken beyond the point of being able to be fixed, he says. It was 2002. Spider-Man had just come out. His first-ever screen test had landed him the part of Flash Thompson in the biggest movie of the year. That kind of thing never happens. Manganiello was a 25-year-old man with the whole world by the throat and a drinking problem he could no longer control. Drinking was a way for me not to have to deal with me, he says. And I think that acting was a way for me to not have to be me either. So I could go onstage and not be me, come offstage and go to the bar and not be me. Rinse and repeat. I needed to really look in the mirror and get honest with myself about the man that I wasnt becoming.

There was no single incident that forced him off the sauce, he says. No blackout binge-drinking event where someone got hurt or worse. But his identity crisis was serious enough that he didnt act for four years. Instead, he took side jobs as a DJ, as a roadie for the band Goldfinger, and, in what he describes as a sort of self-flagellation, on the back of a masonry truck doing deliveries and demolitions. He credits eight hours a day of jackhammering with turning his life around. Hard physical labor is the best work you can do for your soul, even if its gardening, he says.

Manganiello is now 17 years sober. When he quit drinking, he says, he took a hard look at every aspect of his life and set a new course, both professionally and personally. During his stint smashing rocks, he also began practicing transcendental meditation, something he still does. I do it as soon as I wake up. Twenty minutes. Even when his wifes lying next to him? Yeah, shes asleep and I just sit up and do it. Theres a reason why meditation is 4,000 years old. The word mantra-mind-vehicle-I find that to be true. Ive had some profound things happen to me while meditating. He made his way back into acting, starting out with bit parts on shows like ER and CSI, landing True Blood in 2010, and crossing over onto the big screen with Magic Mike in 2012.

When I ask him what being a man in 2019 means to him, his answer is as traditional as it gets. Its the same as its always been. You protect, number one, and take care of women, children, animals, the planet. You tell the truth. If I hurt somebody, I apologize immediately, he says. Also, I hold the door open for my wife, and that will never fucking change. Insisting on holding the door open for Vergara barely cracks the top-five list of the most romantic things he tells me in casual conversation that hes done for his wife. A few nights ago, it was so warm in L.A. he took Vergara for shaved ice. They parked their car on a random block and rolled the windows down and sang along to songs by the Cure. When I ask him what its like to be married to a strong and successful woman, he responds carefully. I love that she knows how to take care of herself, obviously, because I needed to be with somebody confident, he says. It takes a really strong and secure individual to handle the types of projects Ive done. But when were at home, were opposites in all the best ways and were compatible in all the best ways. Masculine/feminine, yin and yang, whatever you want to call it.

Manganiello stops himself to get what hes going to say next right. My life is great because I really like my wife, he says. I like talking to her. I like goofing around with her. We fucking laugh all day long every day. My favorite thing in the world is making my wife laugh so much she cries. Its the best. And what does such a genetically blessed couple do together? We marathon Netflix and watch shows like Game of Thrones, Mindhunter, and Naked and Afraid. They are currently watching a 74-part Colombian soap opera about Pablo Escobar-in Spanish.

There was a point where I really thought I was broken beyond the point of being able to be fixed. Drinking was a way for me not to have to deal with me.\"

One thing the Manganiello-Vergaras do not do together is play Dungeons & Dragons. A huge fan of the fantasy role-playing game since childhood, Manganiello converted the couples wine cellar into a D&D dungeon complete with mounted mind-flayer head. He calls it his poker night and says everyone who plays in L.A. comes through. Stephen Colbert and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are on the wait list. It was while playing D&D with his brother that Manganiello learned how to flesh out a character and appreciate storytelling. Hes even helping the company develop new characters for an updated module, and hes commissioning artists to create new action figures. The death saves T-shirt hes wearing is from a fantasy-inspired streetwear collection he launched last year. It taps into a specific fantasy aesthetic, a combination of Stephen King, Metallica, Iron Maiden, and comic-book art, he says. Everybodys at their best when theyre passionate about something. I like to put all my energy and passion into things that will give me something back. Which is also why I like training so much. And I like working hard. Thats the one thing, where I come from: You can debate talent, but you cant debate hard work.

After we finish our lunch and he grabs the check, we linger a bit as he considers where his career is now and where he hopes its headed. Hes already famous, sure, and his two upcoming roles mark a welcome departure from the big, dumb, handsome guy. Hes starring in a movie about the Smiths, based on the urban legend that on the night the band broke up, a kid in Denver was so distraught he held up a heavy-metal radio station at gunpoint and forced them to play Smiths songs all night to impress the girl he was in love with. Manganiello plays the DJ. Hes also the lead in DCs Deathstroke, portraying the patch-wearing supervillain. When I asked Vergara what type of role do you think Joe would be really good at that he hasnt played yet? She says, "I always tell him he should play a pirate! Someone like Barba Negra! Someone crazy and not scared of anything." Still, I get the sense that the man who surprised me in this interview would like the chance to surprise audiences with the kind of dramatic role that has so far eluded him. I think that people watch certain projects of mine and say, Okay, I think I know who that guy is, he says. And if I was willing to sit still and do the same thing over and over again, then yeah, that would be great. But thats not where I came from, and its not interesting to me.

As we walk out of the restaurant, heads swivel to check him out. Its hard to tell if people recognize him or if rubbernecking is part of the deal when youre a large and good-looking fellow, even if your He-Man human form is just the vessel that holds an inner theater nerd who serenades his wife with Cure songs. Once we say goodbye, I watch him walk to his car, shoulders back, clutching his Sophia Pet, ready to let his geek flag fly.